In Memoriam '18

too larry

too larry

Well-Known Member
Best known as the musical director for the children's program Schoolhouse Rock, composer Bob Dorough passed away on April 23, 2018 of natural causes. He was 94.

 
too larry

too larry

Well-Known Member
Mark E. Smith, the frontman of British post-punk band The Fall, died on January 24 at the age of 60. His health had been in decline for some time.

Smith was born and raised near Manchester. He formed The Fall when he was 16, and has remained the group's only constant member since; 66 different musicians have played with the band at one point or another. The Fall was incredibly prolific, releasing 32 albums between 1978's Bingo-Master’s Break Out! and 2017's New Facts Emerge.

 
too larry

too larry

Well-Known Member
Jazz musician Hugh Masekela died on January 23 at the age of 78. He had been battling prostate cancer.

Masekela was born in South Africa in 1939. He began getting into "trouble with the authorities" in his youth, inspiring anti-apartheid activist Father Trevor Huddleston to give him his first trumpet. Maskelea threw himself into music, and began playing with various groups and honing his distinctive "Afro-Jazz" style.

 
BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Otis Rush​

Otis Rush, one of the pioneering guitarists of the Chicago blues scene, died Saturday September 29, 2018 from complications from a stroke he suffered in 2003. He was 84.

“Known as a key architect of the Chicago ‘West Side Sound’ Rush exemplified the modernized minor key urban blues style with his slashing, amplified jazz-influenced guitar playing, high-strained passionate vocals and backing by a full horn section. Rush’s first recording in 1956 on Cobra Records ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’ reached Number on the Billboard R&B Charts and catapulted him to international acclaim. He went on to record a catalog of music that contains many songs that are now considered blues classics.”

Rush became a staple of the Chicago scene in the late Fifties and early Sixties, partnering first with Cobra Records, which was also home to artists like Magic Sam and Buddy Guy. Their take on the blues would prove to be a revelation for a generation of artists to follow, while Rush would become a totem for countless rock guitarists (he was placed at Number 53 on Rolling Stone‘s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists).

In 1968, Mike Bloomfield summed up Rush’s influence, telling Rolling Stone that in Chicago, “the rules had been laid down” for young, white blues bands: “You had to be as good as Otis Rush.”

Rush was born in Philadelphia, Mississippi in 1935 and began teaching himself the guitar at age eight. He moved to Chicago in 1949 and was inspired to pursue music full time after seeing Muddy Waters live. In 1956, Rush released his first, and most successful single on Cobra, “I Can’t Quit You Baby.” Along with its chart success, Led Zeppelin famously covered the cut on their 1969 debut

 
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BarnBuster

BarnBuster

Virtually Unknown Member
Matt "Guitar" (MT) Murphy​

Matt “Guitar” Murphy, guitarist for the Blues Brothers and noted sideman for blues legends like Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and Memphis Slim, died Friday June 15, 2018 at the age of 88.

A veteran of the legendary Chicago blues scene of the Forties and Fifties, Murphy worked alongside artists ranging from Ike Turner (as members of Junior Parker’s Blue Flames) and Etta James to blues musicians like James Cotton, Willie Dixon and Sonny Boy Williamson.

In the 1970s, Murphy associated with harmonica player James Cotton, recording over six albums. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi attended one of their performances and subsequently asked Murphy to join the touring band of The Blues Brothers. Murphy appeared in the films The Blues Brothers (1980) and Blues Brothers 2000 (playing the husband of Aretha Franklin. He performed with the Blues Brothers Band until the early 2000s

No cause of death was provided. In 2002, Murphy suffered a stroke that forced the guitarist into semi-retirement

 
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BarnBuster

BarnBuster

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Edward Harrington (stage name Eddie "The Chief" Clearwater)​

Eddy Clearwater, a Mississippi-born Chicago bluesman who billed himself as “The Chief” and often performed in a feathered headdress, died on Friday June 5, 2018 at his home in Skokie, Ill. He was 83. The cause was heart failure, said Alligator Records, the blues label that released his 2008 album, “West Side Strut.”

A self-taught musician, Mr. Clearwater played guitar left-handed and upside down. His music merged his rural Mississippi upbringing with the aggressive attack of West Side Chicago blues and a deep admiration for Chuck Berry, whose sound he openly emulated with his first single, “Hill Billy Blues,” in 1958.

Onstage, he had his own version of Berry’s duckwalk; he was also likely to stride through the crowd with his guitar or play solos with it raised behind his head. His Native American regalia, and songs like “Reservation Blues,” paid tribute to his grandmother, who he said was a full-blooded Cherokee.

In a 2011 interview with The Chicago Tribune, he recalled learning the blues by hearing his uncles singing “while working and plowing and picking cotton and pulling corn” in Mississippi.


 
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