Category: SIDEMEN

January 14, 2012 – Robbie France was born in Sheffield, United Kingdom, on 15th December 1959. He was the youngest of three sons born to Arnold and Margaret. Sadly his father Arnold passed away when Robbie was quite young and Margaret went on to marry Jack who became Robbie’s step-dad and brought him and his two elder brothers, David and Melvin up.

At the age of around ten, Robbie and his family emigrated to Australia, where Robbie continued his schooling and his love for music and drumming started to develop big time. At the age of fourteen he was granted special permission to leave school early and attend the National Academy of Rudimentary Drummers of Australia, where he was tutored by Harry Lebler; at the age of fifteen Robbie started teaching at the Australian Academy of music.

While living and traveling in Australia, Robbie formed the jazz-fusion group, Carnival, performed at the Oz Jazz Festival and supported John McLaughlin. He worked with Stevie Wright of the Easybeats, Marty Rhone, Ray Burgess, Tim Gaze, and most major Australian artists. He amassed over 1,000 television, radio and advertising credits, including eight documentaries and four film scores, including ‘Band on the Run’, one of the most successful surfing films ever made. Robbie also did some acting in commercials for which he often co-wrote the music.

Robbie left Australia in 1982 and returned to England, joining ‘Diamond Head’ the following year; after the band split he went on to work with ‘Ivan Chandler’s All Star Quintet, playing at various venues around London. In 1985 Robbie toured and recorded with UFO for a year and in 1986 he formed ‘One Nation with Kipper’; by this time Robbie was also teaching in drum clinics all over the world.

Robbie set up a teaching studio in Kingston upon Thames where he went on to work with many well known names in the music industry, including Mike and the Mechanics, Power Station, 10 CC and Jean Michel Jarre. In 1987 Robbie joined Ellis, Beggs and Howard, whose first single ‘Big Bubbles, No Troubles’ won the Diamond Award for the best new group. After his time with EBH, Robbie joined ‘Wishbone Ash’ in 1990, touring with them and recording the album ‘Strange Affair’.

In 1991 Robbie returned to Australia and spent the best part of three years concentrating on his favourite music style which was jazz, returning to London in 1994 where he became a founder member of ‘Skunk Anansie’, recording and co-producing their debut album ‘Paranoid and Sunburnt’. He also co-wrote the hit track ‘Weak’, which has since been covered by Rod Stewart.

In 1995 he joined German group Alphaville and toured and recorded with them until he suffered a bad accident which severed his Achilles tendon. The doctors said thet he would probably struggle to walk properly again, let alone play drums… how wrong they were!

Robbie moved to Puerto de Mazarron in 1998 and life continued at breakneck speed, running Pulpo Negro Records, Publishing and Studios until 2004, producing several award winning Spanish bands like ‘Second’ whose album ‘Pose’ was voted Album of the Decade. Over the past few years Robbie played locally with the Cas Band. Robbie broadcasted for a number of radio stations in Spain including TKO Gold, Real Radio and Costa Calida International for the last five years. Robbie had a passion for sailing and three years ago he bought a boat… he told Karen, his partner, that he had bought it for her Christmas present when he unveiled it at the marina and named it ‘Karina’. Robbies first book entitled ‘Six Degrees South’ has just been published and he had started writing the second part of the trilogy. His trademark was his string-vests, one of which he is wearing today, I am told that he has a drawer full of them at home; it seemed fitting for Robbie’s final journey to include a pair of his sticks too.

He died on January 14, 2012 from a ruptured aorta at age 52.

He lived all over the world and moved in esteemed drum circles as an amazing drummer with power and finesse as he packed into 52 years what would have taken most people three lifetimes to complete. 

January 3, 2012 – Robert Joseph “Bob” Weston was born in Plymouth, England on 1 November 1947. Initially he was taught violin at 8, but at the age of 12 decided to switch to guitar. Arriving in London in the mid-Sixties, he joined a group called The Kinetic, which recorded an album and supported Chuck Berry and Jimi Hendrix at concerts in France.Back in London, Weston’s skills as a creative blues guitarist led to work with the singer Aliki Ashman and the organist and singer Graham Bond.  In 1970, Weston joined the backing group of the blues singer Long John Baldry, touring Europe and the US as well as playing on Baldry’s album Everything Stops for Tea (1972), produced by two of the singer’s proteges, Rod Stewart and Elton John.

