Doug Fieger, co-writer of The Knack"s My Sharona, dies elderly 57

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Doug Fieger, the lead thespian of The Knack and co-writer of the strike My Sharona, has died elderly 57.

Fieger, who had been fighting lung cancer and had undergone brain surgery in 2006, upheld afar at his home in Los Angeles on Sunday. A summary posted on The Knacks central website reads: Our hearts are broken, we will miss you Doug.

The Knack, a four-piece guitar rope - mostly compared to the Beatles for their 60s-style see - detonate onto to the Los Angeles bar stage in 1979.

Their initial single, My Sharona, co-written with Berton Averre, became one of the greatest hits of the generation.

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Inspired by an ex-girlfriend of Fiegers - Sharona Alperin, right away a successful LA estate representative - the lane hold the No1 mark in the US charts for 6 weeks and sole some-more than one million copies in the initial year. The manuscript that enclosed the hit, Get the Knack, sole over a million copies in only dual months.

Pete Paphides, The Times Rock Pop critic, said: My Sharona was one of the dual or 3 good energy cocktail songs of the epoch - it had a reductive might that has unequivocally resonated with musicians via the years. Michael Jacksons Beat It was desirous by that track, and the change goes right down to bands similar to Weezer, the Strokes and that total new call of US guitar bands.

My Sharona was rereleased in 1994 after featuring in the Ben Stiller film, Reality Bites, and reached series 6 in the UK.

Since bursting up in the 1980s, the Knack have reunited periodically, and the superfluous members, Berton Averre and Prescott Niles, still perform together. Bruce Gary, formerly the bands drummer, died of cancer in 2006.