A defining voice of the rock-and-roll generation, Alan Merrill passed away on March 29 after coming down with COVID-19.

Born Allan Preston Sachs to musician parents in the Bronx, N.Y., he started playing music himself as a teen in cafes in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. In 1968, he joined his first official band. A year later, he signed a solo deal, performing and living in Japan for a while.

He shot to international recognition in the early 1970s after forming the band Arrows. In 1975, he composed the now famous song “I Love Rock ’n Roll.”

He wrote, recorded, performed and even acted for the next 40 years alongside some of the biggest names of the day.

Merrill released an album in November 2017 and a single as late as February 2019.

Many notable personalities took a moment to honor the late musician, with his daughter paying an emotional tribute online, calling him “the most poetic and beautiful songwriter of a generation but more so the most selfless and loving soul to walk this earth.”

Readers are invited to express their condolences or memories of the departed in the Reader Comments box that follows this article.

To provide additional information for this article, or to submit the names and information about other Jewish victims of the coronavirus, please use this form.