Baldry’s band sometimes performed on the same bill as Fleetwood Mac, which since 1968 had been in the forefront of British blues groups. This was due mainly to the imagination and skill of the singer and guitarist Peter Green, who had crafted such big hits as Albatross and Man of the World (both 1969). But Green began to binge on LSD, and left the band in 1970; the following year, during an American tour, his fellow guitarist Jeremy Spencer walked out of his hotel in Los Angeles to go shopping and never returned — he had joined a religious group called The Children of God. A third guitarist, Danny Kirwan, was fired in autumn 1972, to be replaced by Weston. In 1972, the remaining members decided to recruit Dave Walker of the blues rock band Savoy Brown as lead vocalist, and Weston as lead guitarist.

He recalled meeting Kirwan in The Speakeasy, a musicians’ club in London’s West End. “He rather sarcastically wished me the best of luck, adding ‘You’re going to need it.’ Kirwan’s remark proved to be prophetic, although to begin with, Weston made a significant contribution to the group’s sound on stage and in the studio. Fleetwood Mac was in transition from being a blues band to a more melodic pop-rock one, and Weston was adept at both styles. He played on the 1973 albums, Penguin and Mystery to Me, co-writing several songs. Penguin is regarded by many Fleetwood Mac aficionados as one of the group’s most underrated recordings.

They were also on a schedule of relentless touring, which was beginning to take its toll. Walker was unceremoniously fired early in 1973, there were tensions between the husband-and- wife team of Christine Perfect (McVie) and John McVie, and when Weston began an affair with Jenny Boyd, the wife of drummer Mick Fleetwood and sister of George Harrison/Eric Clapton wife Patti (Layla), the scene was set for a split. This duly came in Lincoln, Nebraska, during an American tour in October 1973. Weston was woken by a phone call summoning him to the tour manager’s hotel room. He was told that other group members had already departed, that the remaining tour dates would be cancelled and that his services were no longer required. He was put on the next flight back to London. Weston was featured on the album Penguin (1973), playing lead guitar alongside Bob Welch. He also sang with Christine McVie on Did You Ever Love Me, and wrote the instrumental Caught in the Rain. On the album Mystery to Me, he co-wrote the track Forever.

January 25, 2012 – Richard Lawrence Dick Kniss was born on April 24, 1937 in Portland, Oregon. His father left the family when he was very young. Reared by his mother, Bernice, he was a bit of a drifter into his late teens, never graduating from high school and focusing on his future only when he found music. His first instrument was the guitar, though, as his wife tells the story, he was lousy at it. “Someone suggested he play the bass because it didn’t have so many strings,” Ms. Kniss said. “And he just became passionate about it.”

He began an itinerant music career in San Francisco, then moved to Troy, N.Y., to play in the short-lived trio Dick, Dick and Nick before landing in New York City.  Active in the 1960s civil rights movement, Kniss performed at benefits for a range of causes and played during the first celebration of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a national holiday.

An upright bass sideman with Herbie Hancock, Donald Byrd, Pepper Adams, Zoot Sims, Don Friedman, Teddy Charles, Sal Salvador and Woody Herman early in his career, he was hired by Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey and Mary Travers to be their bass player in 1964, not long after they recorded their early hits “Puff the Magic Dragon” and Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind.” He was playing in a band led by the clarinetist and saxophonist Woody Herman when he heard that Peter, Paul and Mary were looking for a bassist. He accompanied them throughout the 1960s as they became, with their sweet harmonies, earnest activism and flower-power message, one of the decade’s signature musical groups. Except for an 8 year hiatus that he spent with John Denver’s back up band the self-taught musician stayed for more than 40 years behind Peter, Paul and Mary, becoming a veritable fourth member of the folk-singing trio. Peter, Paul and Mary broke up as the sixties decade ended, and Kniss went to work with Denver, who was another popular, sweet-tempered folk-singing activist. But when the trio reunited in 1978,  Kniss once again became their bassist and appeared with them until Ms. Travers’s death in 2009. He made his final appearance with Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey in December that year.

Kniss (as in knish, the k is not silent) also had an eight-year association with the singer-songwriter John Denver and helped write one of his biggest hits, “Sunshine on My Shoulders”, as well as and “The Season Suite”.

Peter, Paul and Mary’s Peter Yarrow said in a statement that Kniss was “our intrepid bass player for almost as long as we performed together. “He was a dear and beloved part of our closest family circle and his bass playing was always a great fourth voice in our music as well as, conceptually, an original and delightfully surprising new statement added to our vocal arrangements,” Yarrow said.

