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Ozzy Osbourne 7/2025

John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne (76) – frontman with Black Sabbath – was born 3 December 1948 in northern Birmingham, England. With 3 older sisters and 2 younger brothers the family lived in a 2 bedroom home in the Aston area of Birmingham.

This is a tribute to one of rock’s true superstars; someone who was so far out from the norm that pigeonholing him and his band Black Sabbath, was virtually impossible. In 1970 Led Zeppelin was considered heavy metal. A couple of months later but Sabbath had a new, already younger audience. Despite getting terrible reviews initially, the band gained traction. Kind of like KISS. But KISS was flamboyant, the fantasy of middle class players (and listeners!), Sabbath was dark and dirty and the band came from Birmingham, not London.

It was late July 1970 and we -my band- were on the road to a Saturday night gig in Dusseldorf Germany, when “Paranoid” came on the radio. All five of us instantly stopped what we were doing and turned up the volume. The pumping energy was intoxicating. All powerchords I knew and since it fit our musical bill, I suggested we’d play that song that evening without knowing the title nor the lyrics. My opening lyric was “I did it (finished!?) with my woman, ’cause she couldn’t help me with my mind”. The pulsating hook was easy “Can you help? Occupy my brain, ok yeah” The rest was improvised gibberish. The audience was German, nobody would probably know the song yet. So what the hell, we went for it, improvised the lead in an E-minor pentatonic….and got a thundering applause. That was our introduction to the Gentle Prince of Darkness and his band Black Sabbath. We had improvised something like this before with Guess Who’s “American Woman.” It was the exhilarating fun of being a rock circuit band of the day.

Ozzy’s life was so multi faceted, cross experienced and balls against the wall, that no tribute could do it complete justice. But next to Lemmy Kilmister, he was the truest personification of rock. Lemmy was an icon, but Ozzy is the Legend. So here  goes his life (in a nutshell).

At the age of 11, Ozzy suffered sexual abuse from school bullies. He said he attempted suicide multiple times as a teenager. But later he participated in school plays, including Gilbert and Sullivan‘s The Mikado and H.M.S. Pinafore. The extroverted part of Ozzy began showing, albeit sometimes a bit over the top. Upon hearing the first hit single of the Beatles at age 14, he became a fan of the band and credited their 1963 song “She Loves You” with inspiring him to become a musician. In later life Osbourne said that the Beatles made him realize that “he was going to be a rock star the rest of his life”. He said so to Paul McCartney in a 2001 video clip.

Osbourne left school at the age of 15 and was employed as a construction site laborer, trainee plumber, apprentice toolmaker, car factory horn-tuner, and slaughterhouse worker. At the age of 17, he was convicted of robbing a clothes shop, but was unable to pay the fine; his father also refused to pay it to teach him a lesson, resulting in Osbourne spending six weeks in Winson Green Prison.

In late 1967, Geezer Butler, another Birmingham musician, formed his first band, Rare Breed, and recruited Osbourne to be the singer, actually against the advice of guitarist Tony Iommi, who was doubtful of Ozzy’s singing capacity. The band played two shows and broke up. Osbourne and Butler reunited in another band, Polka Tulk Blues, which included guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward, whose band Mythology had recently broken up. They renamed the band Earth, but after being accidentally booked for a show instead of a different band with the same name, they decided to change the band’s name again, settling on the name Black Sabbath in August 1969. The band’s name was inspired by the film of the same title. Black Sabbath noticed how people enjoyed being frightened during their stage appearances, which inspired their decision to play a heavy blues style of music laced with gloomy sounds and lyrics. While recording their first album, Butler read an occult book and woke up seeing a dark figure at the end of his bed. Butler told Osbourne about it, and together they wrote the lyrics to “Black Sabbath“, their first song in a darker vein. Soon he adopted the moniker “Prince of Darkness”.

The first album was the self-titled ‘Black Sabbath’, released 13 February 1970. Seven months later the second album ‘Paranoid’ was released and broke the band worldwide. Eight months after ‘Paranoid’, the third album ‘Master of Reality’ was released. It was Sabbath’s third album in 18 months. The album reached the top ten in both the United States and UK, and was certified gold in less than two months. In the 1980s, it received platinum certification and went Double Platinum in later years. Initial reviews of the album were unfavorable. Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone famously dismissed Master of Reality as “naïve, simplistic, repetitive, absolute doggerel”, although the very same magazine would later place the album at number 298 on their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.

To be somewhat fair, the early critics simply couldn’t adjust quick enough to the changes in popular music taking place at the time. From the Summer of Love to Psychedelic folk rock, Westcoast Popart to Hendrix and Joplin and the eighteen wheeler sound of Led Zeppelin, nobody was ready for the persona of Ozzy Osbourne and a band named Black Sabbath. The kids from Birmingham steamrolled over accepted blues based formulas and had opened an alternative universe.

After the unexpected success of their first album, Black Sabbath were considering Don Arden, as their new manager. His 18 year old daughter Sharon was at that time working as his receptionist. Ozzy admits he was attracted to her almost immediately but assumed that “she probably thought I was a lunatic”. Osbourne later recalled that the best thing about eventually choosing Don Arden as manager was that he got to see Sharon regularly, though their relationship was strictly professional at that point.

In September 1972, Black Sabbath released Black Sabbath ‘Vol. IV’ featured the song ‘Changes’. Critics were still dismissive of the album; however, it reached gold status in less than a month and was the band’s fourth consecutive album to sell over one million copies in the United States.

In November 1973, Black Sabbath released the critically acclaimed Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. For the first time, the band received favorable reviews in the mainstream press, who seemed to have finally caught on. Gordon Fletcher of Rolling Stone called the album “an extraordinarily gripping affair” and “nothing less than a complete success”. Decades later, AllMusic’s Eduardo Rivadavia called the album a “masterpiece, essential to any heavy metal collection”, while also claiming the band displayed “a newfound sense of finesse and maturity”. The album marked the band’s fifth consecutive platinum selling album in the US. Sabotage was released in July 1975. Again, there were favorable reviews. Rolling Stone stated, “Sabotage is not only Black Sabbath’s best record since Paranoid, it might be their best ever.” In a retrospective review, AllMusic was less favorable, noting that “the magical chemistry that made such albums as Paranoid and Volume 4 so special was beginning to disintegrate”. Technical Ecstasy, released on 25 September 1976, was also met with mixed reviews. AllMusic gives the album two stars, and notes that the band was “unravelling at an alarming rate”, perhaps the result of Ozzy rapidly coming undone in a world of drugs and alcohol.

Between late 1977 and early 1978, Osbourne left the band for three months to pursue a solo project called Blizzard of Ozz, a title which had been suggested by his father. Three members of the band Necromandus, who had supported Sabbath in Birmingham when they were called Earth, backed Osbourne in the studio and briefly became the first incarnation of his solo band.

At the request of the other band members, Osbourne rejoined Sabbath. The band spent five months at Sounds Interchange Studios in Toronto, where they wrote and recorded their next album, Never Say Die! “It took quite a long time”, Iommi said of Never Say Die! “We were getting really drugged out, doing a lot of dope. We’d go down to the sessions, and have to pack up because we were too stoned; we’d have to stop. Nobody could get anything right; we were all over the place, and everybody was playing a different thing. We’d go back and sleep it off, and try again the next day.”

In May 1978, Black Sabbath began the Never Say Die! Tour with Van Halen as an opening act. Reviewers called Sabbath’s performance “tired and uninspired” in stark contrast to the “youthful” performance of Van Halen, who were touring the world for the first time. The band recorded their concert at Hammersmith Odeon in June 1978, which was released on video as Never Say Die. The final show of the tour and Osbourne’s last appearance with Black Sabbath for another seven years, was in Albuquerque, New Mexico on 11 December.

In 1979, Black Sabbath returned to the studio, but tension and conflict arose between band members. Osbourne recalled being asked to record his vocals over and over, and tracks were manipulated endlessly by Iommi. The relationship between Osbourne and Iommi became contentious. On 27 April 1979, at Iommi’s insistence but with the support of Butler and Ward, Osbourne was ejected from Black Sabbath. The reasons provided to him were that he was unreliable and had excessive substance abuse issues compared to the other members. Osbourne maintained that his use of alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs at that time was similar to that of the other members.

Ozzy had been lead singer for the first eight Black Sabbath albums.

He was replaced with another voice of rock and roll Ronnie James Dio, who sang with Black Sabbath from 1979 – 1982 and 1991 – 1992, while also participating in the Heaven and Hell project  from 2006 until his death in 2010.

After leaving Black Sabbath, Osbourne recalled,

“I’d got £96,000 for my share of the name, so I’d just locked myself away and spent three months doing coke and booze. My thinking was, ‘This is my last party, because after this I’m going back to Birmingham and collect unemployment benefits.”

However, Don Arden signed him to Jet Records with the aim of recording new material. Arden dispatched his daughter Sharon to Los Angeles to “look after Ozzy’s needs, whatever they were”, to protect his investment. Arden initially hoped Osbourne would return to Sabbath, who he was personally managing at that time, and later attempted to convince the singer to name his new band “Son of Sabbath”, which Osbourne hated. Sharon attempted to convince Osbourne to form a supergroup with guitarist Gary Moore.

“When I lived in Los Angeles”, Moore recalled, ” Moore’s band G-Force helped him to audition musicians. If drummers were trying out, I played guitar, and if a bassist came along, my drummer would help out. We actually felt sorry for him, basically. He was always hovering around trying to get me to join, and I wasn’t having any of it.”

A year after Ozzy was kicked out of  Sabbath, Sharon Darden started managing his solo career, which mostly because of her influence sky-rocketed. The two got married in 1982 after Ozzy got divorced from his first wife Thelma. Ozzy released his first solo album ‘Blizzard of Ozz’ in 1980. The album featured songs that became true Ozzy classics, ‘Crazy Train’ and ‘Mr Crowley’, supported by  guitar virtuoso Randy Rhoads fretboard pyrotechnics.

Manager Sharon, together with the virtuosity of Randy Rhoads put Ozzy back together and created the Blizzard of Ozzy:

Dana Strum, a bassist and acquaintance of Rhoads in L.A., was aware of Ozzy’s search for a new guitar player and persistently encouraged Rhoads to audition. Nobody is denying the epiphany of Randy Rhoads’ arrival, though. The 22-year-old Quiet Riot guitarist was no Sabbath fan and almost bunked his audition slot, but he only had to doodle a few harmonics through a practice amp for Ozzy to promise him a call-back. “I’d never auditioned anyone, and I was all over the fucking place,” Ozzy admitted later. “But fucking hell, when I first heard Randy play, it was poetry in motion. I thought, ‘Wow, I’m onto a great thing here.’ Who knows why we worked so well. Who knows the answer to anything? But sometimes you’ll meet a girlfriend and it’s more than just a fucking night in the sack.”

