Jay Reatard, Teddy Prendergrass, and Dannie Fleshner pass away

Sad news of two losses in the music community: Danny Flesher, who co-founded the pioneering Chicago industrial dance label Wax Trax with his partner Jim Nash (who died in 1995), and Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr., better known as Jay Reatard, a prolific punk recording artist and incendiary force onstage, as at the Pitchfork Music Festival here in 2008.

A press release announcing Flesher's death follows the jump.

And Lindsey's hometown paper the Commercial Appeal leads the pack in covering his passing.

And here is a link to the Sun-Times' obit for Teddy Pendergrass.

WTII Records press release on the death of Dannie Flesher:

January 13, 2010
FORMER WAX TRAX! CO-FOUNDER DANNIE FLESHER PASSES AWAY

Former co-founder of Wax Trax! Records, Dannie Flesher passed away from complications with pneumonia Sunday evening. Flesher, 57, stepped away from the music industry in 1999 and retired in his home town of Hope, AR in 2005.

Flesher and long time partner Jim Nash, opened the Wax Trax Record store in Denver in 1974. Later relocating to Chicago in 1978, the store quickly became the headquarters for Chicago's budding underground music scene. After years of releasing bootlegs and rarities, Flesher and Nash took their operation to a new level and the Wax Trax! Record label was born. The label pioneered the industrial music movement and was home to such acts as Front 242, Ministry, My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult, Underworld, Sister Machine Gun, KFMDM, Revolting Cocks and many more influential artists.

In 1992, the label would file bankruptcy and be sold to New York based TVT Records. The two would retain creative control of the label until Nash's passing in October of 1995. Flesher then continued to oversea label operations until the label folded in the late 90's. Even though the label was no longer in existence, their impact on the music industry will be forever remembered.

No immediate services have been announced.