He was considered as much an improvisationalist as he was a timekeeper. “Basically he was a jazz bassist who didn’t think in terms of the pop point of view,” Mr. Yarrow said in a telephone interview on Friday, “and he really would develop melodic lines to complement our voices.”

In a separate interview, Mr. Stookey said Mr. Kniss was not an ideal studio player because he found repeating riffs or phrases laborious; onstage, however, he said, Mr. Kniss was inventive, especially when a singer was soloing. “He had this capacity to weave countermelodies,” Mr. Stookey said. “He was the master of when to answer. In folk music, we’re telling a story. The guitars would begin it, but Dick was an orchestrator, and his entry often signified a particular turning point in a song.”

Mr. Kniss played with Denver from 1970 to 1978, was featured on many of his recordings and wrote “Sunshine on My Shoulders” with him and Mike Taylor. But he joined the band simply because he needed the work. In 1970, Denver had not yet become the clear-voiced crooner of popular, sentimental ballads like “Annie’s Song” and “Rocky Mountain High,” though he had written “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” which Peter, Paul and Mary turned into a No. 1 hit in 1969.

Denver asked him to play electric bass, which he did for the only time in his career.

“Back then when you flew, the bass was carried in its own seat in the plane, like a child, and John Denver couldn’t afford it,” Diane Kniss recalled. Denver asked Mr. Kniss to set the stand-up instrument aside and play the electric. “Denver said, ‘When we get some money, the first thing we’ll do is bring it back,’ ” she said. “And that’s what he did.”

Dick Kniss died from pulmonary disease at age 74 on January 25, 2012.

December 25, 2011 – Jim “Motorhead” Sherwood  was born on May 8th 1942 in Arkansas City, Kansas and is notable for playing soprano, tenor and baritone saxophone, tambourine, vocals and vocal sound effects in Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. He met Zappa at high school in 1956 in Antelope Valley in the Mojave Desert (also Captain Beefheart) and sat in with Zappa’s first band, R&B group The Black-Outs, at various performances, where he was often a highlight.

Then the brothers moved to Ontario, California, and started a new band, the Omens, which also included Sherwood. He would regularly jam with Zappa in a string of different groups, and eventually, in 1964, the Mothers.

He appeared on all the albums of the original Mothers line-up and the ‘posthumous’ releases Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh, as well as certain subsequent Zappa albums. He also appeared in the films 200 Motels, Video from Hell and Uncle Meat. Jim later also contributed to various projects alongside his fellow Mothers alumni, including records by The Grandmothers, Mothers keyboardist Don Preston, Ant-Bee and Sandro Oliva.

The original madcap woodwind player of Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, Sherwood, an adept and classically trained multi-instrumentalist, played baritone and tenor saxophone, percussion and vocals to the Mothers of Inventions’ landmark first psychedelic records, including 1966’s debut Freak Out! and 1968’s Cruising with Ruben & the Jets.
A childhood friend of Zappa’s, Sherwood also performed on Zappa’s first solo album, 1967’s Lumpy Gravy, and in the 1971 avant-garde film 200 Motels. Sherwood later described his 200 Motels character as “in love with a vacuum cleaner.”

After the album’s release in June 1966 on MGM’s Verve label, the band went on tour, then in November that year took up a six-month residency at the Garrick theatre in New York, during which they played 14 shows a week. Sherwood was working for the band as equipment manager and roadie, and sometimes operated the lighting during the Garrick shows. These were a bizarre mix of music and performance art, featuring puppet shows and interludes when the band would pelt the audience with fruit.
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It was when the Mothers made their first trip to England, in mid-1967, that Sherwood was finally hired as a full-time musician. It was the band’s vocalist and percussionist Ray Collins who gave Sherwood the nickname “Motorhead”, through his love of working on cars and trucks and motorcycles: “He said ‘it sounds like you’ve got a little motor in your head’, so they just called me Motorhead and that seemed to stick.”

Zappa told Rolling Stone in 1968:

Euclid James ‘Motorhead’ Sherwood I’ve known for 12 years. We were in high school in Lancaster together. He used to play baritone sax in the Omens. He has the ability to perform a dance known as the bug, which resembles an epileptic fit. He’s one of those guys you say, “I know this guy who’s really weird and I want to show him to you.” He was our equipment handler for a while and when we started the atrocities we started handing him our instruments to see what would happen. He played things more imaginative than the proficient musicians could lay down. It was just him against the machine in his mouth, a saxophone. He is also very proficient at dolls and visual aids.

