Johnny Tucker born October 17, 1945

Johnny Tucker (October 17, 1945 - July 8, 2025) was an American blues drummer, vocalist and songwriter.

John Franklin Tucker was born in Fresno, California. He was the son of a Texas sharecropper and his wife, the tenth of nineteen children and the first born after the family’s move to California. His interest in music began on the family’s porch, listening to his father playing the guitar for his mother. He was first influenced by Lowell Fulson’s “Black Nights” and the music of James Brown, learning the music by singing along and playing to the rhythmic drum beats on cans.

 Although Tucker and his siblings spent their fair share of time picking cotton, his father’s encouragement and love of music enabled teenage Johnny to start work as a musician. “My daddy said, ‘You all play in a band and play down at the club. Y’all gonna make about $12 a night. You make $12, and y’all don’t have to go pick no cotton."

                                   

By 1964, he went to Los Angeles and took a job with Phillip Walker as a featured singer in a James Brown act. He later became Walker’s drummer and toured internationally with his band for 34 years.  Throughout his career, Tucker performed with top artists including Floyd Dixon, Robert Cray, Johnny Otis, The Five Royales, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Lowell Folson and Johnny Copeland. He travelled and performed extensively in the U.S., Canada, Japan and Europe.

His discography  includes five albums: Stranded, an album with James “Broadway” Thomas (1997); Why You Lookin' At Me? (2006, HighJohn Records); Seven Day Blues (2018, HighJohn Records), and 75 and Alive featuring Kid Ramos and The Allstars (2020, HighJohn Records). Having reached a milestone birthday on October 17, 2020, this also happened to be the day the album was recorded in partnership with Blue Heart Records. Bob Auerbach selected Kid Ramos to produce this collection of twelve originals. Ramos assembled The Allstars band, featuring Carl Sonny Leyland, John Bazz, Jason Lozano, Bob Corritore and Ron Dziubla. 

Kid Ramos and Johnny Tucker

Tucker met Ramos in 2006 at the Rhythm Room in Phoenix, when both musicians were part of Floyd Dixon’s historic last performance, which has been preserved and is available in a deluxe audio/video set entitled Time Brings About A Change. Seven Day Blues earned a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards and Johnny was named Comeback Artist of the Year in the 29th Annual Living Blues Awards (2022).

On July 8, 2025 Johnny Tucker died due to complications from dementia. Thee world lost a gifted musician and one of the last of a generation of bluesmen who personally experienced the lifestyle and truly felt the traditional blues he performed for more than sixty years.  His rare commodity was as an electrifying vocalist & his song writing technique was even more unusual as he would he puts together lyrics in the studio, while listening to the band and singing words to fit the grooves.

(Edited from Blues. Gr & Discogs) 

Bob Newman born October 16, 1915

Bob Newman (October 16, 1915 - October 8, 1979) was a US country and boogie singer, song-writer and member of The Georgia Crackers. The Newman brothers hailed out of Cochran, Bleckley County, Georgia, the hamlet of Carey to be specific. Described as a hybrid between Jimmie Rodgers and the Sons of the Pioneers, the Georgia Crackers were one of the best of a myriad of country and western groups which toured the honky tonks, barn dance halls and hay rides of the South and the Mid-West during the 1930s and 1940s.

The oldest son of Walter L. and Mary F. Newman, Henry J. “Hank” Newman, was born in 1905. Marion Alonzo “Slim” Newman and Robert “Bob” Newman came along in five year intervals. Times were tough and the family moved to Hawkinsville in hopes of just  getting by. The boys loved the sound of the guitar and saved their woeful wages earned from cropping tobacco and mail ordered one. A coin toss decided who would play first. Hank won and became the lead guitar of “The Newman Boys.” Short in stature but tall in his vocal ability, Hank became the group leader and soloist. Slim, described as the “matinee idol of the trio,”  played second guitar. Bob chose the bass fiddle. At six feet two inches tall, Bob was as tall as his instrument. As the group clown, Bob entertained audiences with his “dead pan” humour and comedic songs.

