Oscar Brand born 7 February 1920

Oscar Brand (February 7, 1920 – September 30, 2016) was a Canadian-born American folk singer-songwriter, radio and TV host, and author. In his career, spanning 70 years, he composed at least 300 songs and released nearly 100 albums, among them Canadian and American patriotic songs. Brand's music ran the gamut from novelty songs to serious social commentary and spanned a number of genres. Brand also wrote a number of short stories. 

He was born on a wheat farm near Winnipeg, Manitoba. His father was an interpreter to Indians for the Hudson’s Bay Company and later ran a theatrical supply company and a pawnshop. Young Oscar fell in love with music while listening to player-piano rolls. His family moved to Minneapolis when he was 7, then to Chicago and finally to Brooklyn, where they sought treatment for Oscar, who had been born with a missing calf muscle. He graduated from Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, then roamed the country with his banjo, working on farms along the way. He later graduated from Brooklyn College with a degree in psychology. 

In 1942 he joined the Army, where he worked in the psychology section of an induction center and edited a newspaper for psychiatric patients. After his discharge, he moved to Greenwich Village and tried to insinuate himself into the world of music. One of his first initiatives was writing a book called “How to Play the Guitar Better Than Me.” 

His radio career began in December 1945, after he wrote a letter to New York stations offering to present a program of Christmas songs he claimed most people had never heard. WNYC, which at the time was owned by the city, accepted the challenge. His song about Santa’s distinctive body odor proved his point. At the show’s end, WNYC’s program director asked Mr. Brand what he was doing the next week. He boldly replied that he’d be right back in the same studio in the Municipal Building. 

                                    

The music he played included fiddlers to folk songs of the Appalachians to ethnic songs of the big cities. He also played what were then known as “race records” by the likes of Memphis Minnie and Tampa Red, precursors of rhythm and blues and rock ’n’ roll. Mr. Brand’s own singing voice had an offhand (and sometimes off-key) authenticity, which he applied to old, new and sometimes deliberately mangled songs, both on and off the air. 

In 1950 Mr. Brand was listed in “Red Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television,” a pamphlet that contained the names of artists who supposedly had Communist connections. Unlike some of his colleagues, he was never asked to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (he insisted that he never would have cooperated if he had been), and while he did lose some work, he continued to make money from his songwriting. Doris Day’s version of his song “A Guy Is a Guy” reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart in 1952. 

Oscar with Odetta

Brand's WNYC show began what Guinness World Records eventually verified as radio’s longest-running with a single host. (It beat out Alistair Cooke’s “Letter From America,” which ran for just under 58 years.) Mr. Brand never had a contract, but he kept coming back. His employers particularly appreciated that he never asked for compensation — nor did he ever receive any. He also established his own one-of-a-kind reputation. In 1959, The New York Times called him “one of radio’s most genial fanatics.” 

His guests included the Weavers, Lead Belly, Judy Collins, Harry Belafonte, Joan Baez, Phil Ochs, Harry Chapin, Emmylou Harris, B.B. King and Woody Guthrie’s son, Arlo, who as a teenager gave one of the earliest performances of his song “Alice’s Restaurant” on Mr. Brand’s show. Few have sung and strummed more prolifically. The hundreds of songs Brand recorded include election songs, children’s songs, vaudeville songs, sports car songs, drinking songs, outlaw songs and lascivious ditties about Nellie the Barmaid. 

He scored ballets for Agnes de Mille and commercials for Log Cabin Syrup and Cheerios. He wrote music for documentary films, published songbooks and hosted the children’s television shows “The First Look” and “Spirit of ’76” as well as, from 1963 to 1967, the Canadian television series “Let’s Sing Out.” He also wrote, with Paul Nassau, the music and lyrics for two shows that made it to Broadway, although neither had a long run: “A Joyful Noise” (1966) and “The Education of HYMAN KAPLAN (1968), based on stories by Leo Rosten. He was curator of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and served on the advisory panel that helped develop “Sesame Street.” 

In 1995, Mr. Brand won a Peabody Award for “more than 50 years in service to the music and messages of folk performers and fans around the world.” Mr. Brand’s last show aired on Sept. 24, 2016. He died on September 30, 2016, after a two week battle with pneumonia at his home in Great Neck, N.Y. He was 96. 

