Little Al Thomas born 22 November 1930

Little Al Thomas (22 November 1930 – 18 February 2020) was a Chicago blues singer and a veteran of the local club scene. 

Cook County Hospital

Albert Thomas came from a southern family. His parents were from Lutcher, Louisiana, but he was born in Chicago, at Cook County Hospital, in 1930. “My mother and grandmother had records they had brought from the south in 1926. And I used to climb up on a box and wind the old Victrola and listen to the records,” Thomas told Justin O’Brien at Living Blues magazine in 2011. “They had Mama Rainey and another woman called Black Patti, and they had some old spirituals. I don’t know who was playin’,’ but it had a groove, you know. And my grandmother, she would bang on the piano.” 

Thomas and his family attended Zion Hill Baptist Church on Ashland just south of Roosevelt, where giants of gospel such as Mahalia Jackson sometimes performed; the church was where he first learned to use his voice. According to his wife Edwina, he used to sing as he walked to Medill Elementary School, at the current site of Chicago Tech Academy (14th and Throop). Thomas got his real musical education a few blocks from the school, at the Maxwell Street Market—a bustling, anything-goes market and bazaar that became internationally famous because so many legendary blues musicians got their start there, performing on the sidewalk or on makeshift stages for tips. Thomas also saw plenty of life-changing blues performances in clubs: while still in his teens, he caught Tampa Red and Big Maceo Merriweather at Club Zanzibar (13th and Ashland) and Otis Rush at the 708 Club (708 E. 47th). 

Thomas held down a day job at U.S. Steel for 32 years, but he began singing professionally on the side in the early 60s, performing on Maxwell Street and opening for the likes of Bobby “Blue” Bland and Lefty Dizz. He gigged regularly at the Spitz Diner & Lounge (7149 S. South Chicago) and the Leather Lounge (69th and King Drive). For a couple decades he worked frequently with guitarist Lacy Gibson—they played a long residency together at the Clock Lounge (73rd and South Chicago), which burned down in 1977. 

          Here’s “Bad Luck Baby” from the South Side Story album.

                        

Thomas was nicknamed “Little Al” because he was short, but he had an enormous voice, inspired by B.B. King and Louis Jordan. In 1983, when the folks who’d owned the defunct Clock turned the former Queen Bee’s Lounge into Lee’s Unleaded Blues, Thomas quickly began performing there regularly. He also found a rollicking band to match his giant talent, and in 1987 he began working with the Crazy House Band at the Spitz. They’d go on to back him for decades. 

The founder of the Crazy House Band, Ohio-born drummer Tom “Mot” Dutko, had experience with loads of blues stars himself, playing extensively with the likes Jimmy Reed, Homesick James, Big John Wrencher, and Eddie Shaw. Dutko’s band also included guitarist John Edelmann, bassist Ed Galchick, and sometimes pianist Sidney James Wingfield. Thomas was a playful, charismatic front man: when he sang “Somebody Done Changed That Lock on My Door,” he’d take out his keys and shake them, and on Big Bill Broonzy’s “I Feel So Good” (which opens with the line “I got a letter, came to me by mail”), he’d pull an envelope out of his inside jacket pocket. 

Thomas had already been a south-side celebrity for decades when he finally released his first album, the 1999 Cannonball Records release South Side Story. He’s backed by the Crazy House Band and a three-piece sax section from the late Floyd McDaniel’s band the Blues Swingers: Dave Clark (tenor), Van Kelly (baritone), and Paul Mundy (alto). The album earned rave reviews, and in 2000 Thomas played the Chicago Blues Festival. He also toured with the Crazy House Band along the east coast, all the way from Maine to Key West. 

The group also traveled to Europe, and in 2000 they appeared at the Lucerne Blues Festival in Switzerland, recording a live set that came out in 2002 on German label CrossCut as In the House. Thomas released the album Not My Warden in 2010 with a group called the Deep Down Fools. That same year they backed him at the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival in Colorado. Thomas was beloved as much for his big personality as for his big, warm, smooth-but-raw voice. He loved the French Quarter in New Orleans and visited every year. He also liked to wear a cowboy hat, perhaps a nod to his interest in old western movies—he was a special fan of Randolph Scott and could identify Scott’s favorite horse, Stardust. 

