WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA — Parnelli Awards video editor/director Jerry Cobb lost his battle with stomach cancer on Jan. 13, 2015. He was 64. Since 2010, Cobb co-created the videos for the Parnelli Awards. Working with producer/writer Kevin Mitchell, his documentaries on the lifetime honorees were always a show highlight.
Cobb’s ability to create entertaining, visually engaging work, often on tight deadlines, was well known among those who worked on the show. His work portraying Parnelli winners Al Siniscal, Kenton Forsythe, Dave Shadoan & Ross Ritto, Mark Engebretson, Bob Goldstein, Jim Fackert, Joe Branam, Eric Pearce, Howard Ungerleider, Ed Wannebo, Charlie Hernandez, George Travis and Benny Collins can still be seen at parnelliawards.com.
“Most of us in the live event industry don’t think to take a lot of photos during our career, so Jerry often had little to work with visually,” says Mitchell. “But amazingly, if there was a part of the script that told the story of when Dave Shadoan first met Ross Ritto and it involved crawling through a kitchen window, he would somehow find video of somebody doing that and treat it so it looked like we had someone there filming it in the early 1970s at two in the morning on an 8mm camera! I don’t even know where he got this stuff, but like a true artist, he made it look easy.”
“He was a complete professional and a joy to work with,” adds Parnelli Awards executive producer Terry Lowe. “We’re so glad he made it to the last show so he and his wife Cheryl could see how much people appreciated his work. We’ll miss him very much.”
Cobb also created the beautiful, emotional “In Memoriam” videos honoring those in the industry we lost in addition to those pieces that introduced the show and the host.
Cobb was born in 1950 and raised on New York’s Long Island. As a young man he threw himself into the counter-culture of the 1960s and was at the Chicago Riots of 1968 and Woodstock in 1969, and was often among those protesting the Vietnam War. He made his way to the West Coast and ended up in Berkeley where he was a street airbrush artist and worked as an artist/photographer at the Morrison Planetarium. In the late 1970s, he moved to Los Angeles.
He was also a working musician — first drums, and then keyboards, playing in many cover bands. He was playing in one such band when he met his wife, Cheryl, in 1989. She would join him as a singer in three working cover bands over the years, and in 2000, they gave birth to their daughter, Ashlyn. They had recently celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary.
In the 1990s, Cobb became a videographer and editor. Cobb did freelance work for TV stations (including an Iranian one), political ads and lots of music videos and artist reels. He was also an accomplished painter.
In addition to his wife and daughter, he leaves behind a brother and three sisters.
A memorial “jam” with Cobb’s former band mates (including Cheryl) will be held Sunday, Jan. 25 at Petie’s Place, 6025 Reseda Blvd, Tarzana, CA from 4 to 8 p.m. A more formal memorial will be held Jan. 29 at 4 p.m. at the North Ranch Community Center, 1400 North Westlake Blvd, Westlake Village, CA.
In lieu of flowers, donations are being accepted for the Ashlyn Cobb College Fund (www.gofundme.com/klivxo).