After the Mothers of Invention disbanded in 1969, Sherwood still collaborated with Zappa and his bandmates; the group’s epic swan song, Weasels Ripped My Flesh, hinged largely on his aggressive instrumental theatrics.

Sherwood appeared on the further Zappa releases You Are What You Is (1981), Civilization Phaze III in 1993, the year of Zappa’s death, and the Läther box set, released three years later.

In the 1980s, Sherwood performed with the Grandmothers, and played on a couple of albums with them. During the 1990s, he joined forces with Billy James and his Ant-Bee project.

James, a graduate of Berklee College of Music, Boston, wanted to express his fascination with psychedelic and experimental music from the 1960s, for which he assembled musicians from the Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefheart’s band. Sherwood appears on three Ant-Bee albums, though by this time he had given up playing the saxophone and his contributions are limited to “snorks”, in which you “snort through your nose, sucking air in through your nose”. He added further snorks to Sandro Oliva’s album Who the Fuck Is Sandro Oliva?!? (1995).

Jim Sherwood passed away after a short but severe illness on Christmas Day morning December 25th, 2011 at age 69.

June 8, 2011 – Alan Rubin aka Mr. Wonderful  was born on February 11, 1943. Raised in New York City he took up the trumpet at 10 and studied at the Juilliard School when he was 17, but dropped out at 20 to work as a back-up for singer Robert Goulet.

Over the years he became a premier New York City session musician who was ‘sought out for his expertise in playing every style of music — from classical to jazz to blues to rock and disco — authentically and artistically.

When asked about his professional biography, Rubin liked to say: “Been everywhere, played with everyone.”
In the early years he performed with such musical legends as Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee, and Duke Ellington.

In the 1970s he landed a gig playing trumpet in the Saturday Night Live Band then in 1980 he portrayed Mr. Fabulous, horn player turned maitre d’ of a fancy restaurant, who gets dragged away by Jake and Elwood, played by John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, to his former life of music and crime with “The Blues Brothers”.

While making the movie in Los Angeles, Rubin bought a Mercedes-Benz 300SL sports car. As recounted in the 2005 book “Jazz Anecdotes,” he was sharing photographs of it in a recording session when the record producer said, “You own that car? But you’re only a trumpet player!” The quick-witted Rubin replied: “Yeah, but I play flugelhorn too.”

Rubin continued his jazz career, toured with the Original Blues Brothers Band from 1988 on – after they regrouped since John Belushi’s tragic 1982 death, and was to reprise his role of Mr. Fabulous for 1998’s much less successful “Blues Brothers 2000”.

He was also a member of the Saturday Night Live Band, with whom he played at the Closing Ceremony of the 1996 Olympic Games. As a member of The Blues Brothers, he portrayed Mr. Fabulous in the 1980 film, the 1998 sequel and was a member of the touring band.

Over his long career Alan played with an array of artists, such as Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, Duke Ellington, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Eumir Deodato, Sting, Aerosmith, The Rolling Stones, Paul Simon, James Taylor, Frankie Valli, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel, B.B. King, Miles Davis, Yoko Ono, Peggy Lee, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, Ray Charles and Dr. John.

He died fighting lung cancer on June 8, 2011. He was 68.

March 8, 2011 – Mike Starr (Alice in Chains) was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on April 4th 1966,  and became best known as a founding member and bassist with the alternative rock band, Alice in Chains, which formed in Seattle in 1987.

The band was one of the most successful music acts of the 1990s, selling over 25 million albums worldwide, and over 12 million in the US alone. The band achieved two number-one Billboard 200 albums “Jar of Flies” and “Alice in Chains”, 14 top ten songs on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, and eight Grammy Award nominations.

Mike is featured on albums We Die Young -1990; Facelift-1990; Sap-1992; Dirt-1992; Music Bank-1999; Nothing Safe: Best of the Box-1999; Live-2000; Greatest Hits-2001; and The Essential Alice in Chains released in 2006. Mike left Alice In Chains in 1993 while it was touring in support of the album Dirt.

However in 1992 he had also been a founding member of the heavy metal supergroup Sun Red Sun along with Ray Gillen and Bobby Rondinelli, both former members of Black Sabbath. The project was cut short by Gillen’s death from AIDS related complications.

