Buddy Harman

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Buddy Harman, one of Nashville's most-recorded drummers, has died. He was 79 years old.

Harmon died Thursday, said Brian Davidson, a director at Woodlawn-Roesch-Patton Funeral Home. He reportedly suffered from congestive heart failure.

Harmon played drums on more than 18,000 recordings, including Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman," Patsy Cline's "Crazy," Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire," Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" and Elvis Presley's "Little Sister."

He was an early staff drummer on the Grand Ole Opry and among the first prominent drummers in country music history.

WSM air personality and country music historian Eddie Stubbs called Harman the father of modern country drumming.

Larry Hennessy

VILLANOVA, Pa. (AP) — Larry Hennessy, an All-American basketball player at Villanova who played in the NBA, has died. He was 79.

Hennessy died Wednesday in Williamsburg, Va., according to a statement from the school.

Hennessy scored 1,737 points from 1950-53 at Villanova, which retired his No. 14 jersey. He averaged 23.2 points for the Wildcats, ranking 11th in school history. He played two seasons in the NBA and was part of the Philadelphia Warriors 1955-56 championship team. Hennessy later coached basketball at the high school and community college level.

Wolfgang Vogel

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Wolfgang Vogel, the point man for spy swaps and prisoner exchanges between West and East Germany during the Cold War, died Thursday, his family said. He was 82. A lawyer by trade, Vogel made a career of sorts as the main point of contact for the governments of the then-divided Germany when the two had few formal ties. The countries reunited in 1990.

Vogel gained a sense of acclaim, if not notoriety, for overseeing the exchange of spies and prisoners between the countries, including that of KGB spy Rudolf J. Abel for American pilot U-2 spy plane pilot Gary Powers in 1962. Powers had been the shot down over the U.S.S.R. in 1960. Vogel also brokered the deal that won the freedom of Jewish dissident Anatoly Scharansky, who spent nearly nine years in Soviet captivity on espionage charges.

Vogel's reach inside the East German government was so extensive that when former chancellor Helmut Schmidt wanted to visit the country, it was Vogel who helped arrange the trip.