“Ozzy said all he’d heard all day was guys trying to play like Tony Iommi,” Randy once noted. “He appreciated that I was playing my own style.” There is a romantic notion that Osbourne and Rhoads shook on their partnership right here. Actually, says bass player Daisley – who kept a diary from 1976 and wrote a tell-all autobiography called For Facts Sake! – after the audition the singer left LA for his home in Stafford, England, and Rhoads only re-entered the frame after yet another guitarist was fired.

“That’s when Ozzy said, ‘Well, I met this great guitar player in LA,’” Daisley explains. “The management wanted to keep it as a UK-based band, but no guitarists were that interested, because Ozzy didn’t have the best reputation to work with.”

Reluctantly, management flew Rhoads to London, continues Daisley. “Ozzy and I went into Jet Records in about October 1979, and Randy was already there. Now Ozzy had told me that Randy was a guitar teacher at his mum’s school in LA, so I anticipated a guy with a pipe slippers, cardigan and glasses. I walk in and see this young guy; his clothes were very fitted, his hair was perfect, his nails were manicured. I actually said to Ozzy: ‘D’you think he’s gay?’”

But when Rhoads plugged in, the planets aligned. “When we finished our first jam,” recalls Daisley, “we said at the same time, ‘I like the way you play.’ He was confident and precise; he had the influence of bluesy players like Hendrix, Blackmore and Jeff Beck, but his classical training gave him another dimension.” So after a decade spent cowering beneath Iommi’s iron fist, Ozzy was back from the dead with a band that nurtured his talent, rebuilt his confidence, and even transposed keys to suit his doomy bark. “In Sabbath,” Ozzy said, “I’d have to put my vocals on whatever key they put the song in, and sometimes I couldn’t reproduce it onstage. But Randy was like, ‘Come on, maybe you should try it in this key.’”

“It really was a band,” agrees Daisley. “We were meant to come together. We fed off each other. The music side was more me and Randy: we’d sit on chairs opposite each other, playing the instruments and putting the songs together. I wrote the lyrics. Ozzy was very good at the vocal melodies. The first songs we wrote were Goodbye To Romance, I Don’t Know and Crazy Train.

“That signature riff for Crazy Train in F# minor was Randy’s, then Daisley wrote the part for him to solo over, and Ozzy had the vocal melody. The title came because Randy had an effect that was making a sorta psychedelic chugging sound through his amp. Randy and Daisley were train buffs, they collected model trains, and Daisley said, ‘That sounds like a crazy train.’ Ozzy had this saying, ‘You’re off the rails!’ so we used that in the lyrics.”

Though it received little radio airplay upon its initial release as a single, “Crazy Train” has become one of Osbourne’s signature songs and a staple of classic rock radio playlists over the ensuing years. In January 2009, the song achieved a 2× Platinum certification status.

Meeting with Randy Rhoads solidified Ozzy’s solo career, but sadly also Randy’s destruction. He died two years and one album “Diary of a Madman” later, in a stupid and completely unnecessary, drug induced light plane crash. Randy never reached his true genius. Blizzard Of Ozz was undeniably great. Unleashed in September 1980, it hit the metal scene like a wrecking ball, flicked two fingers at the flailing Sabbath and provided the year’s hottest setlist when the band took it on the road. But if Diary of a Madman was any yard stick of his talent, he would have been the unmatched emperor of rock guitar.

Management and record company double crossed the other musicians in the band by repackaging what had started as a band, into an Ozzy solo project. Despite growing friction, the line-up was still able to pump out the classics when the label pushed for a follow-up. “After we came off the road,” says Daisley, “we started the writing and recording for Diary Of A Madman. With a US tour booked, the label only allowed the band a six-week window at Ridge Farm Studios. Nevertheless, everyone agreed that Rhoads had blossomed between the two albums, and heard in hindsight, his Diary parts do seem more visionary and ambitious, from the swells and selector flicks of rock ballad Tonight to the seismic brutality of Believer. Diary Of A Madman was arguably the stronger of the two albums. It seemed like a tantalizing hint at what the line-up would do next, but turned out to be a maddening full stop instead, as Daisley and Kerslake were fired in 1981 and Randy Rhoads died on March 19, 1982 in a senseless accident.

The dream team had splintered and nothing would be the same. Bark At The Moon, Speak of the Devil and the Ultimate Sin turned out to be the first of several fine albums, yet it’s no insult to argue that Osbourne never quite matched that opening run. “The two albums Randy played on were fucking monsters,” he sighs. “They still sound great to this day.”

The rest of the 1980s acts were wearing spandex, cleaned up for mainstream consumption, and Ozzy was still down and dirty. This is the music you listened to while you drank beer and went wild, not worrying about the consequences, this is the music that infected you and drove you, this was ROCK AND ROLL!

The rest of the 1980 saw many shifts of players in his solo band, while Osbourne continued to struggle with chemical dependency. In 1988 Zakk Wylde came on board and became the most enduring replacement for Rhoads. Together, they recorded No Rest for the Wicked. Also in 1988 Osbourne performed on the rock ballad “Close My Eyes Forever“, a duet with Lita Ford, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Osbourne’s commercial success of the 1980s continued with 1991’s No More Tears, featuring smash hit “Mama, I’m Coming Home”. The album enjoyed much radio and MTV exposure. It also initiated a practice of bringing in ‘outsiders’ (in this case Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead) to help write Osbourne’s material, instead of only relying on his recording ensemble.

Released on 28 June 1993, Live & Loud was intended to be Osbourne’s final album; it went platinum four times over. In 1993, Osbourne had expressed his fatigue with touring, and proclaimed his “retirement tour” (the retirement was to be short-lived), called “No More Tours”, a pun on No More Tears. Osbourne was awarded a 1994 Grammy for the track “I Don’t Want to Change the World” from Live & Loud, for Best Metal Performance.

Back in the saddle in 1995 already Osbourne released Ozzmosis and resumed touring, dubbing his concert performances “The Retirement Sucks Tour”. The album became certified gold and platinum in that same year, and double platinum in April 1999. The line-up on Ozzmosis was Wylde, Butler (who had just quit Black Sabbath again), Steve Vai, and Hardline drummer Deen Castronovo, who later joined Journey. Keyboards were played by Rick Wakeman.

Following two brief, short-set reunions for Live Aid in 1985 and at an Ozzy Osbourne show in Costa Mesa, California, on 15 November 1992, Osbourne, Iommi and Butler did not formally reunite as Black Sabbath until 1997 for the 1997 Ozzfest shows. Ward was absent due to health issues. In December 1997, all four members of the band reunited to record the album Reunion, with Osbourne also touring with the band again from 1997 to 1999 for the album’s concert tour. The album proved to be a commercial success upon its release in October 1998.

But then on December, 8 2003, Osbourne was rushed into emergency surgery following an accident with his quad bike on his estate in Jordans, Buckinghamshire. Osbourne broke his collar bone, eight ribs, and a neck vertebra. An operation was performed to lift the collarbone, which was believed to be resting on a major artery and interrupting blood flow to one of Osbourne’s arms. Sharon later revealed that Osbourne had stopped breathing following the crash and was resuscitated by Osbourne’s then personal bodyguard, Sam Ruston. It later turned out to be the beginning of the end. While in hospital however, Osbourne achieved his first ever UK number one single, a duet of the Black Sabbath ballad, “Changes” with daughter Kelly. In doing so, he broke the record of the longest period between an artist’s first UK chart appearance (with Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid”, number four in August 1970) and their first number one hit: a gap of 33 years. He recovered from the quad accident and went on to headline the 2004 Ozzfest, with the reunited Black Sabbath.

Besides some family reality TV work such as ‘the Osbournes’ on MTV between 2002 and 2005 and ‘Osbourne’s Reloaded’ in 2009, Ozzy stayed productive with more album releases and world tours. In his later years Osbourne attempted to press on with his rock career, but was hampered several times by illness and injury. In early February 2019, Sharon revealed he had been admitted to hospital after suffering from flu. The illness led to him cancelling a string of tour dates while he recovered, including postponing the UK and European legs of his No More Tours 2. In 2022, the rocker revealed he had a rare form of Parkinson’s disease called Parkin 2, which he had since birth.

Ozzy released 11 solo albums between 1983 and 2022. ‘Patient Number 9’ was the last Ozzy album with guests Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Tony Iommi and Taylor Hawkins. He sold in excess of 100 million albums in his lifetime.

In 2025, with the curtains closing on his eventful life, Ozzy Osbourne and the original Black Sabbath members Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward played at their final Birmingham show “Back to the Beginning on July 5.

Ozzy knew this show was it. His last stand on earth. He actually stayed off his pain meds to be lucid for the show and raised $190 million for children’s hospitals and Parkinson’s research. I can’t think of a more rock exit from this world. He also admitted that he should not have done the spinal surgery, because it made his last years much worse.

It was their first appearance with founding drummer Bill Ward since 2005 and first (and last) Black Sabbath show since 2017.

The setlist for posterity purpose was:

• War Pigs
• N.I.B.
• Iron Man
• Paranoid

Ozzy also performed a solo show with setlist:

• I Don’t Know
• Mr Crowley
• Suicide Solution
• Mama I’m Coming Home
• Crazy Train

Ozzy Osbourne died 17 days later on July 22, 2025, a legend of rock. He was 77.

Ozzy was a lad from the back streets of Aston, Birmingham, raised tough and hungry in a place where dreams felt distant…There’s something unique about growing up in a place like that…it teaches you the true meaning of desire. Not the fleeting kind, but the kind that burns deep, the kind that makes you work relentlessly, shaping pain into passion and struggle into skill.
Ozzy Osbourne was, and will be a legend for a couple of generations to come. But before the stages and the spotlight, he was just the lad from Lodge Road who dared to dream….and he did good.

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Mike Pinera 11/2024

Mike Pinera (Captain Beyond/Iron Butterfly) (76) was born September 29, 1948 in Tampa, Florida. In his mid-teens Pinera played his parts in local bands like the Impalas, the Motions and the El Dorados, essentially teen garage bands.”

He co-founded Blues Image in Tampa in 1966 together with Mike Betematti (drums), Malcolm Jones (bass) and Joe Lala (percussion) when they met as students at Tampa’s Jefferson High School. Blues Image, thanks to the Cuba-born Lala, added Latin rhythms to its rock ‘n’ roll/blues mix. The band opened Tampa’s first “psychedelic” nightclub, Dino’s.

Two years after forming, the band relocated to Miami, where it became the house band at Miami’s ultra-hip Thee Image club, supporting international acts like Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page had a years-long friendship with Pinera. Page called Blues Image, which by then included keyboard player Skip Conte, “the most dynamic sound in the country.”

The band then moved to Los Angeles and signed with Atco Records, releasing its self-titled debut album in 1969. Blues Image’s sophomore album, Open, included “Ride, Captain, Ride,” a song co-written by Pinera and keyboardist Frank “Skip” Conte. Pinera sang the lead on the recording and played the second guitar solo toward the end of the song; the single rose to #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

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Melanie Safka 1/2024

Melanie, hippie singer-songwriterMelanie Safka (76) professionally known as Melanie was born on Feb. 3, 1947 and raised in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York City. Her father, Fred, was of Ukrainian ancestry and her mother, jazz singer Pauline “Polly” Altomare, was of Italian heritage. Melanie made her first public singing appearance at age four on the radio show Live Like A Millionaire, performing the song “Gimme a Little Kiss”. She moved with her family to Long Branch, New Jersey, and attended Long Branch High School, but disturbed that she was rejected by her schoolmates as a “beatnik”, she ran away to California. After her return to New Jersey, she transferred to Red Bank High School. She graduated in 1966, although she was prevented from attending her graduation ceremony because of an overdue library book. (different times!!!). Yet, she was inducted into the school’s hall of fame in 2014.