A co-founding member of the pioneering Seattle grunge band, Starr appeared on VH1’s “Celebrity Rehab” in 2009. He was arrested last month for felony possession of a controlled substance. Salt Lake City police said he had several painkillers on him when he was arrested. Alice in Chains have written heart-wrenching and evocative songs about drug addiction.
Former singer Layne Staley died in spring 2002 after overdosing on a mixture of heroin and cocaine, commonly known as a “speedball.” The group mounted a successful comeback with 2009’s Black Gives Way to Blue, which featured new vocalist William DuVall alongside guitarist Jerry Cantrell, drummer Sean Kinney and bassist Mike Inez.
Mike Starr was born April 4, 1966, in Honolulu. He rose to prominence in the Seattle scene as bassist for Diamond Lie, which featured Cantrell and Kinney. Once Staley entered the fold, they changed their name to Alice in Chains and signed a major-label deal. Starr appears on the group’s debut album, Facelift, which produced the monster hit “Man in the Box.” He’s also on the band’s follow-up EP release, Sap, and their second album, Dirt, which was released in September 1992.
Dirt is a hard rock classic, with “Rooster” remaining a radio staple. “Would?” was featured in the movie “Singles,” which was set in the Seattle scene. “Down in a Hole” has been covered by Ryan Adams, Fuel and Demon Hunter. Songs like “Junkhead” dealt with heroin use head-on. The band Godsmack, whose sound owes much to Alice in Chains, took their name from track nine. Cantrell wrote the majority of the songs with some heavy contributions from Staley. Starr is credited as a co-writer on one track, “Rain When I Die.”
Starr left Alice in Chains while touring behind Dirt in 1993. Years later, he would reveal on “Celebrity Rehab” that his reason for leaving was his growing addiction to drugs. He briefly joined former Black Sabbath singer Ray Gillen in Sun Red Sun. Their self-titled debut was released in 1995, two years after Gillen died from AIDS-related complications.
Heroin addiction sent Starr to “Celebrity Rehab,” which was followed by a stint in the spin-off show “Sober House.” He showed up on one episode of the following season of “Celebrity Rehab,” celebrating more than six months of sobriety. He was arrested for possession by Salt Lake City police on February 18, 2011.
Travis Meeks of the band Days of the New was reportedly driving the van Starr was riding in when he was arrested last month. The singer/guitarist found platinum success with his band’s first album in 1997 and a sound that drew comparisons to Alice in Chains. Meeks put together several different versions of the band in subsequent years, and his own drug problems landed him on the A&E show “Intervention” in 2005.
“Hey, officer, have you ever heard of Alice in Chains? I used to be the bass guitarist for them,” Starr said to police, according to a local news report. “We are down here in Utah, me and Travis, putting together a new band.”
According to a Ticketmaster listing, “Days of the New featuring Travis Meeks and Mike Starr” was scheduled to appear March 19 in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Mike’s dad told TMZ his son’s death is “a terrible shock and tragedy.”

Starr was found dead on March 8, 2011 in a house in Salt Lake City – no details have emerged yet as to the cause of death. He was 44.

Feb 26, 2011 – Mark Tulin (The Electric Prunes) was born November 21st 1948.

He was a founding member of the San Fernando Valley rock band  in 1965. They had hit singles with “I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night” and “Get Me To The World on Time”. In particular, “I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night” is regarded by many critics as a defining song of the psychedelic and garage rock music, appearing on the famous Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968 compilation in 1972. It was also featured prominently in the 1969 film Easy Rider.

In the late 1990s, renewed interest in The Electric Prunes led to a reunion of the original lineup. Since then, the band has toured and released albums consistently.

In June 2009, Mark took part in Billy Corgan’s tribute band ‘Spirits in the Sky’ which played a show on July 24, 2009. Following the success of the show, Billy Corgan had the band play a small tour of extremely small venues in California in August 2009.

In March 2010, following the departure of Smashing Pumpkins touring bassist Ginger Pooley to raise her newborn infant, Tulin was announced as a temporary live bassist until a permanent replacement could be found. During this time, he played his only full length show with The Smashing Pumpkins on April 17, 2010 in celebration of Record Store Day.