Hank was the first to play as a professional. After stints at WCOC in Meridian, Mississippi and at KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana, Hank joined Slim at WRDW in Augusta, Georgia. In 1930, Hank and Slim made the momentous choice to move north to Ohio. The duet enjoyed successful engagements at WTAM in Cleveland before making Columbus their permanent home in 1931. The boys spent short periods playing on radio shows in Atlanta, Ga., Charlotte, N.C., Wheeling, W. Va. and in Reading and Lancaster in Pennsylvania. As “Hank & Slim,” the boy’s recording came in 1934 when they cut eight songs for the Vocalian label.

                                  

Bob joined the group at the age of twenty. By the end of the 1930s, the group changed their name to the “Georgia Crackers.” Touring through hundreds of Midwestern cities and towns, the group acquired a strong following. Within ten years, the Newman boys became the senior group of the cadre of musical groups on WHKC, the Mutual Radio affiliate in Columbus and were often compared to the “Sons of the Pioneers,” the definitive group of the country western ilk. The top country and western band in Ohio hired Winnie Waters as a novelty violinist and Hal Snyder as a guitarist.

Then came 1941 and World War II, and the group was forced to disband. As the war was ending, the Newmans reunited and added Allan Myers on lead guitar and Johnnie Spies on accordion. The late 1940s saw the acceleration of one of the most popular movie genres, the “singing cowboy pictures.” Columbia pictures hired the “Georgia Crackers” to sing and to act in its series of Durango Kid movies. Charles Starrett starred as “The Durango Kid” in three movies with the Newmans. The boys first picture came in 1946 in “The Fighting Frontiersmen.” The following year, the trio appeared in “South of the Chisolm Trail.”  In their final screen appearance, the Crackers appeared in “Desert Vigilante” in 1949. The Durango Kid movies resurrected the musical careers of the Crackers.

The boys had a regular radio show on KXLA in Pasadena, California. Slim ventured into a solo career. After two years of studio recording sessions, the group released twelve new songs. The boys returned to Columbus, where they appeared daily on WHKC and across the country on the Mutual Radio Network. The Crackers remained in Ohio and had their last recording session with the Sage label, until 1958 when Bob’s declining health and new music styles caused the demise of the group. Bob was experiencing serious health problems (he had a nerve crossed in his brain), but surgery put things to right. Bob, who was the songwriter of the group, was the last and perhaps the most successful Newman in his solo career. He recorded more than two dozen songs. One of his biggest hits was “Lonesome Truck Driver’s Blues.” Perhaps his most famous song came to popularity in the late 1960s. Bob also penned “The Leaf of Love,” which became a hit for Gene Autry.

After recovering from his surgery, Bob tried his luck in the Phoenix area, forming the Arizona Night Riders, with Red Embry and Billy Grammar. For a time things worked out well but no recordings are known by this formation. In the same year, Bob found work as a D.J. at KHAT, the top Country radio station in Phoenix. He called himself The Old Hilligan and had a popular Hillbilly show. But despite his popularity, Bob left KHAT after a dispute with management and fell on hard times. In 1970, he returned to Ohio for a brief reunion with Hank and Slim for a few shows, but he wound up broke and back in Phoenix, managing the trailer park in which he lived. He talked about making a new start in the music business, but nothing seemed to work. Hank died in 1978, Bob died from a heart attack a week shy of his 64th birthday, on October 8th, 1979 and the remaining Georgia Cracker, Slim died in 1984.

(Edited from an article by Scott B. Thompson Sr. @ Pieces of Our Past blog & Bear Family notes)

Freddy Cole born October 15, 1931

Lionel Frederick Cole (October 15, 1931 – June 27, 2020) was an American jazz singer and pianist whose recording career spanned almost 70 years. He was the brother of musicians Nat King Cole, Eddie Cole, and Ike Cole, father of Lionel Cole, and uncle of Natalie Cole and Carole Cole.