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Jimmy Buffett – 9/2023

Jimmy BuffettJimmy Buffett (76) was born on December 25, 1946, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and spent part of his childhood in Mobile and Fairhope, Alabama. He was the son of Mary Lorraine (née Peets) and James Delaney Buffett Jr, who worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. During his grade school years, he attended St. Ignatius School, where he played the trombone in the school band. As a child, he was exposed to sailing through his grandfather who was a steamship captain and these experiences influenced his later music. He graduated from McGill Institute for Boys, a Catholic high school in Mobile, in 1964. He began playing the guitar during his first year at Auburn University after seeing a fraternity brother playing while surrounded by a group of girls. Buffett left Auburn after a year due to his grades and continued his college years at Pearl River Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, where he received a bachelor’s degree in history in 1969. From 1969 to 1970, Buffett worked for Billboard as a Nashville correspondent, and in 1969, he was the first writer to report that the bluegrass duo Flatt and Scruggs had disbanded. Continue reading Jimmy Buffett – 9/2023

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Gary Brooker 2/2022

February 19, 2022 – Gary Brooker (76) founding lead singer of the late 1960’s musical sensation Procol Harum was born on May 29, 1945, in London’s Metropolitan Borough of Hackney. His father was a professional musician and Gary followed in his footsteps learning to play piano, cornet and trombone as a child. But his most awesome instrument over the years became his voice.

After high school, he went on to Southend Municipal College to study zoology and botany but dropped out to become a professional musician.In 1962 he founded the Paramounts with his guitarist friend Robin Trower. The band gained respect within the burgeoning 1960s British R&B scene, which yielded the Beatles, the Animals, the Spencer Davis Group, the Rolling Stones, and many others. The Rolling Stones, in particular, were Paramounts fans, giving them guest billing on several shows in the early 1960s.

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Mary Wilson – 2/2021

Mary Wilson (76) was born March 6, 1944, to Sam, a butcher, and Johnnie Mae Wilson in Greenville, Mississippi. She was the eldest of three children including a brother, Roosevelt, and a sister, Cathy. The Wilsons moved to Chicago, part of the Great Migration in which her father joined many African Americans seeking work in the North, but at age three, Mary Wilson was taken in by her aunt Ivory “I.V.” and uncle John L. Pippin in Detroit. Her parents eventually separated and Wilson’s mother and siblings later joined them in Detroit, though by then Wilson had come to believe I.V. was her real mother.

Wilson and her family had settled in the Brewster-Douglass Housing Projects, a housing project in Detroit  where Wilson first met Florence Ballard. The duo became friends while singing in their school’s talent show. In 1959, Ballard asked Wilson to audition for Milton Jenkins, who was forming a sister group to his male vocal trio, the Primes (two members of which were later in The Temptations). Wilson was soon accepted into the group known as The Primettes, with Diana Ross and Betty McGlown, who lived in the same housing project with Wilson and Ballard. In this period, Wilson also met Aretha, Erma and Carolyn Franklin, daughters of the pastor at her local Baptist church. Wilson graduated from Detroit’s Northeastern High School in January 1962.

In 1960, the Primettes signed a contract with Lu Pine Records, issuing two singles from which Wilson sang lead vocals on “Pretty Baby”. Shortly after, McGlown left to get married and was replaced by Barbara Martin. During that year, they kept pursuing a Motown contract and agreed to do anything that was required, including adding handclaps and vocal backgrounds. By the end of the year, Berry Gordy agreed to have the group record songs in the studio. In January 1961, Gordy relented and agreed to sign the girls to his label on the condition they change their name. Motown lyricist Janie Bradford approached Ballard with a list of names to choose from before Ballard chose “Supremes”. Eventually, Gordy agreed to sign them under that name on January 15, 1961.

The group struggled in their early years in comparison to other Motown acts, garnering the nickname “no-hit Supremes” as a result. One track, “Buttered Popcorn”, led by Ballard, was a regional hit, but still failed to chart. Before the release of their 1962 debut album, Meet The Supremes, Martin had become pregnant and subsequently left the group, leaving the Supremes as a trio.
In December 1963, the single “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes” peaked at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. Following the single’s success, Gordy assigned Ross as the group’s lead singer. In the spring of 1964, the Supremes released “Where Did Our Love Go”, which became their first number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, paving the way for ten number-one hits recorded by Ross, Ballard, and Wilson between 1964 and 1967.

By 1965, the group had become international stars, appearing regularly on television programs such as Hullabaloo, The Hollywood Palace, The Dean Martin Show, and, most notably The Ed Sullivan Show, on which they made 17 appearances. As early as 1966, Florence Ballard‘s chronic alcoholism led to her missing press conferences and recording sessions. To serve as a stand-in for Ballard, Gordy selected Cindy Birdsong, a member of Patti LaBelle and the Blue Belles. In July 1967, following a contentious performance at the Flamingo, Ballard was removed from the Supremes and replaced with Birdsong. Simultaneously, Gordy re-named the group “Diana Ross & the Supremes”, beginning with the single “Reflections”.
The new lineup continued to record hit singles, although several stalled outside the top 20 chart range. Ross left the group in January 1970, and at her farewell performance Jean Terrell was introduced as the replacement for Ross. According to Wilson, Gordy told Wilson that he thought of having Syreeta Wright join the group in a last-minute change, after Terrell had already been introduced as lead singer, to which Wilson refused. From there, Gordy relinquished creative control of the group over to Wilson. With Terrell, the Supremes recorded seven top-40 hit singles in a three-year period, including “River Deep/Mountain High” (with the Four Tops), “Up the Ladder to the Roof”, “Stoned Love”, “Nathan Jones”, and “Floy Joy”. Unlike the latter years with Ross, the single “Automatically Sunshine” succeeded in reaching the top 20 charts, in which it had become the Supremes’ final top 40 U.S. hit.

Mary Wilson gained worldwide recognition as a founding member of The Supremes, the most successful Motown act of the 1960s and the best-charting female group in U.S. chart history, as well as one of the best-selling girl groups of all-time. The trio reached number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 with 12 of their singles, ten of which feature Wilson on backing vocals.

Beginning with the 1974 lineup, Wilson began doing almost half of the group’s lead vocal duties, as she was considered the group’s main attraction and reason for continuing.
In 1975, Wilson sang lead on the Top 10 disco hit “Early Morning Love”. In 1976, the group scored its final hit single with “I’m Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking”, written and produced by Brian and Eddie Holland and included on the album High Energy. High Energy was well-received, but the follow-up album after another line-up change, Mary, Scherrie & Susaye, released in 1977, would be their last. During a meeting with Motown, Wilson’s husband Pedro Ferrer had notified Motown that Wilson would leave the Supremes to embark on a solo career. On June 12, 1977, Wilson gave her farewell performance with the Supremes at London’s Drury Lane Theatre.

In July 1977, just one month following her farewell performance with the Supremes, Wilson began a touring “Supremes” show with two background singers as the “Mary Wilson of The Supremes” show. The show was the result of Motown’s allowance of the group to go into hiatus despite the fact that there were still several un-cancelled international tour dates to complete. Mary therefore hired former Supreme, Cindy Birdsong and Debbie Sharpe to complete a summer tour of South America to fulfill contracts so venues would not sue. The three-week tour began in Caracas, Venezuela, and was composed of mostly small clubs. Despite the company’s displeasure and the fact that it owned the rights/distribution rights to the name “Supremes,” Motown never cancelled the tour. Later that year, Wilson hired Karen Jackson and Kaaren Ragland to tour with as background singers. She and Cindy rehearsed them for a year end’s tour of Europe, that was composed of dates at officers’ clubs and swank discos. Throughout the mid-1980s, Wilson focused on performances in musical theater productions, including Beehive, Dancing in the Streets, and Supreme Soul.

Wilson was inducted along with Ross and Ballard (as members of the Supremes) into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988.

Wilson later became a New York Times best-selling author in 1986 with the release of her first autobiography, Dreamgirl: My Life as a Supreme, which set records for sales in its genre, and later in 1990 for the autobiography Supreme Faith: Someday We’ll Be Together.

Wilson became a frequent guest on several television programs and talk shows and began regularly performing in Las Vegas casinos and resorts. Wilson then recorded a cover version of “Ooh Child” for the Motorcity label in 1990. A year later, she signed with CEO Records and released the album, Walk the Line, in 1992. The label filed for bankruptcy the day after its national release. Wilson maintained that she was deceived about the financial status of the label. The available copies of the album quickly sold out, however, and Wilson continued her success as a concert performer.

In 2001, Wilson starred in the national tour of Leader of the Pack – The Ellie Greenwich Story. A year later, Wilson was appointed by Secretary of State Colin Powell as a “culture-connect ambassador” for the U.S. State Department, appearing at international events arranged by that agency. In 2006, a live concert DVD, Live at the Sands, was released. Four years later, another DVD, Mary Wilson: Live from San Francisco… Up Close, was released. During this period, Wilson became a musical activist, having been part of the Truth in Music Bill, a law proposed to stop impostor groups performing under the names of the 1950s and 1960s rock and roll groups, including Motown groups 

In April 2008, Wilson made a special appearance on 20/20 to participate in a social experiment involving pedestrians reacting to a young woman singing “Stop! In the Name of Love” with intentional amateurishness. Wilson approached the woman and gave her constructive criticism toward her style, in contrast to the pedestrians whose reactions were positive, yet dishonest. On March 5, 2009, she made a special appearance on The Paul O’Grady Show, which ended in a special performance with her, O’Grady, and Graham Norton. 
Wilson released two singles on iTunes, “Life’s Been Good To Me” and “Darling Mother (Johnnie Mae)”, in 2011 and 2013, respectively. In 2015, Wilson released a new single, “Time To Move On”, produced by Sweet Feet Music; the song reached the Top 20 on the Billboard Dance charts history, peaking at No. 17 as of December 26.
On August 15, 2019, Wilson published her fourth book, Supreme Glamour with co-author Mark Bego, dedicated to the history of the Supremes and their fashion. 

On February 8, 2021, Mary Wilson died in her sleep from hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease at her home in Henderson, Nevada, at the age of 76. 

Motown founder Berry Gordy said he was “extremely shocked and saddened” by the news of her death and said Wilson was “quite a star in her own right and over the years continued to work hard to boost the legacy of the Supremes.” Diana Ross reflected on Wilson’s death, posting on Twitter: “I am reminded that each day is a gift. I have so many wonderful memories of our time together. ‘The Supremes’ will live on in our hearts.

