Tag: 79

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Christine McVie – 11/2022

Christine McVieChristine McVie was born Christine Anne Perfect on July 12, 1943, in the Lake District of England to Cyril Perfect, a classical violinist and college music professor and Beatrice (Reece) Perfect, a psychic.
Her father encouraged her to start taking classical piano lessons when she was 11. Her focus changed radically four years later when she came across some sheet music for Fats Domino songs. At that moment “It was goodbye Chopin.”
“I started playing the boogie bass. I got hooked on the blues. And the songs I write use that left hand. It’s rooted in the blues.”

Christine Perfect studied sculpture at Birmingham Art College and for a while considered becoming an art teacher. At the same time, she briefly played in a duo and had a personal relationship with Welsh guitarist Spencer Davis, who, along with a teenage Steve Winwood, would later find fame in the Spencer Davis Group. She also helped form a band named Shades of Blue with several future members of Chicken Shack.

After graduating from college in 1966, she moved to London and became a window dresser for a department store.
As the sixties started swinging, she started performing with bands, eventually falling in with blues group Chicken Shack. Later, she was asked to join Chicken Shack as keyboardist and sometime singer. She wrote two songs for the band’s debut album, “40 Blue Fingers, Freshly Packed and Ready to Serve.” Even though her style never totally fitted with the group’s more raucous sound, the subtler songs she fronted ended up finding the greatest commercial success. She scored a No. 14 British hit with Chicken Shack on a cover of Etta James’s “I’d Rather Go Blind” for which she sang lead and Melody Maker readers voted her best female vocalist in both 1969 and 70. While Chicken Shack supported Fleetwood Mac on tour, Christine Perfect fell in love with Mac’s bassist John McVie and they married in 1968. Christine McVie served in Fleetwood Mac during several incarnations that dated to 1971, but she also had uncredited roles playing keyboards and singing backup as far back as the band’s second album, released in 1968. Continue reading Christine McVie – 11/2022

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Judith Durham – 8/2022

Judith Durham, born Judith Mavis Cock in Melbourne, Australia (3 July 1943 – 5 August 2022) would for most rock and roll aficionados not belong on a tribute website for rock heroes. But when I learned of her passing last week, I realized that many of her early songs with the Seekers played an important part in my early rock and roll involvement – from learning to play guitar to appreciation for soft melodic rock during the early years of my teenage awareness. Also, Judith had a voice that mastered and actually stood out in almost every category of 60’s modern music. She could sweet voice you into folksy romance, belt it out in jazz rock, make you inconspicuously suffer the blues or lead the pack in a pop song. She could even sing the classics.

Early in life Judith believed her future would be as a pianist. She went on to gain her Associate In Music, Australia (A.Mus.A.) in classical piano as a student of world-renowned concert pianist Professor Ronald Farren-Price at the Melbourne University Conservatorium, with her first professional engagement in the arts playing piano for a ballet school.

Still in her teens, although excelling on piano, little Judy Cock dreamed of fame singing opera or musical comedy and in 1961, aged 18, she was ready to begin classical vocal training.  One night, just for fun, she ‘sat in’ with a trad jazz band at a local dance called “Memphis”, and found instant success performing blues, gospels, and jazz standards of the 1920s and 1930s, also developing as a serious ragtime pianist. She began using her mother’s maiden name, and at 19 she made her first record, an EP for W&G “Judy Durham” with Frank Traynor’s Jazz Preachers.

Meanwhile, by day since leaving school, Judy’s first job was as Secretary to the Pathologist at the Royal Victorian Eye & Ear Hospital, but on taking a new secretarial job at J Walter Thompson Advertising, on her first day she met account executive Athol Guy.  Athol played acoustic bass and also sang bass in a trio called The Seekers and invited her that very night to come and join him and the two guitarists Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley, to sing acoustic four-part harmony folk and gospel at a Melbourne coffee lounge “Treble Clef”.  Still singing regularly with various jazz bands nearly every other night, she then became a regular every Monday with The Seekers.  Adopting her birth name Judith, she recorded an album with The Seekers for W&G, appeared on local TV, then set sail for London in 1964 on “SS Fairsky” for a 10-week stay, singing for their supper on board.

On the advice of Australian entertainer Horrie Dargie, the group sent the album and TV footage ahead to a big theatrical agency, The Grade Organisation, and on their arrival in ‘swinging London’, agent Eddie Jarrett booked them extensively in clubs, TV, and variety theatre.  He asked Tom Springfield (Dusty’s brother) to write and produce a single, resulting in the surprise chart-topper “I’ll Never Find Another You” which made The Seekers the first Australian group ever to hit No.1 internationally, made Judith Australia’s very first international pop princess and pin-up girl, and unexpectedly cemented her in the group as a full-time Seeker.