At age 86, Thomas was inducted into the Chicago Blues Hall of Fame, but a few years later he died of complications of old age on February 19, 2020, in the Prairie Shores Apartments where he lived. 

(Edited from the Chicago Reader)

 

Norville Dollar born 21 November 1936

Norville Dollar (21 November 1936 – 25 August 2021) was a country western artist and a prolific song writer. 

Norville Paul Dollar was born in Hematite, Missouri, the third of Robert and Celeste Vinyard Dollar's five children. He was raised in the Festus, Missouri area, which is just south of St. Louis. He was an early and enthusiastic fan of country music. He got his first guitar when he was just fourteen years old. A friend showed him how to play a few chords; but he learned the rest on his own and never did have a formal music lesson. For the next few years, like an old bluesman of days past, he diligently picked his guitar under the comfort of a family shade tree. In due time, Dollar became proficient enough to land paying gigs at honky-tonks around Jefferson County. 

Years rolled by and Dollar continued to ply his trade, doing his best to channel the achingly-beautiful compositions of Hank Williams and other purveyors of "traditional country." He toured regionally, in Missouri, Arkansas and Texas, making use of his voice, a rumbling baritone carrying more than a hint of George Jones. After years paying dues as a musical vagabond, playing a traditional country sound that has long left the charts, his career trajectory took a decidedly upward swing. He began recording in the studio, cutting a pair of tracks, "Continental Queen" and "Lonely Man," that began showing up on the local radio with regularity. 

Cruising down the highway in a white 1965 Pontiac Bonneville, Dollar heard his voice broadcast over the airwaves for the first time. Soon he was hearing himself belt out songs about "raven-haired" beauties on multiple stations. In 1966, Dollar prepared to take the biggest stage yet — a shot on the Grand Ole Opry, the legendary country stage that has been graced by country royalty for decades. Along the way, Dollar played radio stations, televisions and concerts with luminaries like Loretta Lynn and the old "Possum" himself, George Jones. After two dozen appearances on the Grand Old Opry, and a mega-bill at a sold-out Kiel Auditorium backing Lynn and headliner Marty Robbins, Dollar was riding the crest of a wave of popularity. 

                                   

Just a short time later Dollar formed his first band and soon got the attention of KPLR-TV, Channel 11, in St. Louis. They signed him up to do a weekly show in the mid-1960's. The Norville Dollar Show was an immediate hit, and soon he was playing host to many of the stars from Nashville at that time. His show gave audiences their first exposures to such stars as Barbara Fairchild and Helen Cornelius, and to Dave "Lonzo" Hooten. Mr. Hooten went on to become "Lonzo" of the famed Grand Ole Opry comedy team Lonzo and Oscar. He had another run on KPLR-TV, which by this time was being aired over cable television as well as over the air - in the mid-1970's. This gave him a much wider audience and consequently opened many doors for his music career. Among these were several appearances on the Grand Ole Opry. 

Norville has always been a prolific song writer, and his songs have been produced and recorded by artists on labels such as Nugget Records, Chart Records, and Saturday Records. All have done well, but one in particular, Lonely Man, reached the Number 5 spot on the charts at radio station WJJD in Chicago. The popularity of his songs led to many live appearances throughout the East. Then, fed up with the strain on his family, he decided to end his career while still a young man and founded the Norville Dollar Construction Company in the Festus area. 

He enjoyed those years, spent with his family and raised his children, and later, enjoying the arrival of the grandchildren. Throughout these years, he continued to write music - music that was inspired by the events of his life, by his family and friends. In December, 2006, he lost his beloved wife of 45 years to cancer. This left a huge void in his life, but he gradually began to fill that void and his life, once again, with music. 