Mary Wilson’s last single “Why Can’t We All Get Along” was released posthumously on March 5, 2021. The song was featured on a 2021 reissue of Wilson’s 1979 solo debut entitled, Mary Wilson: Expanded Edition.
Another posthumous project, Mary Wilson: Red Hot Eric Kupper Remix EP was released September 3, 2021. The EP featured three new different dance versions of Wilson’s 1979 single “Red Hot” produced by Kupper.

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Dave Munden 11/2020

Dave Munden (76) – The Tremeloes – was born Dec. 2, 1943 in Dagenham, Essex, England.

The group started in 1958 as Brian Poole and the Tremoloes, inspired by Buddy Holly and the Crickets. (They soon changed the spelling of their name.) Joining lead singer Poole were lead guitarist Rick West, rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Alan Blakley, bassist Alan Howard and Dave Munden on drums. As legend has it, they auditioned for Decca in 1962 and were signed in favor of another band, the Beatles.
In 1963, their recording of “Do You Love Me” (originally recorded by the Motown group the Contours) topped the British singles chart, replacing the Beatles’ “She Loves You” at #1. More Top 5 U.K. success followed, including their cover of “Twist and Shout.”

Continue reading Dave Munden 11/2020

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“Toots” Hibbert 8/2020

“Toots” Hibbert (77) -Toots and The Maytals- was born on Dec. 8, 1942, in rural May Pen, Clarendon, about 45 minutes west of Jamaica’s capital Kingston. Hibbert’s parents were preachers and he was raised singing gospel in what he calls “a salvation church.” The hand clapping, foot stomping, and soul-shaking vocals associated with Jamaica’s Afro-Christian religious traditions, including Revival Zion and Pocomania, were essential in shaping Hibbert’s performances. Hibbert also cites Elvis Presley, gospel icon Mahalia Jackson, and soul superstars James Brown, Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding as influences.

In his early teens, Hibbert moved to Trench Town, an economically poor yet musically thriving community in western Kingston, also home to future reggae artists including Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley, who became The Wailers. While working as a barber, Hibbert met Nathaniel “Jerry” Matthias and Henry “Raleigh” Gordon and they formed The Maytals vocal trio, circa 1961, at the dawn of Jamaica’s ska era. Matthias and Gordon had previously cut a single together and they knew Hibbert’s powerful voice would enhance their sound.

The Maytals went on to release numerous singles for the top Jamaican producers of the 1960s. They signed with Clement “Sir Coxsone” Dodd’s Studio One label in 1962, releasing such ska gems as “Hallelujah,” “Fever” and the exceptional “Six and Seven Books of Moses,” featuring Hibbert’s galvanizing gospel delivery.

Studio One was regarded as Jamaica’s Motown, home to many outstanding young singing, songwriting and instrumental talents, including The Wailers, Bob Andy, The Heptones, Marcia Griffiths and Jackie Mittoo. The Maytals, however, were dissatisfied with Dodd’s payments and moved on. They recorded the rollicking “Dog War,” which alludes to leaving Dodd and working instead with his rival Prince Buster. They made history with producer and band leader Byron Lee when their joyous ska romp “It’s You,” and its b-side, the R&B ballad “Daddy,” both topped the Jamaica charts .

In August 1966, The Maytals’ “Bam Bam,” also produced by Lee, won the inaugural Jamaica Festival Song competition, held annually to coincide with the island’s Independence Day celebrations. (The chorus of “Bam Bam” was featured in Sister Nancy’s 1982 song of the same name.) Hibbert was arrested shortly after The Maytals’ victory and sentenced to 18 months for possession of marijuana; he described the incident as “political, a means to keep me down.”

At the time of Hibbert’s release from jail, the jaunty ska beat created in Kingston studios had slowed down and morphed into rocksteady. The reunited Maytals began recording for producer Leslie Kong; their first release “54-46 (That’s My Number),” which Toots wrote about his prison sentence, became The Maytals’ biggest hit of that era and had remained a staple in Hibbert’s live shows. Kong’s other productions with The Maytals include “Monkey Man,” which broke through to the UK singles charts, and “Do The Reggay,” which in 1968 became the first song to brand the beat that followed rocksteady, which is Jamaica’s most successful (musical) export. When asked about the origins of the word, reggay, shortly thereafter spelled “reggae,” Toots offered: “Streggay was a slang word in Jamaica, it meant something that looked raggedy, scruffy so one day I was talking with Raleigh and Jerry and just changed the word to reggae and said, let’s make music, let’s do the reggae.”

His vocals are an amalgam of rousing gospel, vintage soul, gritty R&B, and classic country fused with pliant, indigenous Jamaican rhythms. Hibbert brought a stunning island lilt to Otis Redding’s standard “(I’ve Got) Dreams to Remember,” he transformed Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand The Rain” into a scorching serenade, and forever altered John Denver’s “Country Roads” into a beloved sing-along reggae anthem.
Hibbert’s humble demeanor and affable personality belied his towering global stature. Regarded as a national treasure in Jamaica, in 2012 he was conferred the Order of Jamaica, the country’s fifth highest honor.

“For my generation, Toots is the ultimate performer,” said Roy “Gramps” Morgan of the reggae group Morgan Heritage. “The [kind of] artist that leaves everything on the stage, physically and spiritually. Toots is the James Brown of reggae, and one of the greatest Jamaican singers of all time. You won’t find another singer that sounds like Toots and you are not going to hear that sound again.”

Chris Blackwell signed The Maytals to Island Records and changed their name to Toots and the Maytals, with Maytals now referring to the backing singers and the band members. They released several influential albums for the label, including Funky Kingston (1975), Reggae Got Soul (1976) and, following the departure of Matthias and Gordon, Hibbert’s solo album Toots in Memphis (1988). The latter, accompanied by Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, aka the historic rhythm section Sly and Robbie, was critically acclaimed and earned Hibbert his first Grammy nomination.

“Toots was the writer, singer, songwriter, you never saw anybody else on stage because Toots was so charismatic,” said Blackwell in the 2011 BBC documentary, Toots and The Maytals: Reggae Got Soul. “The Maytals were unlike anything else; sensational, raw and dynamic. There are many occasions where you hear a record by someone and then you go to see them 10 years later and it’s a little bit of a disappointment. But Toots gives his everything to his audience, he never phones it in.”

“One of the things Toots always told us was to ‘sing from your soul, man,'” said Morgan, whose father, Denroy Morgan, knew Hibbert since their childhood days in Mocho Village, May Pen. “Study the great showmen like James Brown and Otis Redding because when someone pays money to come see you, they have to have an experience.”

Later in life, Hibbert won the 2005 Grammy for best reggae album for True Love. Each song on the record was a collaboration with some of his biggest fans, among them Eric Clapton, Bootsy Collins and The Roots, Willie Nelson, Keith Richards and Jamaican greats Shaggy, Marcia Griffiths and Ken Boothe.

Bonnie Raitt, who’s featured on the title track, “True Love is Hard to Find,” said performing with Toots and his band is “one of the highlights of my life.”

On Aug. 28, 2020, Hibbert released the final album of his career and his first new studio album in a decade, the aptly titled Got To Be Tough. On the album, an impassioned Hibbert addresses global atrocities on the soul jam “Just Brutal,” overcoming obstacles on the funk-infused “Struggle,” combating dirty principles with decency on the scorching “Warning Warning” and staying resilient, irrespective of the circumstances on the indomitable title track.

Two days after the release of Got To Be Tough, Hibbert was admitted to Kingston’s University Hospital of the West Indies.

“Toots” Hibbert died from complications of the Coronavirus on August 31, 2020. He was 76.

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Scott Walker 3/2019

Scott Walker of the Walker BothersMarch 22, 2019 – Scott Walker (the Walker Brothers) was born January 9, 1943 in Hamilton, Ohio, despite the fact that he was perceived as British. One of the more enigmatic figures in rock history, Scott Walker was known as Scotty Engel when he cut obscure flop records in the late ’50s and early ’60s in the teen idol vein.

He initially found work in Los Angeles as a bass player, but rose to fame in the United Kingdom, after he hooked up with John Maus and Gary Leeds to form the Walker Brothers. They weren’t named Walker, they weren’t brothers, and they weren’t English, but they nevertheless became a part of the British Invasion after moving to the U.K. in 1965. They enjoyed a couple of years of massive success there (and a couple of hits in the U.S.) The Walker Brothers was a well-groomed trio famous for their British Invasion renditions of Brill Building pop. With the help of Scott Walker’s booming baritone, the act topped the British charts with covers of “Make It Easy On Yourself” (1965) and “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine (Anymore)” (1966), but in the US, the trio never achieved the superstardom that they enjoyed overseas. As their full-throated lead singer and principal songwriter, Walker was the dominant artistic force in the group, who split in 1967. 

While remaining virtually unknown in his homeland, Walker launched a hugely successful solo career in Britain with a unique blend of orchestrated, almost MOR arrangements with idiosyncratic and morose lyrics. At the height of psychedelia, Walker openly looked to crooners like Sinatra, Jack Jones, and Tony Bennett for inspiration, and to Jacques Brel for much of his material. None of those balladeers, however, would have sung about the oddball subjects — prostitutes, transvestites, suicidal brooders, plagues, and Joseph Stalin — that populated Walker’s songs. His first four albums hit the Top Ten in the U.K. — his second, in fact, reached number one in 1968, in the midst of the hippie era. By the time of 1969’s Scott 4, the singer was writing all of his material. Although this was perhaps his finest album, it was a commercial disappointment, and unfortunately discouraged him from relying entirely upon his own material on subsequent releases.

The ’70s were a frustrating period for Walker, pocked with increasingly sporadic releases and a largely unsuccessful reunion with his “brothers” in the middle of the decade. His work on the Walkers’ final album in 1978 prompted admiration from David Bowie and Brian Eno. After a long period of hibernation, he emerged in 1984 with an album, Climate of Hunter, that drew critical raves for a minimalist, trance-like ambience that showed him keeping abreast of cutting-edge ’80s rock trends.

It would 11 more years before Walker completed his metamorphosis from pop crooner to avant-garde godfather. That would come on 1995’s Tilt, a shocking post-apocalyptic work of art that matched dark, enigmatic songwriting and dissonant orchestral production. Tying it all together was Walker’s inimitable voice, which he pushed to awkward, operatic heights. Tilt was a harrowing listen, but its uncompromising singularity attracted experimental music fans of all types.

Again, it would be 11 years before Walker would release new music, but this time the lag was to no one’s surprise. He had developed a reputation as a perfectionist who operated on his own schedule. When 2006’s The Drift was released on 4AD, Walker again sent shockwaves through the avant-garde community. While Tilt was, in part, adored for its misdirection, The Drift was celebrated for its execution. As the second part of Walker’s late-career trilogy, it took his ornate orchestration to new depths; every second of its nearly 70-minute runtime felt intentional and intricate.