The next few years brought The Seekers worldwide adulation, with tours, more albums, and a succession of huge and lasting hits including “A World Of Our Own”, “The Carnival Is Over” and “Morningtown Ride”, which rivalled all the top groups like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones for the No.1 spot.  The Seekers’ biggest international seller was “Georgy Girl”, originally written (music by Tom Springfield, words by Jim Dale) and recorded as the title song for the movie starring Lynn Redgrave, James Mason, Charlotte Rampling and Alan Bates.  The song was nominated for an Academy Award® and the single made history when the group became the first Australians ever to reach the No.1 spot in the USA.

In 1967, The Seekers set an official all-time record when more than 200,000 people (nearly one tenth of the city’s entire population at that time!) flocked to their performance at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne.  Their TV special ‘The Seekers Down Under’ scored the biggest TV audience ever (with a 67 rating), and early in 1968 they were all awarded the nation’s top honour as “Australians Of The Year 1967”.

But 24 year old Judith wanted to spread her wings, and without any notion of the lasting universal grief to be suffered by shocked Seekers fans worldwide, she plucked up courage to give ‘the boys’ six months’ notice.  She was to leave the group in July 1968 to return to Australia … possibly to pursue a career as a solo singer in opera or musical theater … and she hoped to find ‘Mr. Right’.

The surprise for Judith was to receive offers as a solo artist, so she asked a London-based freelance musician, Ron Edgeworth, to be her musical director, pianist and arranger and a couple of years later her Mr. Right.  In big demand as a London-based freelance musician, Ron had worked with all the big names, and had earlier toured and recorded with the legendary Alexis Korner’s All Stars.

From there on Judith started her solo career, with an occasional Seekers reunion over the years, and also focused on composing and writing music. Her one-woman shows stunned audiences and critics with her unique gift for singing in all styles – from folk to country, jazz to pop, blues to gospel, original songs, ragtime piano and even classical.

An indelible mark was made with Judith’s transition into her now classic mid-70s trad jazz recordings with bands she formed with Ron in San Francisco and London.  “The Hottest Band In Town Collection” is now available though Universal.  They also released a legendary album of their piano and voice performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1978 (“The Hot Jazz Duo”).

Through the 80s Judith Durham and Ron Edgeworth based themselves on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia, and for the first time Judith concentrated totally on writing and performing her own compositions, even completing a full scale musical “Gotta Be Rainbows” with book written by eminent playwright Ian Austin.  Having experienced her very first songwriting success in 1967 with co-writer David Reilly on The Seekers classic “Colours Of My Life”, by the 80s Judith had developed through the decades as a remarkably talented and prolific composer of both lyrics and music, writing more than 300 works.

After the untimely passing of her husband in 1994,  51 year old Judith, went back into recording albums and touring. In 1996 Judith again toured the UK as a solo artist with the release of “Mona Lisas” (later repackaged as “Always There” in Australia), her Abbey Road album of legendary 60s and 70s covers produced by the late Gus Dudgeon.

To welcome in the new millennium with delighted Seekers fans around the world, she embarked on The Seekers ‘Carnival Of Hits Tour 2000’, and in 2001 Judith celebrated her own remarkable life-long musical journey in her “40th Anniversary” Australian concert tour.

In the same year, as an unexpected treat for loyal Seekers fans, Judith recorded with ‘the boys’ the album “Morningtown Ride To Christmas”, and late in 2002 a double album “Night Of Nights … Live!” was released after The Seekers’ Australian tour, in conjunction with The Seekers’ Australia Post Souvenir Stamp Sheet commemorating 40 years of musical magic from Australia’s first-ever international pop icons.

2003 was one of Judith’s busiest and most artistically satisfying years ever. In March she toured Australia with ‘the boys’ on The Seekers` `Never Say Never Again! Tour` which was received joyfully by fans all over the country – and with barely a month to get ready, she flew to the UK for her massive solo tour. Highlight after highlight followed, leading up to the Magic Date of December 3, 2013, the 50th Birthday of the Seekers.

Judith was thrilled to embark on a whole year of celebration – marking half a century of Seekers music. Judith found herself back in the studio with the group recording and filming two standout tracks for ‘The Golden Jubilee Album: 50 Tracks For 50 Years’.  “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” and the visual feast of “In My Life” were destined to be standout moments in ‘The Golden Jubilee Tour’, when The Seekers hit the road in May/June 2013.