His children and friends encouraged him to turn to his music again as well and seemingly has picked up where he left off many years ago. He released a new CD is titled Through the Years With Norville Dollar, which featured some of his old favorites and much of his newer material. The album, as its title suggested, showed the growth and maturity of a fine country musician and recording artist. Norville was inducted into the Traditional Country Music Association's Old Time Country Music Hall of Fame in 2011 and received their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. 

He died at his home in Festus, Missouri, on Aug. 25, 2021, at the age of 84 years. 

(Edited from Ron Vinyard’s bio @ Hillbilly-Music & St. Louis Post Despatch)

Dr. John born 20 November 1941

Dr. John. (November 20, 1941 – June 6, 2019) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. His music combined New Orleans blues, jazz, R&B, soul and funk. 

Dr John’s real name was Malcolm John Rebennack. His father ran an appliance shop in the East End of New Orleans, fixing radios and televisions and selling records. “Mac” grew up listening to his father’s hoard of 78s by blues artists such as Big Bill Broonzy and Memphis Minnie, jazz by Louis Armstrong, Miles Davis and King Oliver, and country music from Hank Williams and Roy Rogers. 

His family was intensely musical, with numerous aunts, uncles and cousins who were amateur musicians. From a young age Mac attended local gigs and, with his father’s assistance, visited recording sessions at the fabled J&M Studio. It was a meeting with the piano player Professor Longhair when he was 14 that persuaded him to pursue a musical career, and he began performing at local clubs. When Jesuit high school told him he must choose between schooling and music, he picked the latter. Proficient on piano and guitar, at 15 he began playing on recording sessions and accompanied artists such as Art Neville, Toussaint and Joe Tex. By 16 he had started producing tracks and was hired as an artists and repertoire man by Johnny Vincent at Ace Records. 

In 1960 he was involved in a fight when playing a show in Jackson, Mississippi, and had the ring finger of his left hand almost shot off. He eventually recovered the use of the finger, but it affected his guitar playing and caused him to concentrate on the piano. Working in the New Orleans clubs, he became embroiled in the criminal underworld of drugs and prostitution, and acquired a heroin addiction while dealing drugs himself. After completing a two-year jail sentence in Fort Worth, Texas, for drug possession in 1965, he moved to Los Angeles and soon was in great demand as a studio session musician. He played on countless tracks for the producer Phil Spector for artists including the Ronettes and the Righteous Brothers, worked with Aretha Franklin and Roberta Flack, recorded with Bob Dylan and Doug Sahm and played with Frank Zappa, until Zappa sacked him for using drugs. 

                                    

His album Gris-Gris, was recorded on studio time borrowed from Sonny & Cher, with whom he had been working in Los Angeles and who had helped him secure a deal with Atco records. Produced by Harold Battiste, it marked the first appearance of Rebennack’s pseudonym Dr John Creaux, alias Dr John the Night Tripper. After The Sun, Moon & Herbs he brought out the album Dr John’s Gumbo (1972). Following the positive reaction to In the Right Place in 1973, his next album, Desitively Bonnaroo (1974), was much less successful and it proved to be his last album with Atco. He moved to United Artists for the live album Hollywood Be Thy Name (1975), which was also unsuccessful. 

From the mid-70s onwards Dr John began a long partnership with the songwriter Doc Pomus that led to songs for his albums City Lights and Tango Palace (both 1979). He then made the solo piano album Dr John Plays Mac Rebennack (1981), a virtuosic showcase of his keyboard skills, and repeated the feat with The Brightest Smile in Town (1983). In 1989, the year he signed to Warner Bros and finally put his heroin addiction behind him, he released In a Sentimental Mood, a sleekly-produced collection of standards including Makin’ Whoopee, a duet with Rickie Lee Jones that earned the pair a Grammy for best jazz vocal performance. He won another Grammy for his second Warners album Goin’ Back to New Orleans (1992), this time for best traditional blues album. 