Freddy Cole was born to Rev. Edward J. Coles and Perlina (née Adams) Coles, and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. His brothers Nat "King" Cole (1919–1965), Eddie (1910–1970), and Ike (1927–2001) also each pursued careers in music. He began playing piano at the age of six, and by his teens was already a gifted performer. Along with piano, he was also a talented football player. However, after sustaining a sports-related injury in high school, he decided to focus on a career in music. He began playing and singing in Chicago clubs as a teenager. Although he was ready to hit the road at 18, his mother intervened and he continued his musical education at the Roosevelt Institute in Chicago. Cole moved to New York in 1951, where he studied at the Juillard School of Music before earning his master's degree at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Following his education, he spent several months on the road as a member of an Earl Bostic band that also included Johnny Coles and Benny Golson. He made his recorded debut with the 1952 single "The Joke's on Me" for the obscure Chicago-based Topper Records. His next single, "Whispering Grass," on Columbia's OKeh label, was a moderate hit in 1953, after which he spent several months on the road alongside Johnny Coles and Benny Golson in the Earl Bostic Band. In 1964, he made his full-length debut with Waiter, Ask the Man to Play the Blues on Dot, backed by bassist Milt Hinton and drummer Osie Johnson. His influences included John Lewis, Oscar Peterson, Teddy Wilson and Billy Eckstine. When speaking of Eckstine, Cole recalled: "He was a fantastic entertainer. I learned so much from just watching and being around him."

                                        

Over the next decade, Cole stayed busy issuing a run of albums, including titles like 1976's As Long as I'm Singing, 1978's One More Love Song, and 1980's Right from the Heart. He also founded his own First Shot label. In 1990, he returned to more regular recording with I'm Not My Brother, I'm Me, a sophisticated trio date featuring guitarist Ed Zad and bassist Eddie Edwards. The album marked a career resurgence for the singer/pianist, whose profile continued to rise over the next several years with efforts like 1993's This Is Life, 1997's To the Ends of the Earth, and 1999's Le Grand Freddy.

By 2000, Cole had signed with Telarc and released Merry-Go-Round, for which he earned a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album. He followed it up with the Latin-tinged Rio de Janeiro Blue in 2001 and In the Name of Love in 2003, the latter of which featured an approach to soft pop hits made famous by Smokey Robinson, Bonnie Raitt, and Van Morrison, among others. In 2004, GRP reissued his 1964 recording Waiter, Ask the Man to Play the Blues. Cole returned to the Highnote label for several well-received albums including 2005's This Love of Mine and 2006's Because of You. Also in 2006, he gained further attention as the subject of the documentary film The Cole Nobody Knows. He also earned a second Grammy nomination for 2007's Music Maestro Please.

Cole was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 2007. Guitarist Randy Napoleon, who played and recorded with Cole from 2007 until Cole's death, said: "Freddy just glides through life. He's got a lot of patience, warmth, a great sense of humor. The music is really inseparable from the person...One of the things that makes Freddy really great is his elegance and careful, judicious editing. He doesn't play a lot of notes on piano, but the ones he plays really do make the band feel great. They're melodic, it swings, and that's it. He doesn't feel you need a lot of extra, fancy stuff." In July 2009, he released a recording featuring his own quartet (guitarist Randy Napoleon, drummer Curtis Boyd, and bassist Elias Bailey), along with tenor saxophonist Jerry Weldon and pianist John DiMartino, playing live at Dizzy's jazz club in Lincoln Center.

With 2010's Freddy Cole Sings Mr. B, he paid homage to long-time friend and fellow Chicago-bred baritone Billy Eckstine. The album features tenor Houston Person, pianist John DiMartino, guitarist and arranger Randy Napoleon, drummer Curtis Boyd, and bassist Elias Bailey. The album earned Cole his third Grammy nomination. Also in 2010, his publicist Al Gomes scored Cole his first national TV appearance in years, performing live on the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. 

A year later, he returned with Talk to Me, featuring guitarist Randy Napoleon, saxophonist Harry Allen, trumpeter Terell Stafford, and others. Two years later, he issued This and That, followed by Singing the Blues in 2014. He then paid tribute to his late brother Nat King Cole with 2016's He Was the King. His 2018 album, My Mood is You was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Jazz Vocal Album; the album features Napoleon, Bailey, DiMartino as well as drummer Quentin Baxter and tenor Joel Frahm. Arrangements are by Napoleon and DiMartino.

Freddy Cole died on June 27, 2020, in Atlanta, Georgia, due to complications from cardiovascular disease; he was 88 years old.

(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic) 

Edna Hicks born October 14, 1895

Edna Hicks (October 14, 1895 – August 16, 1925) was an American classic blues singer and vaudeville performer.