Following the media frenzy of their 50th Birthday Party in Melbourne came yet another accolade for The Seekers – the presentation of a 24-carat gold ‘stamp’ by Australia Post as part of their ‘Legends of Australian Music’ series – and the official handover of the portrait of the group to the National Portrait Gallery, painted by Helen Edwards, “The Seekers Reunite 50 Years On”.

The group announced and then sold-out a ‘Golden Jubilee Tour’ of Australia, which was abruptly halted when Judith suffered a brain hemorrhage after the first of four sold-out nights in Melbourne.  Six months of hospitalisation and rehabilitation followed – during which time Judith’s commemorative ‘Platinum Album’ was released to mark her 70th birthday – before she was given the green light for the Australian tour to resume. Another sold-out tour of New Zealand followed, before The Seekers toured the United Kingdom, performing 18 sold-out show culminating in two packed houses at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

Just prior to the return to Australia, The Seekers were advised that they had individually been awarded the Order of Australia (AO) – one of the highest honours that can be bestowed on Australian citizens.  Judith would add yet another honour to her tally by being named Victorian of the Year 2015 the following year.

Also, in 2015, Georgy Girl: The Seekers Musical opened to packed house in Melbourne, before moving on to successful seasons in Sydney and Perth.  Among the production’s many musical numbers were Judith’s “Mama’s Got the Blues” and “I Remember”, and “Colours of my Life”, which she co-wrote with David Reilly.

Judith undertook a solo ‘farewell’ tour of New Zealand, playing 18 sold-out concerts as her Colours of my Life compilation CD soared to No. 2 on the charts there.

And in 2018, Ambition Entertainment packaged The Seekers’ three record-breaking 60s TV spectacular into one magnificent collector’s edition set, The Seekers: The Legendary Television Specials.  Proving again that the music of The Seekers is timeless and much loved, the DVD set reached No. 1 on the ARIA chart!

Another highlight of 2018 is the release of Judith’s first solo studio album in six years.  Timed to mark Judith’s 75th birthday, So Much More is a collection of beautiful songs that Judith Durham has composed with some immensely talented writers and musicians from around the world – all lovingly crafted, and superbly sung.

These never-before-released tracks tell of hope and courage, pain and loss, all-consuming devotion, uplifting spirituality, friendship, and a profound love of Australia and its indigenous heritage.

Durham was born with asthma and at age four she caught measles, which left her with a life-long chronic lung disease, bronchiectasis. Durham died from bronchiectasis on 5 August 2022, at age 79. She definitely avoided the “Rock and Roll lifestyle” during her life, without smoking, little to no alcohol, a vegetarian since 1968 and a vegan in later life.

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Vangelis 5/2022

17 May 2022  – Vangelis (Greek film composer and keyboards-synthesizer for Aphrodite’s Child). Vangelis was born Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou on March 29, 1943 in the Greek town of Agria. He was a self-taught musician who became a young piano prodigy. Then he moved to Paris and co-founded with Demis Roussos, the popular prog-rock group Aphrodite’s Child. After several global mega hits the band eventually split and Vangelis got a solo record deal with RCA Records, while still collaborating often with Roussos.

In 1981 he composed the score for Chariots of Fire. Its opening theme, with its uplifting inspirational swell and ornate arrangement, was released as a single and reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100. His efforts earned him a win for best original score at the Academy Awards.

The success led him to other film work. Notably, he composed the soundtrack for the original Blade Runner, as well as Carl Sagan’s PBS documentary series Cosmos. Outside of composing scores, Vangelis was prolific in his solo career, regularly releasing albums up until 2021’s Juno to Jupiter.

While he was most associated with the synthesizer, the instrument was also a source of frustration for him. “I’ve been using synthesizers for so many years, but they’ve never been designed properly. They create a lot of problems.” he told NPR in 2016. “The computers have completely different logic than the human logic.” So for his 2016 record Rosetta, dedicated to the space probe of the same name, he built his own synthesizer.

Vangelis had a lifelong interest in space which was reflected in his music — in its breadth and atmosphere. He believed that there was something inherent in humans to want to discover — whether that meant up in the sky or in a studio. For Vangelis, becoming a musician was never a conscious decision. “It’s very difficult not to make music,” Vangelis told NPR in 1977. “It’s as natural as I eat, as I make love. Music is the same.”