In 1994 he published his autobiography, Under a Hoodoo Moon: The Life of The Night Tripper (co-written with Jack Rummel), a lurid memoir of his musical life in New Orleans that did not shy away from details about drugs, violence, prostitution and the dark side of the music industry. Nonetheless he was beginning to assume the aura of a respected senior citizen, winning a third Grammy in 1996 for the track SRV Shuffle from the album A Tribute to Stevie Ray Vaughan, and a fourth in 2000 for his duet with BB King on Is You Is Or Is You Ain’t My Baby. Duke Elegant (2000) comprised John’s takes on favourite Duke Ellington pieces, while Mercernary (2006) was his tribute to another classic songwriter, Johnny Mercer. 

The obliteration of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 spurred Dr John to release the fundraising EP Sippiana Hericane, and then City That Care Forgot (2008), an album-length tribute to his grievously wounded home town. It won him Grammy number five, in the best contemporary blues album category, and in 2013 Locked Down brought him a sixth for best blues album. New Orleans was on his mind once again when he made Ske-Dat-De-Dat: Spirit of Satch (2014), a homage to Armstrong, the city’s founding father of jazz. . He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2011.  On June 6, 2019, Dr. John died of a heart attack in New Orleans, Louisiana at the age of 77 years.

(Edited from Adam Sweeting obit @ The Guardian)

 

J.D. Sumner born 19 November 1924

J.D. Sumner (November 19, 1924 – November 16, 1998) was an American gospel singer, songwriter, and music promoter noted for his bass voice, and his innovation in the Christian and Gospel music fields. Sumner sang in five quartets and was a member of the Blackwood Brothers during their 1950s heyday. Aside from his incredibly low bass voice, Sumner's business acumen helped promote Southern Gospel and move it into the mainstream of American culture and music during the 1950s and 1960s. 

Sunny South Quartet (JD far right)

John Daniel Sumner, nicknamed Jim Dandy or J.D., was born in Lakeland, Florida. Like so many Southern singers of his generation, he sang in church from an early age. He began his career with the Sunny South Quartet from 1945 to 1948. The quartet was headquartered in Tampa, Florida, and was sponsored by the Dixie Lily Flour Company. In 1949, Sunny South manager Horace Floyd relocated the quartet to Orlando, but Sumner stayed behind in Tampa where he maintained the sponsorship and started a new group, the Dixie Lily Harmoneers, which he sang with for a few months. 

Later in 1949, J. D. Sumner left the Dixie Lily Harmoneers and moved up to Atlanta, Georgia, where he joined the Sunshine Boys. They split their time between Atlanta and Wheeling, West Virginia, with the occasional trip to Hollywood to sing in Western movies. The lineup of Fred Daniel on tenor, Ed Wallace on lead, Ace Richman on baritone, and J. D. on bass continued on for five years until June 30, 1954. On June 30, 1954, tragedy struck the Blackwood Brothers Quartet when a disastrous test run in their private plane cost the lives of baritone R. W. Blackwood and bass singer Bill Lyles. 

J. D. Sumner was immediately hired by the Blackwood Brothers to sing with them to replace Lyles. Cecil Blackwood joined at the same time to replace his brother R. W. on baritone. J. D. sang with the Blackwood Brothers Quartet from 1954 until 1965. While he was with the Blackwoods, Sumner brought the idea of traveling cross country in a tour bus rather than flying, and was the first professional musical group to do so in any genre. He also established the National Quartet Convention along with James Blackwood to showcase the various quartets in the industry and the convention became an annual festival and mainstay in the industry that continues to this day. 

                            Here’s “I Believe” from above album. 

                                     

It was also during this time he met Elvis Presley who lived in Memphis, Tennessee, as a young boy and would attend the all night sings at The Ellis Auditorium. Presley was an avid fan of Southern Gospel music and groups such as the Blackwood Brothers and the Statesmen Quartet. Sumner recalled that Presley had missed a concert one month, and Sumner inquired why he did not attend. Presley replied he had no money to get into the show, and Sumner said "Son you come find me when you want to get in, money or not." Sumner then told his group mates to let Presley in the back stage door so he could attend. Years later, Presley would try out for the Songfellows Quartet, a group associated with the Blackwood Brothers, though did not receive an invitation to join.