(Edited from New York Times & Wikipedia)

Mamie Van Doren born 6 February 1931

Mamie Van Doren (February 6, 1931) is an American actress. A blonde bombshell, she is one of the "Three M's" along with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, who were friends and contemporaries. 

Born Joan Olander in South Dakota, Van Doren’s family moved to Los Angeles during her childhood. In early 1946, Van Doren began working as an usher at the Pantages Theatre in Hollywood. The following year, she had a bit part on an early television show. She also sang with Ted Fio Rito's band and entered several beauty contests. She was married for a brief time at seventeen when Van Doren and her first husband, Jack Newman, eloped to Santa Barbara. The marriage was dissolved quickly, upon her discovery of his abusive nature. 

In the summer of 1949, at age 18, she won the titles "Miss Eight Ball" and "Miss Palm Springs," attracting the attention of Howard Hughes. The pair dated for several years. Hughes launched her career by placing her in several RKO films.  She changed her name to Mamie Van Doren, taking her name from First Lady Mamie Eisenhower and the surname of celebrated scholars Carl and Mark Van Doren. Hughes provided Van Doren with a bit part in Jet Pilot at RKO Radio Pictures, which was her film debut. The following year, 1951, she posed for famous pin-up girl artist Alberto Vargas, the painter of the glamorous "Vargas Girls." 

                                   

Van Doren did a few more bit parts in movies at RKO, including His Kind of Woman (1951) starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell and Vincent Price. About her appearance in that one, Van Doren has said, "If you blinked you would miss me. I look barely old enough to drive." She then began working on the stage and was a showgirl in New York in Monte Proser's nightclub version of Billion Dollar Baby. Songwriter Jimmy McHugh discovered her for his musicals, then decided she was too good for the chorus line and should have dramatic training. She studied with Ben Bard and Bliss-Hayden. While appearing in the role of Marie in a showcase production of Come Back, Little Sheba, Van Doren was seen by Phil Benjamin, a casting director at Universal International. 

On January 20, 1953, Van Doren signed a contract with Universal Studios and broke off her engagement to boxer Jack Dempsey. Universal had big plans for her, hoping she would bring the same kind of success that 20th Century Fox had with Marilyn Monroe. Van Doren, signing day coincided with the inauguration of President Eisenhower. Universal first cast Van Doren in a minor role as a singer in Forbidden, starring Tony Curtis. Interested in Van Doren's allure, Universal then cast her in The All American (1953) but her breakout period came in the mid to late 1950s, when she starred in a string of movies that made her a drive-in icon. In Untamed Youth, she played a defiant teen caught up in a juvenile detention scheme and became the first actress to sing rock 'n roll in an American musical film. This resulted in a string of singles with backing by the Les Baxter, Warren Baker and Billy Vaughn Orchestras. 

In High School Confidential, she turned heads as a sultry figure. She showed off her comedic side opposite Clark Gable and Doris Day in Teacher’s Pet, a role she later said was one of her personal favorites. Other memorable titles from that era included Girls Town, The Beat Generation, Born Reckless and Running Wild. After Universal chose not to renew her contract in 1959, Van Doren continued working steadily as an independent actress. She appeared in cult favorites such as 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt, The Navy vs. the Night Monsters and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women. In 1966, she even shared the screen with Mansfield in The Las Vegas Hillbillys, a rare moment that brought two of the era’s most famous blondes together.

Her career slowed in the 1970s and 1980s, but she never fully vanished. Van Doren made television appearances on shows including Fantasy Island, Vega$ and L.A. Law. Much later, she popped up in minor roles in projects like Slackers (2002) and the 2012 video release The American Tetralogy. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1994 and a Golden Palm Star in Palm Springs in 2005, honors that celebrate her unique place in film history. Documentaries and retrospectives frequently feature her as one of the last living links to a glamorous, long-gone era of show business. Family has also remained central to her life. Van Doren has one son, Perry Ray Anthony, from her marriage to bandleader Ray Anthony. In 2007, she launched her own wine brand at age 76. 

These days, Van Doren lives quietly in California with her husband of more than four decades, actor Thomas Dixon, whom she married in 1979. One of the biggest surprises of Van Doren’s later years has been how active she remains online where she runs what appears to be her own Instagram account, regularly posting throwback photos and candid updates about her life. 