A few days later, he played “Widow Wake My Mind” with the band on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

In late 2010 Mark Tulin was recording and performing again with The Electric Prunes, who were signed to independent label Starry Records. In October 2010 he also joined The Icons, aka The Psychedelic Garage Band, a group with other rock veterans. The final edit of the promo video they shot in January 2011 was very nearly completed at the time of his death.

On February 26, 2011 Tulin collapsed while helping out at the Avalon Underwater Clean-Up in Avalon, California. Baywatch Avalon and Avalon Fire Department medics responded immediately, but he could not be revived and was pronounced dead at age 62.

Tulin had a PhD in psychology.

January 15, 2011 – Harvey William James was born on September 20, 1952 in Melbourne, Australia. During his professional career he was a member of the bands Party Boys, Sherbet, Ariel and Mississippi.

James’ first major group was the early 1970s band Mississippi (band)” href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_%28band%29″>Mississippi, which also featured Beeb Birtles, Graham Goble, Charlie Tumahai and Derek Pellicci on drums. He played on the band’s hit single ‘Will I’ after replacing Kerryn Tolhurst and was part of their appearance at Sunbury in 1974.

Mississippi sailed to the UK in April 1974, working on the Sitmar Line ship Fairsky but broke up after arriving. Birtles and Goble reconstituted the band, with Pellicci, in early 1975 after their return to Australia, recruiting new members and changing the name to Little River Band.

After his return to Australia, James joined progressive rock group Ariel, with Mike Rudd and Bill Putt and returned to the UK with them in 1974, where they recorded their second album Rock & Roll Scars at Abbey Road Studios. He remained with Ariel until early 1975, by which time the band had added a fifth member, singer-guitarist Glyn Mason.

James shot to national prominence in Australia in early 1975, when he left Ariel to replace founding member Clive Shakespeare in the chart-topping Australian pop band Sherbet. His first recording with them was their biggest hit, “Howzat”, which became an Australian #1 and made the Top 5 in the UK Singles Chart. He remained with the group until they split in 1979.

James next co-founded the rock band The Party Boys in 1982, playing on their first two albums ”Live at Several 21sts” and ”Greatest Hits (of Other People)”, before along with guitarist Clive Shakespeare reuniting Sherbet for several reunions.

He also participated in a reunion of the second line-up of Ariel in 1998

He lost his battle with lung cancer on 15 January 2011 at age 58 

January 13, 2011 – John Thomas Tommy Crain was born January 16th 1951 in Nashville, Tennessee. When he was in 6th grade, there was a kid that lived down the street. He had a guitar and he taught Tommy how to play a four string ukelele. They learned “Where Have All The Flowers Gone,” entered a talent contest in the school and performed it and won and from that time on, he knew this is what he wanted to do. He wanted to entertain.

Still in high school-he made most of his living from the age of 14 onward in music- he was a member of a fraternity and they would play pretty much every Friday and Saturday night for the sorority and fraternity dances. The first one of these bands was called the Lemonade Charade.

After that he played in various local bands, the best being Flat Creek Band in which his brother Billy also played guitar. This group eventually disbanded and Tom formed a group called Buckeye.

He joined the Charlie Daniels Band in 1975 when Southern rock was king. In his own words he joined at the second invitation from Charlie as follows:

The band I mentioned called Flat Creek had a road manager named David Corlew, who is Charlie’s personal manager now. When the band broke up, David went on to road manage Charlie Daniels,  and in 1974, my band Buckeye opened the very first Volunteer Jam, and I actually played the first musical note of any Volunteer Jam ever because it started with a guitar riff. But I had met Charlie that night and he told me that he was losing both his guitar player and drummer and asked me if I would be interested. Well, to be honest with him I told him that I was still playing with my brother Billy and I didn’t want to leave him. I thought it over for about one week and turned him down because of that, and in retrospect that was a stupid thing to do, but I was naive back then and didn’t know what was going on.  One year later we played at another Volunteer Jam and at that time my band had broken up. He asked me again and I gladly accepted. Charlie said that we would be going on tour the first of the year in 1975, so my wife and I drove down to Knoxville and saw a show and she left me at the hotel and went home and Charlie and I went up to the hotel room, and I roomed with him for six years after that. I learned all the songs from the Fire On The Mountain album and he and I just sat up in the room with two electric guitars and no amps and just played the whole thing and it was just magical. I had never experienced anything like it.