During the next several years, he contributed to soundtracks (To Have and to Hold, The World Is Not Enough, Pola X) and assisted with recordings by Ute Lemper and Pulp. He didn’t release another album until 2006. That year, Walker also contributed the track “Darkness” to Plague Songs for the Margate Exodus project, curated by the British arts organization Artangel. The concept centered around the retelling of the ten plagues of Egypt as recorded in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament. In early 2007, the documentary film Scott Walker: 30 Century Man, premiered. Later that year, Walker released the limited-edition EP And Who Shall Go to the Ball? And What Shall Go to the Ball? Commissioned as a work for ballet by the Candoco Dance Company, it was comprised of a single piece of instrumental music, 24 minutes in length, performed by the London Sinfonietta and cellist Philip Sheppard.

In November of 2008, the musical theater work Drifting and Tilting: The Songs of Scott Walker was staged at London’s Barbican over three evenings. It was comprised of songs from Tilt and The Drift. Walker did not perform, but directed the work from conception to execution including staging, lighting, and orchestra. The vocals were performed by various singers, including Damon Albarn, Dot Allison, and Jarvis Cocker. In 2009, the album Music Inspired by Scott Walker: 30 Century Man appeared, featuring songs inspired by the film sung by Laurie Anderson and other female Walker devotees. Also in 2009, Walker dueted with British singer Natasha Khan on her Bat for Lashes album Two Suns. In 2012, he released Bish Bosch. He regarded it as the third and final part of the trilogy that began with Tilt and continued on The Drift and then surprised many fans with Soused, a collaboration with doom-metal droners Sunn O))), in 2014. The last recording released during his lifetime was the 2018 score to the Brady Corbet-directed film Vox Lux.

Scott Walker died from cancer at age 76 on March 22, 2019. He influenced everyone from Jarvis Cocker (Pulp) to Thom Yorke (Radiohead), and even newer artists like Bat for Lashes. 

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Marty Balin 9/2018

Marty Balin (76) – Jefferson Airplane – was born Martyn Buchwald in Cincinnati, Ohio, on January 30, 1942. He was the son of Catherine Eugenia “Jean” (née Talbot) and Joseph Buchwald. His paternal grandparents had emigrated from Eastern Europe. His father was Jewish and his mother was Episcopalian. Buchwald attended Washington High School in San Francisco, California. As a child, Balin was diagnosed with what is now called autism.

In 1962, Buchwald changed his name to Marty Balin and began recording with Challenge Records in Los Angeles, releasing the singles “Nobody but You” and “I Specialize in Love”. By 1964, Balin was leading a folk music quartet named The Town Criers and along with the late guitarist Paul Kantner, co-founded Jefferson Airplane in 1965, recruiting vocalist Signe Anderson, who when left was replaced by Grace Slick.

Balin was the primary founder of Jefferson Airplane, which he “launched” from a restaurant-turned-club he created and named The Matrix and was also one of its lead vocalists and songwriters from 1965 to 1971. Balin was one of four Jewish members of the band, including bass player Jack Casady, drummer Spencer Dryden and guitarist Jorma Kaukonen. In the group’s 1966–1971 iteration, Balin served as co-lead vocalist alongside Grace Slick. Balin’s songwriting output diminished after Surrealistic Pillow (1967) as Slick, Paul Kantner, and Kaukonen matured as songwriters, a process compounded by personality clashes. 

Balin’s most enduring songwriting contributions were often imbued with a romantic, pop-oriented lilt that was atypical of the band’s characteristic forays into psychedelic rock. Among Balin’s most notable songs were “Comin’ Back to Me” (a folk rock ballad later covered by Ritchie Havens and Rickie Lee Jones), “Today” (a collaboration with Kantner initially written on spec for Tony Bennett that was prominently covered by Tom Scott), and, again with Kantner, the topical 1969 top-100 hit “Volunteers”. Although uncharacteristic of his oeuvre, the uptempo “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds” and “Plastic Fantastic Lover” (both written for Surrealistic Pillow) remained integral components of the Airplane’s live set throughout the late 1960s.

Balin played with Jefferson Airplane at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and at the Woodstock Festival in 1969. In December 1969, Balin was knocked unconscious by members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club while performing during the infamous Altamont Free Concert, as seen in the 1970 documentary film Gimme Shelter. 

In April 1971, he formally departed Jefferson Airplane after breaking off all communication with his bandmates following the completion of their autumn 1970 American tour. He elaborated upon this decision in a 1993 interview with Jeff Tamarkin of Relix.

I don’t know, just Janis’s death. That struck me. It was dark times. Everybody was doing so much drugs and I couldn’t even talk to the band. I was into yoga at the time. I’d given up drinking and I was into totally different area, health foods and getting back to the streets, working with the American Indians. It was getting strange for me. Cocaine was a big deal in those days and I wasn’t a cokie and I couldn’t talk with everybody who had an answer for every goddamn thing, rationalizing everything that happened. I thought it made the music really tight and constrictive and ruined it. So after Janis died, I thought, I’m not gonna go onstage and play that kind of music; I don’t like cocaine.

Balin remained active in the San Francisco Bay Area rock scene, managing and producing an album for the Berkeley-based sextet Grootna before briefly joining funk-inflected hard rock ensemble Bodacious DF as lead vocalist on their eponymous 1973 debut album. The following year, Kantner asked Balin to write a song for his new Airplane offshoot group, Jefferson Starship. Together, they wrote the early power ballad “Caroline”, which appeared on the album Dragon Fly with Balin as guest lead vocalist.

Rejoining the band he had helped to establish, Balin became a permanent member of Jefferson Starship in 1975; over the next three years, he contributed to and sang lead on four top-20 hits, including “Miracles” (No. 3, a Balin original), “With Your Love” (No. 12, a collaboration between Balin, former Jefferson Airplane drummer Joey Covington, and former Grootna/Bodacious DF lead guitarist Vic Smith), Jesse Barish’s “Count on Me” (No. 8), and N. Q. Dewey’s “Runaway” (No. 12). Ultimately, Balin’s relationship with the band was beleaguered by interpersonal problems and his own reluctance toward live performances. He abruptly left the group in October 1978 shortly after Slick’s departure from the band.

In 1979, Balin produced a rock opera titled Rock Justice, about a rock star who was put in jail for failing to produce a hit for his record company, based on his experiences with the lawsuits fought for years with former Jefferson Airplane manager Matthew Katz. The cast recording was produced by Balin, but it did not feature him in performance.

In 1981, he released his first solo album, Balin, and in 1983 a second solo album, Lucky, along with a Japanese-only EP produced by EMI called There’s No Shoulder.

In 1985, he teamed with former Jefferson Airplane members Paul Kantner and Jack Casady to form the KBC Band. After the breakup of the KBC band, a 1989 reunion album and tour with Jefferson Airplane followed.

In 1989, he participated in a short-lived Jefferson Airplane reunion tour and returned four years later to Jefferson Starship, finally leaving for good in 2008.

Jefferson Airplane was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996 and was presented with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016.

While on tour in March 2016, Balin was taken to Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital in New York City after complaining of chest pains. After undergoing open-heart surgery, he was transferred to an intensive-care unit to spend time recovering. In a subsequent lawsuit, Balin alleged that neglect and inadequate care facilities on the hospital’s part had resulted in a paralyzed vocal cord, loss of his left thumb and half of his tongue, bedsores, and kidney damage.

Balin died at his home in Tampa, Florida on September 27, 2018, at the age of 76.

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Aretha Franklin 8/2018

Aretha Franklin 8/2018 (76) was born on March 25, 1942 in Memphis, TN. Her father was a Baptist minister and circuit preacher originally from Shelby, Mississippi, while her mother was an accomplished piano player and vocalist. By age five she had moved with her family to Motor City Detroit.  As a child, young Aretha Franklin was noticed for her gospel singing at New Bethel Baptist Church, where her father was a minister.
Shortly after her mother’s death from a heart attack, Franklin at age 10 began singing solos at New Bethel Baptist Church. When Franklin was 12, shortly after giving birth to her first son, her father, a notorious womanizer, began managing her; he would take her on the road with him, during his “gospel caravan” tours for her to perform in various churches. He also helped her sign her first recording deal with J.V.B. Records. Franklin was featured on vocals and piano. In 1956, J.V.B. released Franklin’s first single, “Never Grow Old”, backed with “You Grow Closer”. “Precious Lord (Part One)” backed with “Precious Lord (Part Two)” followed in 1959.

These four tracks, with the addition of “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood”, were released on side one of the 1956 album, Spirituals. This was reissued by Battle Records in 1962, under the same title. In 1965, Checker Records released Songs of Faith, featuring the five tracks from the 1956 Spirituals album, with the addition of four previously unreleased recordings. Aretha was only 14 when Songs of Faith was recorded.

During this time, Franklin would occasionally travel with the Soul Stirrers. As a young gospel singer, Franklin spent summers on the gospel circuit in Chicago and stayed with Mavis Staples’ family. According to music producer Quincy Jones, while Franklin was still young, Dinah Washington let him know that “Aretha was the ‘next one'”.  Franklin and her father traveled to California, where she met singer Sam Cooke. At the age of 16, Franklin went on tour with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and she would ultimately sing at his funeral in 1968. Other influences in her youth included Marvin Gaye (who was a boyfriend of her sister), as well as Ray Charles and Sam Cooke, “two of Franklin’s greatest influences”. Also important was James Cleveland, known as the King of Gospel music, “who helped to focus her early career as a gospel singer”; Cleveland had been recruited by her father as a pianist for the Southern California Community Choir.

After turning 18, Franklin confided to her father that she aspired to follow Sam Cooke in recording pop music, and moved to New York. Serving as her manager, C. L. Franklin agreed to the move and helped to produce a two-song demo that soon was brought to the attention of Columbia Records, who agreed to sign her in 1960, as a “five-percent” artist (meaning she would receive 5% over all records sold!). Sam Cooke tried to persuade Franklin’s father to sign her with his label, RCA Victor, but she had already decided to go with Columbia. Berry Gordy had also asked Franklin and her elder sister Erma to sign with his Tamla label (Motown), but C.L. Franklin turned Gordy down, as he felt Tamla was not yet an established label. Franklin’s first Columbia single, “Today I Sing the Blues“, was issued in September 1960 and reached the top 10 of the Hot Rhythm & Blues Sellers chart.

But, as her Detroit friends on the Motown label enjoyed hit after hit, Franklin struggled to achieve crossover success. Columbia placed her with a variety of producers who marketed her to both adults (“If Ever You Should Leave Me,” 1963) and teens (“Soulville,” 1964). Without targeting any particular genre, she sang everything from Broadway ballads to youth-oriented rhythm and blues. Critics recognized her talent, but the public remained lukewarm until 1966, when she switched to Atlantic Records, where producer Jerry Wexler helped her to sculpt her own musical identity.