(Edited from Uncle Sam @ Ronin’s Fortress & Remind Magazine)

 

Little Arthur Duncan born 5 February 1934

Little Arthur Duncan (February 5, 1934 – August 20, 2008) was an American Chicago blues and electric blues harmonica player, singer, and songwriter. He was a member of the Backscratchers and over his career was associated with Earl Hooker, Twist Turner, Illinois Slim and Rick Kreher. 

Duncan and Little Walter

Duncan was born in Indianola, Mississippi. His first instrument was the drums. In 1950, aged 16, he left Mississippi not for Chicago, as so many of his contemporaries had, but for the sunnier climate of Key West, Florida - which may seem like an odd destination for a traveling blues-man, but it wasn't a totally unique idea, since it was there that Arthur net up with guitarist Earl Hooker for the first time. They eventually made their way up to Chicago, and by 1954 Arthur was living in the basement of the apartment building of the city's west side where Little Walter lived upstairs. Arthur and Walter became friends, and it was under Walter's tutelage that Arthur first began taking his music seriously. 

Although he kept a day job, Arthur began frequenting the clubs on the vibrant Chicago blues scene, meeting and sitting in with almost every major name active in the local clubs at that dine. He also sent down south for a couple of friends, guitar playing brothers Hip and Jug Linkchain, recruiting them to come up to Chicago, and together they formed Arthur's first professional band, which played mostly on weekends. With the south and west sides of the city teaming with blues joints at the time, there was no shortage of gigs, although then as now, making a living strictly with music was a some-what tough proposition. 

Arthur recalls playing at a jam session on the south side, and getting to know most of the other local harp bonbon such as Billy Boy Arnold, Carey Bell, and Good Rockin' Charles - in Arthur's words, "There was a whole lot of harmonica play-ers back then", and Arthur learned from them all. He says his activity on the local blues scene cul-minated in the early 1960s when he recorded an album for a small local label, which unfortunately never got distributed, and never went anywhere. 

                          Here’s “Pretty Thing” from above album.

                                    

As the Chicago blues scene cooled off, so did Arthur's performing ambitions, although he never stopped playing, occasionally playing on Maxwell Street or sitting in with friends, hanging out in the clubs and seeing friends like Earl Hooker, Magic Sam and Buddy Guy. In the early 1980s he decided to open his own club on the west side as a sideline when he wasn't able to work Isis regular construction job during the frigid Chicago winters; when the construction company folded, Arthur jumped into the nightclub game with both feet. 

As proprietor of the Artesia Lounge on Lake St., and later Backscratcher's Lounge on West Madison, lie booked the blues people he liked, and had a steady stream talent doing gigs or just coming by to hang out and sit in, including Taildragger, Johnny Dollar, Mighty Joe Young, Johnny B. Moore, Milton Houston, Little Smokey Smothers, Johnny Littlejohn and others. Of course Arthur would come out from behind the bar to do a number with the band whenever he got the chance. 

So for much of the 1980s he was off the blues scene at large, tending to his own little scene on the west side, but seldom performing outside of his own club. Eventually a dispute with the landlord led to the closing of Backscratcher's Lounge, a sad day for patrons but with a silver lining for blues fans else-where, since it freed Arthur to get out into the blues mainstream again. He began recording and occasionally touring, and sitting in with bands at clubs other than his own for a change. Since then, his reputation grew steadily and he became one of the 'must see' artists in Chicago for fans of the true, deep, lowdown blues that the city is fatuous for around the world. 

In 1989, Duncan recorded the album Bad Reputation, which was released on the Blues King label. He later appeared on a compilation album, Blues Across America: The Chicago Scene, with Emery Williams Jr. and Robert Plunkett. In 1999, Duncan recorded for Delmark Records, which released the album Singin' with the Sun that year. On the album he was accompanied by the guitar players Billy Flynn and Eddie Taylor Jr. Live in Chicago followed in 2000.

His final recording was Live at Rosa's Blues Lounge, a live album recorded in Chicago in August 2007. One music journalist noted that "spirited, gritty performances of Reed's "Pretty Thing," Wolf's "No Place to Go," and two Dixon favorites ("Young Fashioned Ways" and "Little Red Rooster") leave no doubt that Duncan lives and breathes electric Chicago blues." However, a subsequent lengthy illness and hospitalization prevented Duncan from building on this success. He died in Northlake, Illinois, in August 2008, of complications following brain surgery, at the age of 74. 