Vangelis, who gave the movie Chariots of Fire its signature synth-driven sound, died on the May 17, 2022 in a hospital in Paris, due to heart failure.. He was 79 years old.

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Bobby Rydell 4/2022

Bobby Rydell (80) – early teen idol – was born on April 26, 1942 in Philadelphia and was the son of Jennie Ridarelli (née Sapienza) and Adrio “Al” Ridarelli. Both of his parents were of Italian descent. He grew up in the Lower Moyamensing neighborhood of South Philadelphia.

As a child, he mimicked the singers he saw on television, and at the age of seven his father Adrio took him around the clubs of Philadelphia, asking if he could sing and do some impersonations. Adrio loved big-band jazz and often took his son to see his favorite bands, including Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw. Bobby shared his dad’s enthusiasm for the music, and inspired by Goodman‘s flashy drummer Gene Krupa, he began learning to play the drums. Bobby soon showed he had the skills to be an all-around entertainer, and by the time he was eight, he was singing at local nightspots. At the age of nine, he made his television debut, appearing on a talent showcase, TV Teen Club, hosted by bandleader Paul Whiteman. The show marked his first appearance using the stage name Bobby Rydell; legend had it Whiteman suggested the more streamlined name since he had trouble pronouncing Ridarelli. Whiteman was impressed with Rydell’s voice and likable persona, and the young singer became a regular on the show.

Rydell played in several bands in the Philadelphia area. As a 14-year-old he was the drummer for the Emanons (NoName spelled backward) which included his childhood friend Pat Azzara on guitar. Azzara later assumed the stage name Pat Martino, and went on to achieve recognition as one of the preeminent jazz guitarists of all time. Another band was Rocco and the Saints, in which he sang and played drums. After releasing three unsuccessful singles for small companies, he signed a recording contract with Cameo Records. This was run by Bernie Lowe, who had been the pianist accompanying him on TV Teen Club. After a couple of flops, “Kissin’ Time” made the charts in 1959. In May 1960, Rydell toured Australia with The Everly Brothers, Billy “Crash” Craddock, Marv Johnson, The Champs, The Crickets, and Lonnie Lee.

Rydell was on his way to become a rock and roll teen sensation. Along with Frankie Avalon and Fabian, Rydell was one of the leading Philadelphia-based stars who dominated the pop charts (and the TV show American Bandstand) in the years after Elvis Presley went into the Army and before the British Invasion changed the landscape of rock & roll. Rydell had both talent and charm, and sustained a career as a singer longer than many of his peers; he was in demand as a live performer decades after his days as a hitmaker ended in 1964.

But Between 1959 and 1964, Rydell would place 19 songs into the Pop Top 40, including “Wild One,” “Swingin’ School,” “Sway,” and “Volare.” Rydell was also a popular live attraction, selling out shows across the country and headlining concert tours in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

His second success was “We Got Love“. The album of the same name, his first, sold a million copies and obtained gold disc status. “Wild One” was followed with “Little Bitty Girl” which was his second million-selling single. He continued releasing hit songs with “Swingin’ School” backed by “Ding-A-Ling” and “Volare” later in 1960, which also sold over a million copies. It is estimated he sold over 25 million records in total.

In 1961, he performed at the Copacabana in New York City, where he was the youngest performer to headline at the nightclub. In February 1961, he appeared at the Festival du Rock at the Palais des Sports de Paris in Paris, France.

Rydell’s success and prospects led his father, Adrio, a foreman at the Electro-Nite Carbon Company in Philadelphia, to resign in 1961 after 22 years to become his son’s road manager.

In 1963, Rydell released the song “Wildwood Days“, which reached Number 17 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and remained there for nine weeks. A mural on the Wildwood, New Jersey, boardwalk, painted in 2014, honors Rydell, whose song placed the community in the national spotlight.

That same year, Rydell portrayed Hugo Peabody in the film version of Bye Bye Birdie, also starring Ann-Margret and Dick Van Dyke. The original stage production of Bye Bye Birdie had no real singing role for the character of Hugo, but the movie script was rewritten specifically to expand the part for Rydell. In 2011, Sony Pictures digitally restored the film. Rydell and Ann-Margret were in attendance at the restoration premiere in Beverly Hills, hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

During the 1960s, Rydell had numerous hit records on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. His recording career earned him 34 Top 100 hits, placing him in the top five artists of his era (Billboard). They included his most popular successes: “Wild One” (his highest scoring single, at number 2), “Volare” (number 4), “Swingin’ School” (number 5), “Kissin’ Time” (number 11), “Sway” (number 14), “I’ve Got Bonnie” (number 18), and “The Cha-Cha-Cha” (number 10). His last major chart success was “Forget Him“, which reached number 4 on the Hot 100 in January 1964. The song, written by Tony Hatch, was his fifth and final gold disc winner.