At Atlantic, Franklin returned to her gospel-blues roots, and the results were sensational. “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Love You)” (1967), recorded at Fame Studios in Florence, Alabama, was her first million-seller. Surrounded by sympathetic musicians, including a young Duane Allman) playing spontaneous arrangements and devising the background vocals herself, Franklin refined a style associated with Ray Charles—a rousing mixture of gospel and rhythm and blues—and raised it to new heights. As a civil-rights-minded nation lent greater support to black urban music, Franklin was crowned the “Queen of Soul.” “Respect,” her 1967 cover of Otis Redding’s spirited composition, became an anthem operating on personal, sexual, and racial levels. “Think” (1968), which Franklin wrote herself, also had more than one meaning. For the next half-dozen years, she became a hit maker of unprecedented proportions; she was “Lady Soul.”
In the early 1970s she triumphed at the Fillmore West in San Francisco before an audience of flower children and on whirlwind tours of Europe and Latin America. Amazing Grace (1972), a live recording of her performance with a choir at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles, is considered one of the great gospel albums of any era. By the late 1970s disco cramped Franklin’s style and eroded her popularity. But in 1982, with help from singer-songwriter-producer Luther Vandross, she was back on top with a new label, Arista, and a new dance hit, “Jump to It,” followed by “Freeway of Love” (1985). A reluctant interviewee, Franklin kept her private life private, claiming that the popular perception associating her with the unhappiness of singers Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday was misinformed.
In 1987 Franklin became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In addition, she received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1994, a National Medal of Arts in 1999, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. While her album sales in the 1990s and 2000s failed to approach the numbers of previous decades, Franklin remained the Queen of Soul. In 2009 she electrified a crowd of more than one million with her performance of “My Country ’Tis of Thee” at the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, and her rendition of Carole King’s “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” during the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony in 2015 was no less breathtaking. The documentary Amazing Grace, which chronicles her recording of the 1972 album, premiered in 2018.

Aretha Franklin, the “Queen of Soul” died August 16th, 2018, the same day that Elvis Presley “The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” died 41 years earlier.

It is said that Aretha sang the soul from her experiences of becoming a mother at age 12 and then again 14. It is also known that she lived in violent marriages and as a result became alcohol dependent. Her life was often compared to Tina Turner’s life with Ike. A story published in Vanity Fair exposes this wonderful woman.

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Jim Rodford 1/2018

Jim Rodford (76) – bass player with Argent, the Zombies and the Kinks – was born July 7, 1941 in St Albans, Hertfordshire, England.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s he was a member of the Bluetones, the biggest band in St Albans at the time. Although he did not become a band member at this stage, Rodford was instrumental in helping his younger cousin Rod Argent form the Zombies in 1964. Rodford later joined the Mike Cotton Sound as a bass guitarist.
He played bass guitar for several British rock groups. He was a founding member of Argent, which was led by his cousin Rod Argent, and performed with them from their formation in 1969 until their disbanding in 1976. He was the bass guitarist for The Kinks from 1978 until they disbanded in 1996. In 2004, he joined The Zombies reunited, whom he had been closely associated with since the early 1960s, and remained a member until his death in 2018. He was also a member of The Swinging Blue Jeans and The Kast Off Kinks.

Along with Rod Argent, Rodford was one of the founding members of Argent. When Rod Argent quit the band, the remaining three members (Rodford, Bob Henrit, and John Verity) formed the short-lived band Phoenix. Two years later, Rodford joined the Kinks as bass guitarist in 1978 and played with them until their final disintegration in 1996. From 1999–2001 Rodford appeared in a band that ex-Animals guitarist Hilton Valentine formed, The Animals II, which also featured former Animals drummer John Steel, and keyboardist Dave Rowberry. Rodford continued with this band (which changed its working name to “The Animals and Friends” after Valentine left) until joining Argent and Colin Blunstone in the revival of the Zombies.

Rodford never played with the Zombies in the 1960s, despite having been closely involved with them. However, he began to play the bass guitar with the band’s reincarnation in the early years of the 21st century, with his son Steve on drums.

In 2008, Rodford joined the Kast Off Kinks, on the retirement of John Dalton, whom he had followed into the Kinks after Andy Pyle. In 2009, Jim Rodford regularly played in “The Rodford Files” along with Steve Rodford (Blunstone/Argent band) on drums, Russ Rodford on guitar, and Derik Timms (mOOn Dogs) on guitar, lap steel, slide and vocals.

In 2010, the original line-up of Argent reformed and resumed playing in concert. They mounted a short tour including gigs in Frome, Southampton, Wolverhampton, Leamington Spa and London.

Jim Rodford died after a fall from the stairs on 20 January 2018, at age 76.

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Ray Thomas 1/2018

Ray Thomas (76) -The Moody Blues- was born in Stourport-on-Severn, England on December 29, 1941.
His father taught him at the age of nine to play harmonica, and this sparked his interest in music. He joined the school choir a year later. He quit schooling at the age of 14, and briefly left music to work as a toolmaking trainee at Lemarks. By the age of 16 he had embarked on a search for a music band, and within two years had left his trade to pursue a career in music.

In the 1960s, Thomas joined the Birmingham Youth Choir then began singing with various Birmingham blues and soul groups including The Saints and Sinners and The Ramblers. Thomas began his true musical career with El Riot and the Rebels where he met future Moody Blues bandmate John Lodge. Mike Pinder also joined a couple of years later. On Easter Monday 1963 they opened for the Beatles at the Bridge Hotel, Tenbury Wells.
The band however broke up when Lodge went to college and Pinder entered the army. After his release, Thomas and Pinder began playing together again in the Krew Kuts, eventually bringing in Denny Laine, Graeme Edge and Clint Warwick to form the Moody Blues.
This original version of the band had an international monster hit in 1965 with their second single “Go Now” and followed with their debut album, The Magnificent Moodies but subsequent releases did not do well and, when Warwick retired from music and Laine left the group, they effectively disbanded.

In November 1966, a second version of the Moody Blues formed with the addition of Lodge and Justin Hayward and the head of Decca Records charged them with recording a rock version of Dvorak’s New World Symphony. While that project was never completed, it did set the band on the road to orchestral accompanied rock which came to fruition with their album Days of Future Passed.
Thomas began writing music for the band around this time with the new album including his songs “Another Morning” and “Twilight Time”. He would go on to write other group favorites including “Legend of a Mind”, “Dr. Livingstone, I Presume”, “Dear Diary”, “Are You Sitting Comfortably?” and “For My Lady”.

Between 1967 and 1972, the Moody Blues released seven albums that have gone on to become classics of progressive and orchestral rock including In Search of the Lost Chord, A Question of Balance, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour and Seventh Sojourn but, in 1974, they broke up, allowing Thomas to test the solo waters with the albums From Mighty Oaks (1975) and Hopes, Wishes and Dreams (1976).
The Moody Blues reformed in 1977 and continued to release albums but Thomas’ contributions began to diminish as they moved to a more modern sound in the 80’s. Ray did contribute to their albums during the 90’s but, due to failing health, Thomas stopped touring around the millennium and he left the band in 2002. Hayward and Lodge continued along with Edge, but somehow the magic’s been lost, if only the Moody Blues had all died in a plane crash, they’d be legendary today, living to old age kills your career.

But the Moodys not only had a long run, they also started their own genre, which could be labeled, “symphonic rock,” “art rock,” “classical rock”? They were not limited by trends, so they went their own way, and won. In spite of the fact that they could not be pigeonholed. The band could not be categorized. The band was not destroying hotel rooms. There was little personal mystery, few shenanigans, only music.

Ray Thomas’ contributions were overshadowed by the giants Justin Hayward and John Lodge became. Still he was the dignified guy who played the flute… But in hindsight, he was an integral member of the Moody Blues, and provided leavening no other member could, his compositions were not only for royalties, they added flavor.

Although Thomas most commonly played flute, he was a multi-instrumentalist, who also played piccolo, oboe, harmonica, saxophone, and, on the album In Search of the Lost Chord, the French horn. He frequently played tambourine and also shook maracas during the group’s R&B phase. The 1972 video for “I’m Just a Singer (In a Rock and Roll Band)” features Thomas playing the baritone saxophone, but it is unclear if he actually did play on the recording.

In October 2013, Thomas announced that he had been diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer and was being treated with an experimental drug.

It is not sure if the Moody Blues will ever have a renaissance, they really haven’t even gotten their victory lap, but if you were a fan, and they were legion, the band holds a special place in your heart, there was no competition, they set your mind free, took you on an adventure, AND IT ALL SOUNDED SO GOOD!

Ray Thomas was not a footnote. The Moody Blues were not an also-ran. They were part of the fabric when music drove the culture and ruled the world. And in the eyes and ears of those who were there…

Ray Thomas, the singer and multi-instrumentalist for the Moody Blues, died from a heart attack on Thursday January 4, 2018 after a multi-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 76. He was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as a member of the Moody Blues, just a few months after his death.

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Jimmy Beaumont 10/2017

October 7, 2017 – Jimmy Beaumont (The Skyliners) was born on October 21, 1940 in the Knoxville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, PA. While in his teens he formed the bebop group the Crescents. Joe Rock, a promo man working with Beaumont’s group, one day jotted down the lyrics to a song as he sat in his car at a series of stoplights, lamenting that his girlfriend was leaving for flight attendant school on the West Coast.

Rock took the lyrics to Jimmy Beaumont, who wrote a melody just as quickly as Rock wrote the words to a magical, tearful ballad that soon topped the Cashbox R&B chart and went to No. 3 on the Billboard R&B chart: the title …..“Since I Don’t Have You.”

“I had been listening to all the doo-wop groups from that period — The Platters, The Moonglows. I guess just from listening the melody just came out of me,” Beaumont told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette years later.

Thirteen labels rejected the song as a demo, but the record was released in late December 1958. In short order it went to No. 1 in Pittsburgh, prompting an invitation to “American Bandstand.”  Continue reading Jimmy Beaumont 10/2017

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Rick Stevens 9/2017

rick stevens tower of powerSeptember 5, 2017 – Rick Stevens (Tower of Power) was born Donald Stevenson on February 23, 1941 in Port Arthur, Texas, but didn’t stay there long, as a few years later his parents moved to Reno, Nevada. Rick first sang in public at the tender age of four, when his family set him up on a chair in front of the congregation at their church.

While growing up Rick was greatly influenced by his uncle, singer Ivory Joe Hunter, who was his mother’s younger brother. There was always a great deal of excitement when Uncle Ivory Joe came to visit on breaks from touring around the country with his band. Rick decided early on that he wanted to be a singer, just like his uncle. Ivory Joe was a not only a ground-breaking performer in what at the time was referred to by the record labels as “race music”, he was also a prolific songwriter with hundreds of songs to his credit.

Elvis Presley invited Ivory Joe to Graceland in 1957, and they spent the day singing together, including Ivory Joe’s hit “I Almost Lost My Mind”, among other songs. Hunter commented, “He is very spiritually minded … he showed me every courtesy, and I think he’s one of the greatest”. Elvis recorded five songs written by Ivory Joe: “My Wish Came True” (Top 20), “I Will be True”, “It’s Still Here”, “I Need You So”, and “Ain’t That Loving You Baby” (Top 20).

Like many musically talented teenagers in the late 1950’s Rick was interested in doo-wop, and he joined a singing group called the “Magnificent Marcels”. In the early 1960’s Rick performed in nightclubs around Reno, where he was known as “Mr. Twister”.