Though not as well-known as some of the other Southern rock guitar slingers of the day, Crain was an influential musician much appreciated by fans, and an integral architect of the CDBs unique blend of rock, blues, country and improvisational jamming. His unrestrained guitar work became an integral part of the band’s sound. He played on more than 20 CDB albums and is credited with co-writing more than 60 of the band songs. He was co-writer and co-arranger of many classic ones, including the Grammy-winning “The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” and the writer/vocalist on such CDB classics as “Cumberland Mountain Number Nine,” “Blind Man” and “Franklin Limestone,” from the some of the band’s best-selling albums (“Saddle Tramp,” “Nightrider,” “Full Moon” and “Million Mile Reflections”).

Crain was a versatile musician, adept on all stringed instruments including guitars, banjo and the pedal steel. The CDB toured relentlessly at the arena level during Crain’s tenure, and Tommy left the CDB in 1989 to help his wife raise their daughter, Ann, and assist in Melissa’s career of equestrian endurance riding which became a passion of Tommy’s. He came back into the music business 15 years later in 2004 as the leader of Tommy Crain and the Crosstown Allstars of Atlanta.

At the time of his death, Crain was employed by Rogers Remodeling and Southbound Trains, both of Franklin and still performing with his All Stars.

He died age 59 on January 13, 2011.

For a great 2002 interview with Tommy Crain about Southern Rock click http://www.swampland.com/articles/view/title:tommy_crain

Nov 3, 2010 – James Patrick “Jim” Clench (61) was born May 1st 1949. The Montreal bassist’s musical career began with a band called the Coven, before he joined April Wine, where he played bass on four albums — 1971’s April Wine, 1972’s On Record, 1973’s Electric Jewels and 1975’s Stand Back.

He also took over lead vocals from Myles Goodwyn on songs such as Weeping Widow and Oowatanite, a song he wrote. His growling voice was a distinctive element for the band.

He left to join another band with Greenway, who eventually joined April Wine as a permanent member after that other group failed to get a recording contract.

Clench then played with Bachman Turner Overdrive (BTO), taking over bass from Randy Bachman who went solo and sharing lead vocal duties with Fred Turner in the period after Randy Bachman left the group.

Clench played on 1978’s Street Action and 1979’s Rock N’ Roll Nights with BTO before the group disbanded in 1979.
Shortly afterwards, Clench also appeared as a guest musician on Bryan Adams’s 1980 debut album and then appeared in Loverboy, who made their live debut opening for Kiss at Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver, B.C. on November 19, 1979.

In 1992, Goodwyn reformed April Wine and Clench returned to record four more studio albums, 1993’s Attitude, 1994’s Frigate, 2001’s Back to the Mansion and 2006’s Roughly Speaking.joined the rock band April Wine in 1972, where he also took part in some lead vocals on songs such as “Oowatanite” and “Weeping Widow”. His last album with the band was Stand Back, released just before he left in 1975. In 1977, Jim was asked to join Bachman Turner Overdrive as bassist, he stayed with BTO until its demise in the late 1970s, appearing on the albums Street Action and Rock n’ Roll Nights.

In 1992, April Wine was reformed and Jim recorded four more studio albums since the band reformed: Attitude, Frigate, Back to the Mansion, and Roughly Speaking. Jim died after battling lung cancer on Nov 3, 2010.

June 27, 2010 – Harold Cowart was born June 12, 1944. Raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Cowart began his music career as a teenager, originally playing with Lenny Capello and the Dots. American bassist and occasional trumpet player born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He began his career in his teens, playing with Lenny Capello and the Dots, before becoming a member of the band John Fred and His Playboys, where he created one of the most memorable bass lines in The Beatle penned “Judy In Disguise (With Glasses)“, which topped the US pop charts for two weeks in 1968.

Following his ’60s run with John Fred Gourrier and the Playboy Band, Cowart moved to Miami and recorded and toured with the Bee Gees and their younger brother, Andy Gibb.

During the 1970s he established himself a much sought-after studio musician, much of it at Miami’s Criteria Recording Studio, recording and playing with the Bee Gees and also contributing instrumentally to Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton’s “Islands in the Stream”, Brook Benton’s “Rainy Night in Georgia” (1969), Frankie Valli’s “Grease” (1978), Andy Gibbs’ album “Shadow Dancing” (1978), Jay Ferguson’s “Thunder Island” and the Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb duet “Guilty” (1980).