Rydell left Cameo-Parkway Records later in 1964 and signed with Capitol Records. By that point, the British Invasion had arrived and acts such as Rydell suffered a dramatic decline in popularity. Bands such as The Beatles became more popular, and Rydell unknowingly inspired John Lennon and Paul McCartney to write “She Loves You“, a song which paved the way for their success in the US.

During that time, he performed on many television programs, including The Red Skelton Show, where a recurring role as Zeke Kadiddlehopper, Clem Kadiddlehopper’s younger cousin, was written for him by Skelton. He also appeared on The Danny Thomas Show, Jack Benny, Joey Bishop, and The George Burns Show. He was a regular on The Milton Berle Show and was a panelist on To Tell the Truth in 1964. On October 6, 1964, he made a guest appearance on the episode “Duel” of the television series Combat!. It was Rydell’s first dramatic acting role.

In January 1968, it was announced in the UK music magazine NME (New Musical Express) that Rydell had signed a long-term recording contract with Reprise Records. He then continued to perform in nightclubs, supper clubs and Las Vegas venues throughout the 1970s and 1980s, but his career was hampered by the refusal by ABKCO Records to reissue Rydell’s Cameo-Parkway catalog, so it was completely unavailable until 2005, although he did re-record his hits in 1995 for K-tel Records. He had one more hit after 1965, a disco re-recording of “Sway”, which reached the Billboard Easy Listening chart in 1976.

In 1985, promoter Dick Fox approached Rydell about appearing in a special for PBS in which he would perform alongside fellow Philadelphia teen idols Frankie Avalon and Fabian. Rydell agreed, and the show, called “The Golden Boys,” clicked with viewers. In response, Fox booked a concert tour for the Golden Boys, with Rydell and his co-stars discovering their old fans were still eager to see them perform. The Golden Boys tours would provide the backbone of Rydell’s career well into the 2010s, and when a long struggle with alcoholism led to him receiving kidney and liver transplants in July 2012, he was back at work the following October. March 2013 saw him sidelined again when he had cardiac bypass surgery, but ever the trooper, Rydell bounced back to play an 11-date Australian tour in February 2014. His autobiography was published in 2016.

Bobby Rydell maintained a steady touring schedule into the final years of his life; he died on April 5, 2022 due to complications of pneumonia. He was 79 years old.

• In additional to the Grease namecheck, Rydell’s legacy lives on in his hometown area, where at least two streets bear his name, and in the 2018 Oscar-winning film Green Book, in which he was portrayed by actor Von Lewis.

• His influence can also be heard in one of the most enduring and popular songs of the 1960s: The Beatles’ “She Loves You.” Paul McCartney has said that he and John Lennon were inspired to write the instantly famous “yeah yeah yeah” lyrics after hearing a similar call-and-response approach in a popular Rydell song, most likely the 1960 hit “Swingin’ School,” in which Rydell sings, “Yeah yeah yeah I go a swingin’ school.”

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Ron Bushy 8/2021

Ron Bushy (79) – Iron Butterfly – was born on December 23, 1941 in Washington DC. Little is recorded on how he ended up on the west coast but, following the band’s relocation from San Diego to Los Angeles, replacing previous drummer Bruce Morse, who left due to a family emergency. Bushy became part of the group’s classic lineup, along with vocalist and keyboardist Doug Ingle, guitarist Erik Brann, and bassist Lee Dorman.

Continue reading Ron Bushy 8/2021

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Jerry Jeff Walker 10/2020

Jerry Jeff Walker was born  Ronald Clyde Crosby on March 16, 1942, in Oneonta, N.Y.

A native of New York, Walker spent his early career as a folkie in Greenwich Village in NYC. It was there that he wrote and recorded “Mr. Bojangles,” in the mid-1960s after having spent a night in a New Orleans jail where he met a man who “danced a lick across the cell.” Walker released the song as the title track of a 1968 solo album, shortly after he left the New York band Circus Maximus. In 1971, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band took “Mr. Bojangles” to No. 9 on the pop charts. 

This is the tribute to a man who wrote only one true hit, that turned into a folk rock standard like Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”.

Walker was heading to California when he stopped in Austin and ended up staying. Along with Willie Nelson’s move here a couple of years later, Walker’s arrival helped to herald a prosperous time for Austin music, with terms such as “outlaw country” and “cosmic cowboy” used to describe the music Walker and others were making.

