This weekend brought the sad news that Alex Trebek passed away at age 80, following a battle with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. In addition to being the iconic host of Jeopardy! for over three decades, Trebek had a long history with music too. Jeopardy! was known for its fair share of interesting music questions over the years, and before Jeopardy!, Trebek hosted the Canadian music television series Music Hop from 1963 to 1964. Here he is introducing Bobby Curtola and interviewing Gordon Lightfoot on the show back in the day:
Alex Trebek also touched the lives of countless musicians, many of whom have paid tribute. See below for tributes from Gene Simmons, John Legend, Questlove, Chance The Rapper, Silversun Pickups, Vernon Reid, Marissa Nadler, Devon Welsh, Geoff Rickly, Vinnie Caruana, Chris Farren, and others.
In a since-deleted tweet, El-P wrote that Run The Jewels actually reached out to Alex Trebek to ask him to appear on a sequel to RTJ2's "Jeopardy," but that they couldn't make it happen. "To me Alex represented a calm joy of knowledge and its pursuit," El-P wrote. "He had a gentlemanly demeanor and seemingly kind soul and used intelligence playfully and encouragingly. Sad to see him go and hope he rests peacefully."