Edna Hicks was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the daughter of Victor Landreaux and Rena Moore. She was seven months younger than her half-sister Elizabeth, much better known to posterity as Lizzie Miles. In 1910 she is listed as working as a nurse and still living at home, but on 10 June 1912, as Edna Landry, she married vaudeville performer and touring company manager Will Benbow, but they separated after a few years. Her professional career was underway at least by 1916, when she appeared in "Follow Me" at the Casino Theatre, New York City.

Lafayette Theatrre

In about 1920, she married John Hicks, whose name she was using by the time she appeared in Billy King & Co's "A Trip Around The Moon" at the Lafayette Theatre, New York City in May 1921.She began making records in March 1923. It looks as though sister Lizzie, who had been recording for over a year, may have had a hand in Edna's debut. Her first title on the Victor label was backed with a Lizzie Miles recording and Edna's first Brunswick session was actually shared with Lizzie.

                                      

Like most singers of the period she recorded for several companies and between 1923 and 1924, Hicks experienced her peak commercial success, recording more than 30 tracks for seven different major record labels. These labels included Victor Talking Machine Company, Brunswick, Paramount, Vocalion, Columbia, Gennett, and Ajax. Her repertoire consisted of traditional vaudeville blues numbers exploring themes of systemic hardship, resilience, and emotional vulnerability.

Her notable commercial audio releases included "Bleeding Hearted Blues" (1923), "Down Hearted Blues" (1923), "Gulf Coast Blues" (1923), "Hard Luck Blues" (1923), and "Poor Me Blues" (1923). Hicks regularly collaborated with top-tier African American jazz and blues musicians of the era. Her most frequent studio accompanist was pianist and bandleader Fletcher Henderson. She also recorded  alongside songwriter Porter Grainger and pianists Clarence Johnson and Lemuel Fowler.

Lovie Austin

Sometime between January and March 1924 she relocated to Chicago, where her first recording session there proved to be her last. She was backed by a group led by Lovie Austin and is reputed to include Tommy Ladnier and Jimmy O'Bryant. Unfortunately when Document Records produced her Complete Recorded Works it was not available, although the record is known to exist. In December 1924 she was in the cast of "Plantation Follies" at the Plantation Café, Chicago, but Hicks' life was cut short by a domestic accident in Chicago, Illinois, in August 1925.

Proven photo Of Edna Hicks 

While assisting her husband in filling their automobile's gasoline tank, splashed gasoline was accidentally ignited by a candle she was holding. She suffered severe, widespread burns and died in a Chicago hospital two days later on August 16, 1925, at 29 years of age. She is buried at Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Worth, Illinois. In 2023 The Killer Blues Headstone Project placed a headstone for Edna Hicks at that location.

(Edited from Document liner notes & Wikipedia) 

Footnotes: - There seems to be only one photographic image of Ena Hicks available on the web according to AI but I found one @ Find a Grave. I cannot however find any provenance for this photo, unless dear readers you know better. 

Also most sources state that her birth name was Edna Landreaux, the daughter of Victor Landreaux and Rena Moore, but researchers Bob Eagle and Eric LeBlanc suggest that her birth name was Lucille Landry, the daughter of Victor Landry and Rosa Moore.

Pete Loconto born October 13, 1924

Pete Loconto (October 13, 1924 - August 22, 1998) was the eldest of a fraternal trio from Cambridge, Massachusetts, who, as The Lane Brothers, were a pristinely polished and consistently crowd-thrilling act during their nearly 40 years together. Among New England's most noteworthy musical exports, the group toured North America and Europe as headliners and opened for many chart-topping acts. 

The group comprised of Pete (b.1924), Frank (b.March 26, 1931) and Art (b.1933). In 1947, 23 year old Pete and 16 year old Frank formed a singing duo with Frank on rhythm guitar and harmonica and Pete playing lead on electric Spanish guitar. They performed at local schools, CYO events and private functions before 15 year old Art joined the group on bass and vocals in 1948 and they became the Lame Brothers, appearing regularly at Boston area nightspots.

By the end of 1948, The Lane brothers had made national television appearances on Toast Of The Town and The Milton Berle Show and in 1950 they were yhe debut act on the opening night of the Hilbilly Ranch in Boston, where they performed frequently while appearing live multiple times on WCBR in Waltham and the WCOP radio program Hayloft Jamboree. From 1952-53, the Loconto brothers' musical ambitions were interrupted when Frank was drafted into the Army and spent a year in Korea, followed by Art being drafted and spending a year in Germany where he sang in a GI group. During that time Pete (who was past the maximum age at 28) landed a solo deal with Imperial Records, recording two singles for the label.