(Edited from Scott Dirks article & Wikipedia)

 

Dick Nolan born 4 February 1939

 

Dick Nolan (February 4, 1939 – December 13, 2005) was a Canadian singer, songwriter and guitarist who was one of Newfoundland’s most prominent music ambassadors, known for performing Newfoundland folk music in Toronto night clubs. During his 50-year career he released more than 40 albums and recorded over 300 tracks. He is particularly known for his song "Aunt Martha's Sheep". 

Richard Francis Nolan was born in Corner Brook. As a teenager, he performed in a local band, the Blue Valley Boys, and sang on a Corner Brook radio show. Priscilla Boutcher, the former Mayor of Corner Brook, was Nolan's sister. In the 1950s, Nolan moved to Toronto, where he played with local bands and worked at several jobs. He began to record albums of the music of Johnny Cash and other country songs, earning him the nickname "The Johnny Cash of Newfoundland". 

His Blue Valley Boys, which included Corner Brook native Roy Penney, performed regularly at the Horseshoe Tavern in the early 1960s, where they backed such US country stars as Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Bobby Bare and Charley Pride. Nolan switched his focus to traditional Newfoundland music and released many albums. Between 1959 and 1969, Nolan made 14 LPs for Arc Records, including two albums of songs by Johnny Cash. Nolan’s Arc recordings featured “truck driving” country material, as well as Newfoundland, Maritime and Christmas songs. 

                                   

He released one album with the Blue Valley Boys, one in duet with his daughter, Bonnie Lou Nolan, and two with Marlene Beaudry. He began to enjoy some success in the mid-1960s; his cover of Hank Snow’s “Golden Rocket” reached No. 2 on RPM’s Country Chart in 1965 and “The Fool” hit No. 8 in 1967. Nolan returned to Corner Brook in 1968. In the early 1970s, he performed on his own weekly television program on CJON-TV, as well as at nightclubs throughout the province. In 1972, he began to record for RCA. 

His first LP, Fisherman's Boy,  included the song “Aunt Martha's Sheep,” composed by fellow Newfoundlander Ellis Coles. Written in a traditional ballad style, but with contemporary Newfoundland references in its lyrics, the comical and folksy song reached No. 35 on the RPM Country Chart and received a BMI Certificate of Honour for song writing. It became Nolan’s signature tune, driving sales of Fisherman’s Boy to more than 50,000 copies. It was followed by the hits “Home Again This Year,” which peaked at No. 9 on the Country Chart in 1972, and “Me and Brother Bill” in 1973. 

Nolan returned to Toronto in 1973, and performed in restaurants and nightclubs catering to Newfoundlanders. He appeared on CBC TV’s The Tommy Hunter Show, Elwood Glover’s Luncheon Date and Stompin’ Tom’s Canada, as well as in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry. He released 41 LPs in total through Arc, RCA, Pickwick and Boot Records, including Fisherman's Boy (1972), Home Again This Year (1972) and Happy Newfoundlanders (1973), which each sold more than 50,000 copies; however, they pre-dated Music Canada’s sales certifications system and were not officially certified as gold records. In 1975, he received a Juno Award nomination for Country Male Vocalist of the Year. 

In 1992, Nolan performed on the album Singers for Fishermen, a musical response to the closure of the Newfoundland cod fishery. His later recordings included the gospel album Family Bible (1994), as well as Pretty Girls of Newfoundland (1996), Down By the Sea (1998), Christmas Morn in Newfoundland (with Eddie Coffey, 1998) and Newfoundland Good Times (1999). 

Nolan returned to Newfoundland in 2004 and lived his final days on Bell Island. In November 2005, shortly before his death a month later, Nolan was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Music Industry Association of Newfoundland and Labrador. He died December 13, 2005 due to complications from a stroke, in Carbonear (aged 66). He was writing his memoir and had been planning to release a CD of all his albums recorded with RCA in the 1970s. 

A retrospective compilation entitled The Best of Dick Nolan was released in 2006. In 2009, he was posthumously awarded the Dr. Helen Creighton Lifetime Achievement Award at the East Coast Music Awards.  

(Edited from the Canadian Encyclopedia, Wikipedia & CBC News)

Here’s a clip of Dick Nolan Live at the Sergents Mess , Moncton N.B. Aug 5 1995..With the Happy Go Lucky Band. Dick starts his set 14 minutes from the start of video.