In 1962, J. D. Sumner became the manager of the Stamps Quartet, and three years later, he left the Blackwood Brothers to sing with them. Sumner was most noted as the leader of the Stamps Quartet, which became known as J. D. Sumner & the Stamps. As a teenager, Elvis Presley idolized Sumner's singing after seeing him perform with the Sunshine Boys. Presley hired Sumner & the Stamps as his back-up singers in 1971. The group toured and recorded with Presley from November 1971 until Presley's death in 1977. Sumner not only sang at Elvis' funeral but had previously sung at the funeral of Elvis' mother Gladys in 1958. J. D. and the Stamps opened for Jerry Lee Lewis in 1980 in the United Kingdom, the Stamps only overseas performance.

After the Stamps Quartet disbanded in 1980, Sumner with Hovie Lister, Jake Hess, Rosie Rozell, and James Blackwood formed the Masters V as a special consolidation of members of the Blackwood Brothers Quartet and Statesmen Quartet. The group was a showcase for Sumner's voice and compositions and won the 1981 Grammy Award for best traditional gospel performance. Sumner was credited not only for his singing, songwriting, and concert promotions, but was also noted for being the first to customize a coach bus for the entertainment business to use for music groups. 

After the Masters V disbanded in 1988, Sumner reformed the Stamps Quartet and performed with the group until his death in 1998. He was often seen in his latter years appearing as a guest artist on the Bill Gaither Homecoming videos. After Sumner's death, lead singer Ed Enoch, a member of the Stamps since 1969, took over the group and renamed it "Ed Enoch and the Golden Covenant." 

On November 16, 1998, three days before his 74th birthday, J.D. Sumner was found dead of a heart attack in his hotel room in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, while on tour with the Stamps Quartet. 

(Edited from Wikipedia)

Alain Barrière born 18 November 1935

Alain Barrière (18 November 1935 – 18 December 2019) was a French singer, who was active from the 1950s until his death and was known for participating in the Eurovision Song Contest 1963. He became one of the best-known and well respected singer-songwriter in all French countries over the world.   

Alain Bellec was born in La Trinité-sur-Mer and grew up in Brittany as the son of hardworking fishmongers. Once Alain finished his secondary education, he left for Angers, where he enrolled in the École nationale supérieure d'arts et métiers. He devoted himself wholeheartedly to a future career in engineering, but in 1958 he was bitten by the music bug. The young student promptly went out, bought a guitar and began composing his first melodies. The following year, he went on to discover the modernist poetry penned by the likes of Francis Carco and Robert Desnos. This inspired him to begin setting words to his music and he soon started playing his early compositions to student friends. After graduating in 1960, he landed his first job, working for a tyre manufacturer in the Paris suburbs. Meanwhile, Alain, still gripped by his musical passion, spent his evenings performing at a small cabaret in the city centre. 

In 1961, Alain Bellec adopted his stage name, Alain Barrière, and entered the "Coq d’or" young talents contest. The final of the competition was held at the prestigious Olympia music-hall in Paris where the young singer-songwriter scooped first prize with his song, "Cathy." Rock and 'yéyé' (French rock'n'roll) were just beginning to take off on the French music scene, but Alain Barrière fitted into neither category. Nevertheless, French record companies took an interest in the young singer's original 'chanson' style and he soon went on to sign his first record deal. 

This allowed him to leave his day job and earn a living performing at smaller venues on the Paris circuit. It was not until 1963 that Alain Barrière's career really took off in earnest, however, with the release of the single "Elle était si jolie." The young singer-songwriter was chosen to represent France at that year's Eurovision Song Contest and, although he finally finished fifth overall, this gave him access to a much wider audience. Barrière went on to support Paul Anka on a concert tour – and realised it was time to perfect his live technique! 