                                       

In late 1954 the reunited Loconto brothers resumed performing in the Boston area. In a pivotal career move, they hired as their manager Catskills resort entrepreneur Paul Grossinger who helped them build a refined stage routine and over the next two years turned the brothers into proficient and professional on stage act. In 1956, they were signed by RCA Records who sent the group to Nashville to record a cover of Terry Gilkyson and The Easy Riders song Marianne which reached #64 in the Billboard Hot 100.

But further releases in 1957  including cover versions of Uh-Uh Honey, Wake Up Little Susie, Lotta Lovin and Lips of Wine, charted, making it obvious that something about the groups sound had to change for them to recapture the publics attention. And change they did, in early 1958. Then ages 33,26 and 24 respectively and under enormous pressure from RCA to deliver a second hit, the brothers shifted from balladry to rockabilly and the result was spectacular. In March they recorded Boppin' in a Sack with RCA Sholes and Chet Atkins as producers.

In May 1958 Boppin' in a Sack hit #53 in the US, made Canada's To 100 and reached #4 in Australia. For nearly two years the Lane Brothers were one of pop music's most in-demand groups, filling major clubs and arenas, appearing on American Grandstand and The Tonight Show and opening for megastars like Bobby Darin, The Everly Brothers, Connie Francis, Frankie Avalon and Chuck Berry.

RCA released a string of new singles to capitalize on the momentum, but none made the charts and the label dropped the band in 1959. 1n 1960 Bobby Darin helped the brothers sign with Leader Records, but the groups charting days were finished. They became a regular act on cruise ships, played across Europe an US military bases and in 1964 relocated to Florida where they performed at conventions and supper clubs before releasing several more non-charting singles in 1969.

After spending the 1970s in semi-retirement, the brothers re-recorded Marianne and some other songs in 1981 before ending both their recording and performing days together in the mid 1980s. Frank continued to perform as a soloist and produced several albums. Since 1984 he has produced the TV program County Line on Florida's WBEC. Pete died in 1998 at the age of 74, followed by Art in 2018 at the age of 85. Frank died on September 20, 2023 in Miami, Florida, USA.

(Edited from Music Museum of New England article by D.S.Monahan & IMDb)

Margie Singleton born 12 October 1935

Margie Singleton (born 12 October 1935)* is an American country music singer and songwriter.

She was born Margaret Louis Ebey in Coushatta, Louisiana, United States, a tiny town bordering the Red River. Only later would she adopt Margie as her stage name. Beyond the month and year of her birth, October of 1935, there are differing versions of her exact birth date. Margie's mother, Janie Ebey, was part Cajun, and her father, John Ebey, was of Native American descent. He worked as a share cropper to support his wife and their seven children. When Margie was 11, the family moved forty-five miles north to Shreveport, where her father worked as a night watchman at a furniture factory, a job he kept until he died in his seventies. As a young child, she was influenced by blues and gospel music. In 1949, at the age of 13, she married Shelby Singleton. They worked at a munitions plant near Shreveport, Louisiana, during the Korean War. She began to play guitar and write songs as a teenager after the birth of her first child, Stephen Singleton, in 1950. She had her second son, Sidney Singleton, in 1955.

                                        

In 1957, she signed with Starday Records, and released her first single that same year called "One Step (Nearer to You)". The flip side of the single was called "Not What He's Got". Both of these songs were self-penned. In 1958, she made her radio and professional debut on Louisiana Hayride. That same year, she released two other singles, "Nothing but True Love" and "Teddy" with a great B-side, the outstanding rockabilly "Oo-wee (you're the one for me)all penned by Shelby Singleton and her. "Nothing but true love" was more successful, becoming a minor hit on the country music chart, reaching the top 25. She regularly appeared on Louisiana Hayride before moving to Jubilee USA in 1960.

Shelby & Margie with Papa Daily

Singleton released another single in 1959 called "Eyes Of Love". The song gave Singleton her first major hit when it reached the Top 20 in 1960. In 1961, she switched to Mercury Records where her husband Shelby Singleton was a producer. With his help, Singleton recorded a duet with George Jones called "Did I Ever Tell You". The song became another hit for Singleton, and was released in 1961. The following year, the duo had equal success together with another country hit called "Waltz Of The Angels".