Having moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-60’s Rick continued his singing career, fronting various bands that played in local nightclubs. Rick’s bands included “Rick and the Ravens”, and “The Rick Stevens Four” (or Five, depending on how many people were in the band).

Rick joined “Four of a Kind” in 1966, initially in San Francisco, later moving with the band to Seattle. After a short time, Rick moved back to the Bay Area and joined a band called “Stuff”, in which one of the other members was Willie James Fulton (guitar and vocals). Rick and Willie James left “Stuff” and joined Tower of Power at about the same time as drummer David Garibaldi in 1969 and later replaced Rufus Miller as lead vocalist after Rick sang the diamond hit, “Sparkling in the Sand” on Tower of Power’s first album, EAST BAY GREASE. (The only song on that album that made any impact). The next Tower of Power album to hit the charts was BUMP CITY in 1972, and that record features Rick’s signature song, “You’re Still a Young Man”. The album also includes other hits such as “Down to the Night Club” and “You Got to Funkafize”.

Although he is not credited on the third album, the self-titled record, TOWER OF POWER, Rick initially sang all the lead vocals. He also contributed background vocals, which were retained on the record when it was released. The album features several hits such as, “What is Hip”, “Soul Vaccination”, and “Get Your Feet Back on the Ground”, and of course, “So Very Hard to Go”. Rick’s increasing drug dependency lead to Lenny Williams taking over lead vocals, as Rick left the band in 1973 to pursue other avenues of his musical career. After leaving Tower of Power, Rick joined a Bay Area band called “Brass Horizon”, a popular band with a big horn section.

The Stanford Daily – February 25, 1975

Former Tower Singer Heads Brass Horizon
By JOAN E. HINMAN

SAN FRANCISCO – Quick – name Tower of Power’s two biggest hits. Maybe you said “So Very Hard To Go”, the single off Tower’s third album. But if you’re a deranged purist, you named “Sparkling In The Sand”, from East Bay Grease, and “You’re Still A Young Man”, the monster hit off Bump City in 1971.

It was “You’re Still A Young Man” that established Tower as national stars, removing them from the realm of San Francisco funk forever. The song’s amazing success can be explained in two words — Rick Stevens. Stevens emerged as Tower’s lead singer after the success of “Sparkling In The Sand”, the only song on the band’s first album on which he sang lead…

… the excellent set performed by Stevens and his new band, Brass Horizon, Saturday at Yellow Brick Road marks the return of one of the finest vocalists ever to hit the City. The new band, Brass Horizon, is every bit as tight and biting as the famed Tower brass…

…Stevens proved that his voice can still get down and growl on dance tunes, as well as sweep up to carry the pure melody of “You’re Still A Young Man”. … the fine Rick Stevens stage presence that on past occasions made Winterland feel as homey as a living room was evident Saturday. Smiling and jiving with the “mamas” on the dance floor, Stevens was clearly back in the atmosphere he likes best—putting out get-down, good time music.

Then in 1976 it gets quiet around Rick Stevens for the next 36 years as he is sentenced to life in prison for a triple homicide in a drug deal gone wrong. Addicted to drugs he had shot and killed 3 men in a botched deal.

In 2012 Stevens was released on parole. He then formed Rick Stevens & Love Power, which regularly played in Northern California. He also occasionally sat in with Tower of Power, including an appearance at a January 2017 benefit concert for former band members that were hit by a train in Oakland’s Jack London Square.

Rick Stevens passed away on September 5, 2017 after a short battle with liver cancer.

“Rick Stevens went to heaven today to be with the Lord whom he loved with all his heart. Rick was an extremely soulful singer and entertainer who had an engaging personality and a strong faith which he shared with all he came in contact with,” Tower of Power founder Emilio Castillo wrote on the band’s Facebook page.“We loved him and we’ll miss him. I have faith that I’ll see him in heaven someday and together we’ll worship and glorify God together for eternity. Rick is there right now enjoying it!!!”

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Al Jarreau 2/2017

Al Jarreau, vocalist extra ordinaireFebruary 12, 2017 – Al Jarreau was born Alwin Lopez Jarreau on March 12, 1940 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the fifth in a family of 6 children.

His father was a Seventh-day Adventist Church minister and singer, and his mother was a church pianist. Jarreau and his family sang together in church concerts and in benefits, and he and his mother performed at PTA meetings.

Jarreau went on to attend Ripon College, where he also sang with a group called the Indigos. He graduated in 1962 with a Bachelor of Science in psychology. Two years later, in 1964, he earned a master’s degree in vocational rehabilitation from the University of Iowa. Moving to San Franciso during the 1967 summer of love, Jarreau worked as a rehabilitation counselor and moonlighted with a jazz trio headed by George Duke. In San Francisco, Al’s natural musical gifts began to shape his future and by the late 60s, he knew without a doubt that he would make singing his life. He joined forces with acoustic guitarist Julio Martinez to “spell” up-and-coming comics John Belushi, Bette Midler, Robert Klein, David Brenner, Jimmie Walker and others at the famed comedy venue, THE IMPROV and soon the duo became the star attraction at a small Sausalito night club called Gatsby’s. This success contributed to Jarreau’s decision to make professional singing his life and full-time career. Continue reading Al Jarreau 2/2017

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Bobby Freeman 1/2017

Songwriter for Do You want to danceJanuary 23, 2017 – Bobby Freeman was born on June 13, 1940 in Alameda County and raised in San Francisco.

By his early teens Bobby was not only literally singing on street corners in the city’s Fillmore District but also spending every hour not in school dancing at the Booker T Washington community centre. He got his first taste of the record business as a tenor with a local vocal group led by Alvin Thomas; the Romancers, who made two singles for Dootsie Williams’ Dootone label in 1955. The group cut a further single for the local Bay Tone label (on which Freeman does not appear) before splintering, while Bobby formed another team, the Vocaleers. Having learned piano from Thomas, Freeman also began to write his own material in the mould of Little Richard and Fats Domino.

Itinerant deejay Jim “Specs”Hawthorne caught the group at a football rally at Mission High School in early 1958 and called for an audition at Sound Recorders. The rest of the Vocaleers weren’t interested, and so it was just Freeman and a bongo-playing pal who showed up at Sound Recorders in San Francisco. “Hawthorne asked, do you have any original songs, and I said yeah,” Bobby recounted to me in 2000. “He said OK, when I do this [points], start doing the material. There were some other songs, ‘Follow The Rainbow’, ‘Responsible’, and then we got into ‘Do You Wanna Dance’. Where the break is, the song was over. But Hawthorne wanted to get his money’s worth with whatever he was being charged, so he told me, do some more. That’s why the song starts up again – it wasn’t designed that way. But now, they call that a hook.” Continue reading Bobby Freeman 1/2017

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Ronald ‘Bingo’ Mundy 1/2017

Bingo Mundy of the MarcelsJanuary 20, 2017 – Ronald ‘Bingo’ Mungo was born April 20, 1940 in Alleghany County, Pennsylvania. Just out of high school he joined the doo wop group The Marcels, named after a popular 1950s hairstyle ‘the Marcel wave’.

The group formed in 1959 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and signed to Colpix Records with lead Cornelius Harp, bass Fred Johnson, Gene Bricker, Ron Mundy, and Richard Knauss.

In 1961, the Marcels recorded a new version of the ballad “Blue Moon” that began with the bass singer saying, “bomp-baba-bomp” and “dip-da-dip”. A demo tape sent to Colpix Records landed them at New York’s RCA Studios in February 1961 to record, among other things, a rockin’ doo-wop version of the Rodgers and Hart classic “Blue Moon” with an intro they had been using on their take of The Cadillacs’ “Zoom.” As legend has it, the day he heard it, New York DJ Murray the K played “Blue Moon” 26 times in a four-hour show. In March 1961, the song knocked Elvis Presley off the top of the Billboard chart, becoming the first No. 1 rock ’n’ roll hit out of Pittsburgh. Continue reading Ronald ‘Bingo’ Mundy 1/2017

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Sylvester Potts 1/2017

sylvester potts of the ContoursJanuary 6, 2017 – Sylvester Potts (the Contours) was born on January 22, 1938 in Detroit and attended North Eastern High, the same school where Martha Reeves, Mary Wilson, and Bobby Rogers were educated at.

His love of music and the excitement he got from performing, made him once say he wanted to die on stage. In the fall of 1960, a Detroit group called The Contours (consisting of Joe Billingslea, Billy Gordon, Billy Hoggs, Leroy Fair and Hubert Johnson) auditioned for Berry Gordy’s Motown Records. Gordy turned the act down, prompting the group to pay a visit to the home of group member Hubert Johnson’s cousin, R&B star and Gordy associate Jackie Wilson. Wilson in turn got The Contours a second audition with Gordy, at which they sang the same songs they had at the first audition, the same way they claim, but this time were signed to a seven-year contract. Continue reading Sylvester Potts 1/2017

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Ernie Maresca 7/2015

bronx popJuly 8, 2015 – Ernie Maresca was born on August 21st 1938 in the Bronx, New York City.

He began singing and writing in a doo-wop group, the Monterays, later renamed as the Desires, and, after Maresca left, as the Regents, who had a hit with “Barbara Ann”.
In 1957, his demo of his song “No One Knows” came to the attention of Dion DiMucci, who recorded it successfully with the Belmonts on Laurie Records, the record reaching #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 record chart in 1958.

Ernie Maresca was a fairly successful songwriter in the New York doo wop/rock & roll scene in the first half of the 1960s, most known for writing several of Dion’s biggest hits (by himself or in collaboration with Dion): “Runaround Sue,” “The Wanderer,” “Lovers Who Wander,” “A Lover’s Prayer,” and “Donna the Prima Donna.”

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Ben E King 4/2015

Ben E. KingApril 30, 2015 – Ben E King was born on September 28, 1938, became perhaps best known as the singer and co-composer of “Stand by Me”—a US Top 10 hit evergreen, both in 1961 and later in 1986 (when it was used as the theme to the film of the same name), a number one hit in the UK in 1987, and no. 25 on the RIAA’s list of Songs of the Century—and as one of the principal lead singers of the R&B vocal group the Drifters.

When you think of Ben E. King, you don’t think of teenage crushes, even though his songs were the soundtrack for hundreds of millions of them. You think of eternal life and everlasting love, or at least the desire for these things.

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Paul Revere 10/2014

Paul RevereOctober 4, 2014 – Paul Revere was born Paul Revere Dick on January 7, 1938 in Harvard, Nebraska, and grew up in Boise, Idaho.

In his early 20s, he owned several burger restaurants in Caldwell, but in 1958 at the age of 20, he also had formed a group called The Downbeats; it was an instrumental band before he recruited singer Mark Lindsay, then changed the name to Paul Revere & The Raiders in 1960.
As their frontman, keyboardist, he became “The madman of rock and roll” for over 56 years.