In Walker’s words:

“The mid-’70s in Austin were the busiest, the craziest, the most vivid and intense and productive period of my life. Greased by drugs and alcohol, I was also raising the pursuit of wildness and weirdness to a fine art. I didn’t just burn the candle at both ends, I was also finding new ends to light.”

Walker found a new adopted home in Austin, Texas, just as the city’s alternative country scene was being formed. He became one of the regular performers at Austin’s iconic Armadillo World Headquarters, playing with his Lost Gonzo Band on backup, and a member of the city’s legendary group of outlaw country stars. Walker sang backing vocals on bandmate Gary P. Nunn’s “London Homesick Blues,” which became the longtime theme song to the music performance TV show “Austin City Limits.”

Walker’s 1973 live album “Viva Terlingua!” — recorded not in the West Texas town of Terlingua but in the hill country hamlet of Luckenbach — became a touchstone for that era. His influence looms large even today, as dozens of Texas country roadhouse bands and troubadours are essentially still following the same path that Walker blazed in the ’70s.

“Other than Willie, Jerry Jeff is the most important musician to happen to Austin, Texas, I would have to say,” Asleep at the Wheel leader Ray Benson. “He really brought that folksinger/songwriter form to its height in Texas. And for that, he’ll be eternal, because there’s all these kids today who write songs in that mode.

“But also, a la Willie, he wrote really giant hit songs. ‘Mr. Bojangles’ is a standard. His other songs are wonderful, but to write a standard, that’s something that’s very difficult in today’s day and age to do.” 100 other artists also recorded the song, including Bob Dylan, Sammy Davis Jr., Nina Simone and Neil Diamond.

Among Walker’s other better-known songs are “Little Bird,” “Sangria Wine,” “Charlie Dunn,” “Hill Country Rain” and “Pissin’ in the Wind,” which he wrote after doing just that on a roadside stop en route to Dallas for a Willie Nelson concert in the 1970s.

But Walker was equally known as an interpreter and champion of other writers’ songs. It was Walker who first brought Guy Clark to national attention when he recorded Clark’s “L.A. Freeway” for his 1972 self-titled album on major label Decca Records. “I remember telling him that I was going to record ‘L.A. Freeway’ and that he was on the verge of being a great songwriter,” Walker recalled after Clark’s death in 2016.

Walker cast a spotlight on a young Gary P. Nunn by not only including Nunn’s song “London Homesick Blues” on the “Viva Terlingua!” album, but having Nunn sing it.

“To him, it came down to the song, whether he wrote it or somebody else wrote it,” said Ray Wylie Hubbard, whose iconic song “Up Against the Wall, Redneck Mother” also appears on “Viva Terlingua!”

Walker’s recording of the song “gave me a career,” Hubbard says, but also a middle name. He was performing as Ray Hubbard until Walker’s Lost Gonzo Band member Bob Livingston identified him as Ray Wylie Hubbard in a spoken introduction to “Redneck Mother” that appears on the album.

Hubbard says Walker’s record label wanted to edit out that intro to avoid any confusion. “But Jerry Jeff said, ‘Nah, leave it on there.’ So because of him, I got a middle name. He was willing to acknowledge other songwriters; that was just such a gracious trait about him.”

In 2018, shortly after Walker donated a lifetime of artifacts to the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos, the collections’ exhibit space in the university’s Alkek Library featured an exhibit titled “Viva Jerry Jeff: The Origins and Wild Times of a Texas Icon.” It provided much detail about Walker’s pre-Texas years, including audio of early songs, rare photos and letters to family.

“I wanted to tell the story of the young man who had those dreams and that determination,” said Hector Saldana, Texas Music Curator for the Wittliff. “When you’re looking at the letters he was writing to his grandmother, thanking her for the few dollars she had sent him and mentioning just casually that he’d written this song called ‘Mr. Bojangles’ that he thought was good, you just can’t believe it.”

The exhibit also shed light on how Ronald Clyde Crosby became Jerry Jeff Walker. He’d been using an ID card from a friend he made in the New York Army National Guard named Jerry Ferris, and he had become a fan of Harlem jazz pianist Kirby Walker. He combined them to rename himself. (He added the middle name later; on the first Circus Maximus album in 1967, he was credited as Jerry Walker.)

Singer-songwriter Todd Snider, a longtime friend of Walker’s, has often told the story of walking through Santa Fe, N.M., with Walker one night when they happened upon an apparently homeless musician performing “Mr. Bojangles” on the street. 