Singleton continued to be an avid songwriter. She wrote a pop music hit for Brook Benton called "Lie To Me". In 1963, he had another pop hit with another song written by Singleton called "My True Confession". The year 1963 was also the year Singleton made her debut on country music's most coveted show, the Grand Ole Opry; and had another hit with the song "Old Records". In addition to being a solo and duet star, she also sang as a back-up vocalist with The Jordanaires. Numerous performers recorded many of her songs, including Teresa Brewer, Tammy Wynette and Charley Pride. In 1964, Singleton teamed up with singer Faron Young. Together they recorded the song "Keeping Up With The Joneses". That year, the song reached the country top 5, and became Singleton's biggest hit. The flip side of the single, "No Thanks, I Just Had One", was a Top 40 country hit. They continued to release singles and record together.

During the first half of the 1960s, Margie Singleton tried on as many diverse musical roles as any woman then working in the country field. As well as Faron Young, she also recorded duets with George Jones, and well before the Melba Montgomery or Tammy Wynette eras at that. She wrote or co-wrote much of her own material, and put her ornately expressive vocal imprint on songs from other sources. She was versatile enough to supply songs and background vocals not only to country acts, but also major pop and R&B recording artists like Clyde McPhatter and Fats Domino.

By 1965, Singleton was divorced from Shelby Singleton. That same year, she married Leon Ashley, and soon moved to United Artists Records. In 1967, she moved to her husband's label, Ashley Records. That year, she recorded a cover version of the Bobbie Gentry hit song "Ode to Billie Joe", which reached the country Top 40. he had a Top 60 duet with her husband called "Hangin' On" in 1968. That same year, she appeared in a movie with Marty Robbins called Road to Nashville. Her chart success was fading rapidly, although she continued to record, including recording the first version of "Harper Valley PTA" that was later a huge crossover hit by Jeannie C. Riley.

Margie Singleton's commercial success was modest compared to the chart triumphs of some of her peers, but the sounds that came out of her were easily distinguishable from other female country acts of the decade. Her late '50s and '60s recordings, some of which were never released and the rest of which have long languished out-of-print, reveal a distinctive stylist, one who didn't quite fit any of the familiar down-home, uptown, demure or brassy models for girl singers, one whose intimate, vibrato-laden delivery drew a wellspring of emotion to the surface of her performances.

Singleton continued to record for her husband's label, but with no further chart entries. She toured with her husband Leon with the Country Music Spectacular, and with his band, Strings of Nashville. He died in 2014. Singleton returned to the studio, recording a new gospel CD, as well as revisiting yesterday and re-recording some of her past hits and favourites. She continued to play dates and enjoys writing. She has recorded and released a video for her self-penned song, "Heaven or Hell" (2018). As of 2021 Margie was working out of her home studio with her son Steve, a veteran songwriter and former operation manager for Monument Records. 

She has continued to release singles into the 2020s, including "Resurrecting Old Memories" (2022).Today, she remains mostly cantered on song writing, studio work at her home studio in Tennessee, and managing her catalogue via Ashley Records.

(Edited from Wikipedia, Bear Family notes, Wide Open Country & Gemini)

*(Since publishing this post I found out that during an interview Margie stated that "Actually, on my birth certificate it says I was born October 12, 1935,"she said. "But my mama said I was born the 5th. That's what I went by all my life until me and my [second] husband [Leon Ashley] had a tour over in Germany and Europe and had to get a passport." I note that a few sources are now giving the 5th as her birthday just to confuse everyone.

Tony Kinsey born 11 October 1927

Tony Kinsey (11 October 1927 – 9 February 2025) was an English jazz drummer and composer.

Born Cyril Anthony Kinsey in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England, his father, Harry, ran the family jewellery business, and his mother, Ivy (nee Spencer), was a homemaker. Having fallen for the drums at the age of six, Tony was bought a toy kit a year later. Shown the rudiments by his sister’s drummer boyfriend and with lessons from a local percussionist, Tommy Webster, he practised with enthusiasm until he and the Birmingham-based pianist Ronnie Ball got under way with a series of local gigs.They worked professionally with Jackson Cox’s band for a summer season in Newquay, Cornwall, before playing with dance bands in Southsea in Hampshire and at Wigan Pier in Lancashire.