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Fingers Lee 1/2014

Freddie Fingers LEEJan. 13, 2014 – Freddie Fingers Lee was born Frederick John Cheesman in Chopwell, Durham, England in 1937. As a child an accident with a dart led to the loss of his right eye. Throughout his life he made light of his disability and refused to let it be a handicap. Though hardly a household name, Lee was a wild and notorious presence on the UK rock and roll scene from the early ’60s up to his death. Born in 1937, he lost his right eye at the age of three after an accident with a stray dart thrown by his father. According to the North Hampton Chronicle, Lee’s daughter remembers her father occasionally dropping his glass eye in people’s drinks while they weren’t looking. “He was the most unconventional dad ever, but I wouldn’t of had it any other way.”

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Bobby Smith 3/2013

Bobby SmithMarch 16, 2013 – Bobby Smith was born in Detroit, Michigan on April 10, 1936. He became the principal lead singer of the classic Motown group, The Spinners at the group’s inception in 1954.

The group, first called The Domingoes, was formed at Ferndale High School, where Bobby took over from James Edwards who lasted only 2 weeks. The Spinners also known as the Detroit Spinners or the Motown Spinners, had their first hit, with Bobby singing lead, “That’s What Girls Are Made For” in 1961, (which has been inaccurately credited to the group’s mentor and former Moonglows lead singer, the late Harvey Fuqua).

Over the years, the group earned half a dozen Grammy award nominations and around a dozen gold records including “Truly Yours”, “I’ll Always Love You”,in 1965. “I’ll Be Around”, “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love”, “They Just Can’t Stop It the (Games People Play)”. In 1974 they scored their only No.1 hit with “Then Came You”, (sung by Smith, in a collaboration with superstar Dionne Warwick).

Smith sang lead on most of the group’s Motown material during the 1960s, and almost all of the group’s pre-Motown material on Fuqua’s Tri-Phi Records label, and also on The Spinners’ biggest Atlantic Records hits. These included “I’ll Be Around”, “Could It Be I’m Falling in Love”, “They Just Can’t Stop It the (Games People Play)”. In 1974, they scored their only #1 Pop hit with “Then Came You”

Despite the fact that Bobby Smith led on many of the group’s biggest hits, many have erroneously credited most of the group’s success to only one of its three lead singers, the late Philippé Wynne. (Henry Fambrough also sang lead on many of the Spinners’ songs.) The confusion between Smith and Wynne may be due to the similarities in their voices, and the fact that they frequently shared lead vocals on many of those hits.

In fact Wynne was many times inaccurately credited for songs that Smith actually sang lead on, such as by the group’s label, Atlantic Records, on their Anthology double album collection (an error corrected in the group’s later triple CD set, The Chrome Collection). Throughout a succession of lead singers (Wynne, John Edwards, G. C. Cameron etc.), Smith’s lead voice had always been The Spinners’ mainstay.

With the March 16, 2013 death of Bobby Smith at age 76, from pneumonia and influenza, as well as fellow Spinners members C. P. Spencer in 2004, Billy Henderson in 2007, and bass singer Pervis Jackson in 2008, Henry Fambrough is now the last remaining original member of the group. Fambrough may still be performing with a current day line-up of the Spinners.

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Ramses Shaffy 12/2009

Ramses ShaffyDecember 1, 2009 – Ramses Shaffy was born in Paris on August 29th 1933  in the suburb Neuilly-sur-Seine. His father was an Egyptian diplomat and his mother was a Polish-Russian countess. He grew up with his mother in Cannes. When she was infected with tuberculosis, Shaffy was sent to an aunt in Utrecht in the Netherlands and eventually ended up in a foster family in the city of Leiden.

He did not finish high school, but he was accepted at the Amsterdam school of theatre arts in 1952. In 1955, he made his debut with the Nederlandse Comedie. He went to Rome’s Civitavecchia in 1960 aspiring to be a film actor, but was unsuccessful in the endeavor.

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Miriam Makeba 11/2008

November 10, 2008 – miriam8Zenzile Miriam Makeba was born on March 4th 1932 in Johannesburg South Africa. Growing up in the midst of South Africa’s Apartheid policies, Miriam Makeba became amongst many things, a woman of great vision who saw far into the future, and with an uncanny and acute sense of history. With the world in a fast moving switch away from colonialism and despicable policies of segregation and apartheid, Miriam stood in the center of many “controversial” actions. For her actions, she was exiled from South Africa for 30 years, during which time she earned the tributal nickname “Mama Afrika”.

As a singer of South African folk songs about repression, she was the first one to find a global audience. Her 1957 song Pata Pata became a huge success in the USA 10 years later. Continue reading Miriam Makeba 11/2008

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Ike Turner 12/2007

Ike TurnerDecember 12, 2007 – Ike Wister Turner  was born on November 5th, 1931 in Clarksdale, Mississippi. By the time he was 8 years old he was working at the local Clarksdale radio station, WROX, as an elevator boy, soon he was helping the visiting musicians and doing all sorts around the radio stations.

He met many musicians such as Robert Nighthawk, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Little Walter and his idol Pinetop Perkins taught the young Ike to play boogie-woogie on the piano.

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Johnny Grande 6/2006

johnny-grandeJune 3, 2006 – John A. Johnny Grande (Bill Haley and the Comets) was born on January 14th 1930 in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a musical family. His uncle once played in the band of John Philip Sousa, but his father wanted Grande to follow him into the coal hauling business. Grande preferred music, and learned to play the music from “La Traviata” on the accordion.

He played backup for polka and country players like Tex Ritter until he signed a partnership with Bill Haley in the late 1940s to form Bill Haley and His Four Aces of Western Swing. Haley was a great yodeler.

They later called themselves the Saddlemen, before settling on the Comets, which was the name of the band in 1951, when it covered Jackie Brenston’s “Rocket 88,” considered by many the very first rock and roll song.

The Comets had a more urbane image: They traded in their Stetsons for suits and ties, and Grande played piano on most numbers.

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Link Wray 11/2005

Link WaryNovember 5, 2005 – Link Wray (Frederic Lincoln) was born in Dunn, North Carolina on May 2nd, 1929. Link’s family was very poor.  As Link has said, “Elvis came from welfare, I came from below welfare.”  Link’s mom was Shawnee Indian sporting his interest in music when Link was 8.  He was sitting on the porch trying to play guitar when an old black guitar player named HAMBONE walked by and taught him the sound of the blues.  Link has said as soon as HAMBONE started playing bottleneck slide guitar, he was hooked.  He knew what he wanted to do. At age 13, Link’s family moved to Portsmouth, Virginia.

Link’s first band was in the late 40’s with his brothers Vernon and Doug, playing Western Swing. As Link put it, “rock and roll before it was rock and roll.”

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Hildegard Knef 2/2002

Hildegard KnefFebruary 1, 2002 – Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef was born December 28, 1925 in the city of Ulm, Germany. (The German PEGGY LEE)

In 1940, she began studying acting. Even before the fall of the Third Reich, she appeared in several films, but most of them were only released after the war. To avoid being raped by Soviet soldiers, she dressed like a young man and was sent to a camp for prisoners of war. She escaped and returned to war-shattered Berlin where she played her first parts on stage. The first German movie after World War II, Murderers Among Us (1946), made her a star. David O. Selznick invited her to Hollywood and offered her a contract – with two conditions: Hildegard Knef should change her name into Gilda Christian and should pretend to be Austrian instead of German. In America she appeared on Broadway as “Ninotchka” in the Cole Porter musical, Silk Stockings.

She refused both of Selznick’s conditions and returned to Germany. In 1951, she provoked one of the greatest scandals in German film history when she appeared naked on the screen in the movie Sunderin (1951). The Roman Catholic Church protested vehemently against that film, but Hildegard just commented: “I can’t understand all that tumult – five years after Auschwitz!”

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Papa John Creach 2/1994

Papa John CreachFebruary 22, 1994 – Papa John Creach (Jefferson Airplane) was  born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania on May 28th, 1917.

At age 18, he began playing violin in Chicago bars when the family moved there in 1935, and eventually joined a local cabaret band, the Chocolate Music Bars. Moving to L.A. in 1945, he played in the Chi Chi Club, spent time working on an ocean liner, appeared in “a couple of pictures”, and performed as a duo with Nina Russell.

In 1967, Creach met and befriended drummer Joey Covington. When Covington joined the Jefferson Airplane in 1970, he introduced Creach to them, and they invited him to join Hot Tuna. Though regarded as a session musician, he remained with the band for four years, before leaving in 1974 to join Jefferson Starship and record on their first album, Dragon Fly. Creach toured with Jefferson Starship and played on the band’s hit album Red Octopus in 1975. Around 1976, Creach left to pursue a solo career. Despite this, he was a guest musician on the spring 1978 Jefferson Starship tour.

A year later, Creach renewed his working relationship with Covington as a member of the San Francisco All-Stars, as well as with Covington’s Airplane predecessor, Spencer Dryden, as a member of The Dinosaurs. He also continued occasional guest appearances with Hot Tuna, and was on stage at the Fillmore Auditorium in 1988 when Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen of Hot Tuna reunited with Paul Kantner and Grace Slick for the first time since Jefferson Airplane disbanded.
In 1992, he became one of the original members of Jefferson Starship – The Next Generation and performed with them until he sadly succumbed to pneumonia and congestive heart failure on February 22, 1994.

Papa John Creach suffered a heart attack during the ’94 Northridge California earthquake on January 17th. This led to him contracting pneumonia, from which he died a month later. He was 76 years old.

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Willie Dixon 1/1992

Willie DixonJanuary 29, 1992 – Willie Dixon was born July 1st 1915 in Vicksburg, Mississippi. His mother Daisy often rhymed the things she said, a habit her son imitated. At the age of seven, young Dixon became an admirer of a band that featured pianist Little Brother Montgomery. He sang his first song at Springfield Baptist Church at the age of four. Dixon was first introduced to blues when he served time on prison farms in Mississippi as an early teenager.

He later learned how to sing harmony from local carpenter Leo Phelps. Dixon sang bass in Phelps’ group The Jubilee Singers, a local gospel quartet that regularly appeared on the Vicksburg radio station WQBC. Dixon began adapting poems he was writing as songs, and even sold some tunes to local music groups. By the time he was a teenager, Dixon was writing songs and selling copies to the local bands. With his bass voice, Dixon later joined a group organized by Phelps, the Union Jubilee Singers, who appeared on local radio. Continue reading Willie Dixon 1/1992

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Memphis Minnie 8/1973

blues singer/songwriter/guitarist memphis MinnieAugust 6, 1973 – Memphis Minnie was born Lizzie Douglas on June 3, 1897 in Algiers, Louisiana, just outside New Orleans.

She was the eldest of 13 siblings. Her parents, Abe and Gertrude Douglas, nicknamed her Kid when she was young, and her family called her that throughout her childhood. It is reported that she disliked the name Lizzie. When she first began performing, she played under the name Kid Douglas.
When she was 7, she and her family moved to Walls, Mississippi, south of Memphis. The following year she received her first guitar, as a Christmas present. She learned to play the banjo by the age of 10 and the guitar by the age of 11, when she started playing at parties.

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