Gene MacLellan born 2 February 1938

Gene MacLellan (February 2, 1938 – January 19, 1995) was a Canadian singer-songwriter from Prince Edward Island. Among his compositions were "Snowbird", made famous by Anne Murray, "Put Your Hand in the Hand", "The Call", "Pages of Time", and "Thorn in My Shoe". Elvis Presley, Lynn Anderson, Loretta Lynn, Joan Baez, and Bing Crosby were among the many artists who recorded MacLellan's songs. 

Born in Val-d'Or, Quebec and raised in Toronto in a church-going family, the shy but talented Gene MacLellan suffered polio and other medical conditions in childhood. He began playing guitar at age 10 and writing songs in his early teens. After joining Toronto’s nascent rock ‘n’ roll scene, MacLellan dropped out of high school and played with local rock bands as a guitarist and singer. In 1956, he co-founded the popular rock band The Consuls (later known as Little Caesar and the Consuls) which opened for Ronnie Hawkins, a powerful figure in Toronto’s early rock scene. 

MacLellan’sperforming career was slowed by a 1963 car accident that claimed the life of his father and left Gene with several injuries, including facial scarring and an injured left eye. MacLellan left Toronto to travel through Canada and the United States, working temporary jobs before settling in Prince Edward Island in 1964, where he lived with his aunt and worked as a farm labourer and  a psychiatric hospital attendant. 

                                    

MacLellan continued to compose songs during this period, and his songwriting took on a folk-country-gospel sound. He sent a demo tape to the Charlottetown Festival and the popular CBC TV program Don Messer’s Jubilee, which was taped in Halifax. His break came when he appeared on the show, first as a guest and then regularly in 1966, introducing his original songs to a national audience. It was here that MacLellan met Anne Murray, which proved to be a turning point in both their careers. He then toured with Hal “Lone Pine” Breau (father of noted jazz guitarist Lenny Breau), and was briefly a regular on CBC Halifax TV’s Singalong Jubilee (ca. 1970). 

Gene with Anne Murray

The success of MacLellan’s songs “Snowbird,” and “Put Your Hand in the Hand” brought him to national attention as a songwriter. Over 100 performers, including Elvis Presley, Joan Baez, and Bing Crosby have recorded "Put Your Hand in the Hand".  In 1970, MacLellan released his own self-titled LP which was also released as Street Corner Preacher in the United States. Recorded in Nashville, the album produced the modest country hits “The Call” (a Top 20 hit on the RPM chart) and “Thorn in My Shoe.” The same year, he also performed weekly with Anne Murray on the CBC Radio show After Noon. MacLellan made concert appearances in 1971 and 1972, was a headliner at Toronto’s Riverboat club in 1972 and 1973, and gave a concert at Massey Hall with The Bells as part of a 1972 cross-Canada tour. 

Tiring of the demands of the music business and turning to Christianity, he left music for five years. He gave away his money and possessions and moved to Europe to perform missionary work, but by 1977 he was back in the recording studio and released a second album, If It's Alright with You, which included “Shilo Song,” a popular country duet with Anne Murray. 

In 1979, he recorded Gene and Marty, an album of gospel songs, with his fellow Prince Edward Islander Marty Reno. Devoted to his Christian faith, he performed gospel and inspirational music only in small noncommercial venues such as churches, prisons and nursing homes from 1980 until his death. He was also active in "Cons for Christ", a Christian organization dedicated to the rehabilitation of prison inmates in Canada. 

MacLellan suffered depression throughout his life and during his later years, his condition worsened, leading to hospitalization at Prince County Hospital in Summerside, Prince Edward Island. Shortly after his release from the hospital, MacLellan commited  suicide by hanging at his home in Summerside, on January 19, 1995. He was posthumously inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame that year and in 1996 he was given the East Coast Music Association's Dr. Helen Creighton Lifetime Achievement Award. 

In 2017, MacLellan's daughter Catherine MacLellan presented a show titled If It's Alright with You – The Life and Music of My Father, Gene MacLellan that was described as "part theatre, part Island music history lesson, and part mental-health awareness campaign". Her album If It's Alright with You: The Songs of Gene MacLellan was released on June 30, 2017, by True North Records 

(Edited from The Canadian Encyclopedia, Wikipedia & Knocking on Heavens Door) 

Joe Sample born 1 February 1939

Joseph Leslie Sample (February 1, 1939 – September 12, 2014) was an American jazz keyboardist and composer. He was one of the founding members of The Jazz Crusaders in 1960, whose name was shortened to "The Crusaders" in 1971. He remained a part of the group until its final album in 1991, and also the 2003 reunion album Rural Renewal. 