He and Ball moved to London in 1948 and made for Archer Street, then the informal open-air labour exchange for freelance musicians. “We arrived in London with 30 quid in our pockets, which we thought would last us for a month,” he said. “Archer Street was key then. That’s where I met people such as Ronnie Scott, Tony Crombie and the jazz guys. People would say, ‘I need a drummer’ and I got some night-club work with Art Thompson’s Band.” Following a friend’s introduction, Kinsey soon joined the classy seven-piece Ivor Noone Band aboard the liner Queen Mary.

John Dankworth Seven

He made 17 transatlantic crossings to New York with Noone, relishing the chance to observe his heroes on 52nd Street, then in its prime. Still awestruck years later, he recalled hearing Bud Powell with Fats Navarro, seeing Gillespie’s big band, plus Parker, Miles Davis and Roach. He also fitted in serious instruction from drummers Bill West and Cozy Cole. Thus prepared for anything, he found work in bands led by Leon Roy and Victor Feldman, before accepting Dankworth’s offer in 1950 to join the John Dankworth Seven, a kind of modernist dream band. Kinsey toured with the Seven for the next two years, recording alongside other bright sparks such as the trumpeter Jimmy Deuchar, the tenorist Don Rendell and the pianist Bill LeSage.

Eventually tiring of the road, he accepted Ball’s suggestion that he join his trio at the 51 Club, London’s first modern jazz venue. When Ball emigrated to the US in 1952, Kinsey took over his slot and embarked on a period of continuous success. The trio became a quartet and then a quintet, as the certainty of regular work attracted the best modernists of the day, including LeSage and saxophonists such as Tommy Whittle, Ronnie Ross, Peter King and the Jamaican innovator Joe Harriott. Invited to cross over to the Flamingo Club in Wardour Street for three nights a week every week, Kinsey’s group were resident there for the next eight years, breaking off only to appear at the 1954 Paris jazz festival and to spend a month in 1956 playing at British Army locations abroad. Kinsey was also busy in the studios, recording with the visiting pianist Mary Lou Williams in 1954 and the singer Lita Roza, while accompanying Oscar Peterson and Ella Fitzgerald on tour in 1955.

                                   

Around that time he also began to compose for short films and cartoons, created more than 100 commercial jingles, for Babycham among them, and wrote library music. His group was resident at singer Annie Ross’s short-lived London club, Annie’s Room, from 1964-65, backing all her visiting stars, and he collaborated with the poet Christopher Logue for a jazz-and-poetry radio broadcast on the BBC Third programme in 1959. The presence of the American orchestral arranger Bill Russo in London from 1961 until 1965 offered Kinsey the chance to study advanced compositional techniques with him, and also to play in Russo’s orchestra.

Among a plethora of compositional assignments were the music for a Marty Feldman revue, a weekly song for the BBC’s That’s Life TV programme (for the first 104 shows, starting in 1973), the theme tunes for two TV series, Wimpole Village and The Castle of Adventure. Kinsey composed many longer-form pieces, including Pictures (1984), an orchestral suite, and the score for the 1987 movie Souvenir, starring Christopher Plummer, also thr eight-part Embroidery Suite (2016), an evocative portrait of his long-time place of residence, Sunbury-on-Thames in Surrey. His concerto for harmonica and string quartet was premiered at St John’s Smith Square in 2012.That same year Kinsey appeared in the documentary film No One But Me, discussing jazz musician Annie Ross.

Musicians everywhere, Buddy Rich among them, appreciated Kinsey’s approach to the drums, lauding his crisp attack and boppish elan; he never tired of playing, even after a stroke limited his chances to perform. Recently he had joined the Way Out West collective of younger jazz musicians and the group conceived and staged a celebratory concert tribute to him at the Hampton Hub Club in 2024. An all-star big band presented a programme of his highly varied jazz compositions to an enthusiastic crowd, with a delighted Kinsey watching happily from a special table at the front of the audience.

Kinsey died following injuries sustained in a fall at Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, England, on 9 February 2025, at the age of 97.

(Edited from the Peter Vacher obit @ The Guardian) 

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