After subsequent years of obscurity playing Baton Rouge area clubs with Joe Landry and the Southland Band, Cowart joined the house band for the 1986 Cinemax special “Fats & Friends.” David Letterman’s band leader Paul Shaffer led the group (featuring Rolling Stone Ron Wood) as it backed rock ’n’ roll pioneers Fats Domino, Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis.

In 1987 he opened his own recording studio named Bluff Roads Studio near his Prairieville home, where he produced a wide range of artists including Louisiana Boys, New Orleans trumpeter Al Hirt last album, and rapper Young Bleed.

He died on June 27, 2010 at the age of 66.

May 24, 2010 – Paul Dedrick Gray aka The Pig (Slipknot) was born on April 8, 1972 in Los Angeles. While still a kid his family relocated to Des Moines, Iowa, where he performed in bands such as Anal Blast, Vexx, Body Pit, The Have Nots and Inveigh Catharsis.

A left-handed bass player, he became best known as the bassist and a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning metal band Slipknot.

Besides Slipknot, Paul filled in as bassist for Unida during their 2003 tour, appeared on Drop Dead, Gorgeous’ Worse Than a Fairy Tale, toured briefly with Reggie and the Full Effect and appeared on the Roadrunner United project, performing bass on “The Enemy” and “Baptized in the Redemption” from the project’s album The All-Star Sessions.

An award was named after Paul titled “Paul Gray: Best Bassist of the Year”, as a tribute to Paul. Slipknot presented the award to Nikki Sixx, of Sixx A.M. and Mötley Crüe.

Paul was found dead in his hotelroom at the TownePlace Suites Hotel in Johnston, Iowa of an overdose of morphine, and an autopsy had also shown signs of “significant heart disease”. He was 38.

In September 2012, his physician Daniel Baldi was charged with involuntary manslaughter relating to his death, as well as the deaths of at least seven others. He was accused of continually writing high-dose prescription narcotics to Paul, despite his being a known drug addict from December 27th 2005 until his death.

The eight remaining members of the group — all appearing unmasked — spoke at length about their friend and bandmate, recalling a man who went above and beyond the call of duty for both Slipknot and their fanatic fanbase.

“He was everything that was wonderful about this band and about this group of people,” frontman Corey Taylor said. “The only way I can sum up Paul Gray is ‘love.’ Everything he did, he did for everyone around him whether he knew you or not … and that’s what he’s left behind for us: absolute love. I will miss him with every fiber of my heart, as will everybody at this table and everyone who knew him. He was the best of us.”

“It’s very important that everybody on the outside of us understands that Paul Gray was the essence of the band Slipknot. … Paul was there from the very, very beginning, and none of us would be on the path that we’re on now in life or have the sorts of life that we have without him,” percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan added. “Paul loved the fans. He was kind of the person in the band that really wanted everybody in the band to always get along and just concentrate on the band. He was a really great friend and a really great person. He’s going to be sadly missed, and the world is going to be a different place without him.”

February 28, 2010 – Tom ‘T-Bone’ Wolk (Hall & Oates) was born on December 24, 1951 in Yonkers, N.Y. and was a state accordion champion by age 12.

Seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, however, led him to bass and guitar—the former influenced by James Jamerson and Paul McCartney. Although he studied art at Cooper Union, most of his youth was spent playing in bar bands, where he first met guitarist G.E. Smith (who gave him the nickname T-Bone—for blues guitarist T-Bone Walker—after Wolk played his bass behind his head during a solo). He attended Roosevelt High School.

By the time he auditioned for and joined Hall & Oates in 1981, Wolk had cracked the studio and jingle scene on the recommendation of Will Lee, and had played on rap’s first gold record, Kurtis Blow’s “The Breaks.” As Hall & Oates racked up such Wolk-driven hits as “Maneater,” “Private Eyes,” “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do),” “Out of Touch,” “One on One,” and “Family Man,” T-Bone also headed the Saturday Night Live house band, from 1986-1992 with his Hall & Oates bandmate G.E. Smith.

Wolk was a multi-instrumentalist and worked with Daryl Hall, Carly Simon, Jellyfish, Squeeze, Elvis Costello, Shawn Colvin and Billy Joel over the course of his career. Downtime from Hall & Oates led to tours with Carly Simon and Billy Joel, and endless studio sessions highlighted by four albums with Elvis Costello and one with Costello and Burt Bacharach.

Wolk died on February 28, 2010, in Pawling, New York from a heart attack at age 58 years.