He was born in Houston, Texas, the fourth of five siblings, including an older brother who was to play in a band led by the blues saxophonist Earl Bostic. Joe took up the piano at the age of five, and in high school joined a trio called the Swingsters, which included the saxophonist Wilton Felder and was led by the drummer Nesbert "Stix" Hooper. At Texas Southern University, Sample discovered the trombonist Wayne Henderson, the bassist Henry Wilson and the flautist Hubert Laws, and the now six-strong group worked modestly around Houston in the mid-50s under the name of the Modern Jazz Sextet. 

It was a move by four of the members to Los Angeles at the end of that decade that changed their fortunes, and – now calling themselves the Jazz Crusaders – they recorded their debut album, Freedom Sound, for the jazz label Pacific in 1961. Mainly playing in the punchy, soul-inflected hard-bop style popular at the time (the state-of-the-art practitioners were Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, who inspired their name), the group added their own kind of blues-rooted funkiness that many fans identified as a particularly Texan ingredient. Catchy melodies played in sax/trombone unison and a coolly understated rhythm-section touch also became their signature qualities. 

Sometimes featuring a guitarist, they performed regularly on the west coast and released several successful albums for Pacific. But then they reduced their live schedule and concentrated on recording from 1968, when Sample, Hooper and Felder began developing lucrative careers as session musicians and Henderson became a producer. 

Sample's session activity in those years included work for pop stars such as Diana Ross and the Jackson Five, and he also appeared for the classy west coast hard-bop quintet led by the saxophonist Harold Land and the vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. He toured with Joni Mitchell as a member of LA Express (1973-74) and contributed to hits by Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner, Steely Dan and BB King.

                                     

The rise of progressive rock in the 70s severely dented the commercial appeal of conventional acoustic jazz, but the Crusaders' already dance-friendly sound made them better suited to the change than most of the era's jazz artists. Some canny modifications followed, notably with the arrival of a gifted electric guitarist, Larry Carlton, in 1970. The lineup also adapted to include electric bass and keyboards, and with the repertoire widening to include Beatles hits, they sharply expanded their audience, not always to the delight of the jazz cognoscenti. 

Soon they had dropped the word "jazz" from their name, and the 1971 album Crusaders 1, with four Sample compositions on its tracklist, was noticeable for a more explicitly hard-hitting rock approach. The high point of this Crusaders period was the 1979 single Street Life, written by Sample and a fellow Texan songwriter, Will Jennings, as a vocal for the singer Randy Crawford. It was a chart hit in the US and UK and still receives considerable radio airplay.

The Crusaders' lineup changed periodically following Henderson's departure to pursue a career in production in 1975. Sample and Felder remained co-leaders, as well as sustaining busy freelance lives in the studios – with Sample developing an increasingly personal sound on electric instruments, as he tellingly displayed on Clavinet with the soul-saxist Ronnie Laws on the 1975 club hit Always There. 

Sample and Felder disagreed artistically and wound up the band in 1988, and Sample then concentrated on the ideas he had been nurturing since his leadership of the 1969 Fancy Dance session, a gospelly, bop-blues trio he set up with the bassist Red Mitchell and the drummer JC Moses. This had led to Carmel (1979) and several strings-accompanied early 80s albums under his name, confirming that he remained a subtle refiner of familiar musical materials and a piano soloist of percussive punch and delicate melodic concision.

There were occasional Crusaders reunions, and in 2004 Sample surprised his long-time fans with another solo album, Soul Shadows, in which he revealed just how profound his jazz sensibility remained. In 2014, Joe Sample was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer.  He sought treatment at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, where he had relocated years earlier to be closer to his roots and family. 

Throughout his career, Sample maintained privacy regarding his health challenges, including prior heart attacks in 1994 and 2009, focusing instead on his music without public disclosure of personal medical details. He died in Houston, Texas, on September 12, 2014 at the age of 75. At the time of his death, Sample had been working on a project, "Quadroon," with singer-songwriter Jonatha Brooke.

(Edited from John Fordham Obit @ The Guardian & Wikipedia)