In Snider’s 2014 book “I Never Met a Story I Didn’t Like,” he revisited the encounter:

“I was asking myself, ’Should I tell this guy that he’s playing Jerry Jeff’s song, and that Jerry Jeff is standing right here? But, no, I figured that if Jerry Jeff wanted to let this guy know who he was, he’d tell him. When the song was over, (Walker) said, ‘That sounded great,’ and then he put a (expletive)-load of cash — every bit of cash he had on him — into that guy’s hat.”

Austin keyboardist Chris Gage, who has been playing in Walker’s band since 2008, was among many who posted thoughts about Walker to social media Saturday. “I have my memories of countless plane, bus, train and van rides, green rooms with pizza and Arnold Palmers, packed theaters and showrooms, sunrise meals in Belize, scary car rides (if he was driving), passionate studio sessions and so much more,” Gage wrote.

Walker’s last appearance onstage in Austin was Feb. 22, 2020, to accept a Hall of Fame award from the Texas Heritage Songwriters Association. A star-studded cast — including Rodney Crowell, Michael Martin Murphey, Emmylou Harris, Joe Ely and the Dirt Band’s Jeff Hanna — performed Walker’s songs in his honor. Walker appeared at the end, with help from his wife and others to get on and offstage.

Jerry Jeff Walker ended his story on this planet on October 25, 2020. He was 79 years old.

Every couple of years Jerry Jeff Walker took a breather in the US Virgin Island of St. Thomas in the 1980s and played several venues. My time down in the islands co-existed with his for a couple of years and I had the pleasure of backing him up on several occasions. He was a man without air. A pure pleasure of a human being.

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Lord Luther McDaniels 12/2017

December 30, 2017 – Lord Luther McDaniels, lead singer of vocal group the 4 Deuces, was born in Panola County, Texas in 1938. He never knew his father, who was killed in an accident soon after Luther was born. Mostly raised by his grandmother, he joined the Mitchell Brothers gospel group when he was about 11 or 12. While Luther had no musical training, he still traveled with the group all over East Texas, appearing in many gospel group “battles.” Around the end of World War 2, his mother remarried and moved to Salinas, California, about a hundred miles south of San Francisco (his new stepfather was stationed at Fort Ord in Monterey, only a few miles away). Luther went to California, decided he didn’t like it, went back to Texas, decided California wasn’t that bad, and returned to California to stay, settling in the fertile Salinas Valley south of the Bay Area, a region often referred to as America’s Salad Bowl. Continue reading Lord Luther McDaniels 12/2017

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Warren “Pete” Moore 11/2017

smokey robinson and the miraclesNovember 19, 2017 – Warren “Pete” Moore (the Miracles) was born on November 19, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan. A childhood friend of Miracles lead singer Smokey Robinson, the two met at a musical event given by the Detroit Public School system, where Moore spotted Robinson singing as part of the show. The two became friends and formed a singing group, which eventually became the Miracles. Besides his work in the Miracles, Moore helped Miracles member Smokey Robinson write several hit songs, including The Temptations’ “It’s Growing” and “Since I Lost My Baby”, and two of Marvin Gaye’s biggest hits, the Top 10 million sellers, “Ain’t That Peculiar” and “I’ll Be Doggone”. Continue reading Warren “Pete” Moore 11/2017

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Bruce Langhorne 4/2017

mr. tambourine man, Bruce LanghorneApril 14, 2017 – Bruce Langhorne was born on May 14, 1938 in Tallahassee, Florida.

At age 4 he moved with his mother to Spanish Harlem, New York. When he was a 12-year old violin prodigy living in Harlem in the fifties, he accidentally blew several of his finger tips off with a cherry bomb that he held onto for too long. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, Bruce looked up at his distraught mom and said, “At least I don’t have to play violin anymore.” In a gang fight, he got involved in a stabbing and left the country for Mexico for 2 years. By age 17 he started to pick the guitar. Continue reading Bruce Langhorne 4/2017

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Piano C Red 6/2013

Piano C RedJune 3, 2013 – Piano C Red was born Cecil Fain in Montevallo, Ala. in 1933.

His mother sang spirituals and his father made moonshine, both endeavors playing a role in his musical career. He told the Chicago Tribune’s Mary Schmich in 2006 that he traded pints of his father’s moonshine for piano lessons from the local boogie-woogie player, Fat Lily.

By age 16 he was playing in Atlanta, Georgia as James Wheeler and later took his stage name from his instrument, the red piano, and the trademark red outfits he wore onstage.

Relocating to Chicago when he was 19 he performed with the likes of Muddy Waters, B.B King, Fats Domino and Buddy Guy, before becoming a cab driver to make the money necessary to pay the bills.

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Georges Moustaki 5/2013

georges-moustakiMay 23, 2013 – Georges Moustaki was born on May 3, 1934 in Alexandria, Egypt as Giuseppe “Yussef” Mustacchi. His parents, Sarah and Nessim Mustacchi, were Francophile, Greek Jews from the island of Corfu, Greece. They moved to Egypt, where their young child first learned French. They owned the Cité du Livre – one of the finest book shops in the Middle East – in the cosmopolitan city of Alexandria where many ethnic communities lived together.

At home, everyone spoke Italian because the aunt categorically refused to speak Greek. In the street, the children spoke Arabic.

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Jewel Akens 3/2013

Jewel AkensMarch 1, 2013 – Jewel Akens was born September 12, 1933 in Houston, Texas, the seventh of nine children in a working-class family. He became interested in music early in life, singing for the church choir as a child. In 1950, Akens moved with his family from Texas to Los Angeles, where he graduated from Fremont High School. There, he met his future wife, Eddie Mae, whom he married in 1952.

Akens began his career in the late 1950s, working with Eddie Daniels and guitar legend Eddie Cochran, and later recorded singles with the Four Dots doo-wop group.

In 1965, he was singing with an ensemble called the Turnarounds when record producer Herb Newman brought them “The Birds and the Bees,” written by his teenage son. The rest of the group disliked the tune, but Akens decided to record it solo. It became an instant hit, rising to the No. 3 spot on the Billboard pop chart in 1965.

“Let me tell you ’bout the birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees,” went the catchy tune, which was later covered by Dean Martin and others.

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Tony Sheridan 2/2013

tony sheridanFeb 16, 2013 – Tony Sheridan was born Anthony Esmond Sheridan McGinnity  was born May 21, 1940 in Norwich, England. To the rest of the world he was best known as the only non-Beatle to appear as lead singer on a Beatles recording which charted as a single, even though the record was labelled as being with “The Beat Brothers”. In Europe he was at times a superstar.

In his early life, Sheridan was influenced by his parents’ interest in classical music, and by age seven, he had learned to play the violin. He eventually came to play guitar, and in 1956, formed his first band. He showed enough talent that he soon found himself playing in London’s “Two I’s” club for some six months straight. In 1958, aged 18, he began appearing on Oh Boy, made by the ITV contractor ABC, playing electric guitar on such early rock classics as “Blue Suede Shoes”, “Glad All Over”, “Mighty Mighty Man” and “Oh Boy!”. He was soon employed backing a number of singers, reportedly including Gene Vincent and Conway Twitty while they were in England. In 1958 Johnny Foster sought to recruit Sheridan as a guitar player in Cliff Richard’s backing band (soon renamed the Shadows), but after failing to find him at the 2i’s Coffee Bar opted for another guitarist who was there, Hank Marvin.

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Bo Diddley 6/2008

bo-diddleyJune 2, 2008 – Bo Diddley was born Ellas Otha Bates, later becoming Ellas McDaniel on December 30, 1928 in McComb, Mississippi. He was adopted and raised by his mother’s cousin, Gussie McDaniel, whose surname he assumed. In 1934, the McDaniel family moved to the South Side of Chicago, where he dropped the Otha and became Ellas McDaniel.

As he grew into a teenager he became an active member of his local Ebenezer Baptist Church, studying the trombone and the violin, becoming proficient enough for the musical director to invite him to join the orchestra playing violin, in which he performed until the age of 18. Around that age he became more interested in the pulsating, rhythmic music he heard at a local Pentecostal church and took up the guitar. Continue reading Bo Diddley 6/2008

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Karlheinz Stockhausen 12/2007

Karlheinz StockhausenDecember 5, 2007 – Karlheinz Stockhausen was born on August 22, 1928 near Cologne in Germany. I have hesitated celebrating him in this Ode to Rock and Roll, because strictly spoken he is a composer of music. In the end I felt in favor of inclusion because so many rock performers have admitted to be influenced by the man’s incredible body of work created in electronic music. Pink Floyd, Zappa, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, Bjørk, Kraftwerk, the Beatles, all reflect his influence on their own avant-garde experiments as well as the general fame and notoriety he had achieved by that time.

As a composer he is widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Critics have called him “one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music”. He is known for his ground-breaking work in electronic music, aleatory in serial composition, and musical.

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