                                    

Alain Barrière went on to release his debut album at the end of 1964. It bore the title of one of his most popular songs, "Ma vie" (My Life). He found himself performing as the headlining act at the Olympia and the entire French nation soon had his song on their lips. Barrière had turned into one of the fastest-rising stars of the day, but he appeared to be uncomfortable about fitting into the commercial system. Instead of playing the rock star and living it up with a champagne and drugs lifestyle, he used the proceeds from his debut album to buy an old millhouse in the Yvelines region. 

He lived here as a recluse over the next few years, with no-one but his dogs for company and worked on new material at night. In 1965 he was offered, and accepted, a leading role in a heist thriller, Pas de panique, alongside Pierre Brasseur. This would be his only venture into acting, but his singing career reached its peak in the latter part of the decade with a string of hits making him one of France's biggest stars and a sell-out live attraction. 

Barrière had gained a reputation for being uncompromising and at times difficult to work with. In the early 1970s he left his record company to set up his own label. He kept his fanbase, which ensured his records and concerts continued to provide a good living, despite his being overlooked by sections of the French broadcast media. "Tu t'en vas", a 1975 duet with fellow Eurovision veteran Noëlle Cordier, topped the French chart, and was the third biggest-selling single of the year in Switzerland. 

Barrière married in 1975, and he and his wife opened a nightclub-restaurant in a converted castle in Brittany. Although it proved a successful and popular venue, Barrière soon found himself facing severe tax problems as a result of dubious advice. In 1977 he took his family to the United States, where they remained for four years. 

After returning to France, Barrière made several comeback attempts, to little avail. After another period spent overseas, this time in Quebec, the family were back in Brittany when Barrière's career was unexpectedly rejuvenated by the 1997 release of a CD containing remastered versions of his old hits, which proved to be a money-spinner. Shortly afterwards, Barrière released an album of new material, which also sold well. In September 2003, the singer performed his final farewell concert in "Le Stirwen," bowing out after a career spanning four decades. He published an autobiography in 2006 and continued to release both retrospective and newly recorded albums. 

Barrière died of cardiac arrest at Carnac, Morbihan, in France on the  18th December 2019, at the age of 84.

Iain Sutherland born 17 November 1948

Iain Sutherland (17 November 1948 - 25 November 2019) and his brother Gavin Sutherland (born 6 October 1951) were a Scottish folk and soft rock duo. 

Iain George Sutherland was born in Ellon maternity hospital in Aberdeenshire in 1948 and spent his earliest years in Peterhead. His father George was a civil servant who also played fiddle in his own band, everything from Glenn Miller to reels and strathspeys. Iain’s mother Eileen sang. The family moved to Blythe Bridge, near Stoke, because of George’s work. Iain and Gavin learned guitar at an early age and Iain had his own band called The Mysteries while still at school. 

When they were children, Iain and Gavin would learn chords and harmonies by listening to Everly Brothers records over and over again and then trying to copy them. Years later they heard a version of Arms of Mary on which the Everly Brothers replicated the Sutherland Brothers’ own arrangement. A continent and several decades away, the legendary American duo had repaid the debt. 

Initially school was quite challenging for the boys, whose accent and dialect were “full-on Peterheid”. Nevertheless Iain got a place at Manchester University and might have gone on to become an architect, but he decided instead to try to make a living with his band. In the early 1960s the brothers moved to London, which was essentially the location of the British music industry at that time, sharing a room in a flat in West Kensington. They were always close. And although he was the quieter of the two, Iain was always protective and supportive of his younger sibling. 

                                   

They saw themselves primarily as songwriters, rather than singers, but secured a deal with Island Records and in 1971 they released their first album entitled Sutherland Brothers Band. Sailing was their third single, a quite different take from that of Rod Stewart. Although it was influenced by their background in the fishing communities of the North-East, it was really about the spiritual journey through life, rather than a physical journey. It was also influenced by their familiarity with the Kirk and hymns. 

They linked up with the band Quiver at the end of 1972 and began to build a discerning audience with their melodic blend of folk, rock and pop. In May 1973 they were playing the Civic Centre in Motherwell, by September they were playing the Holywood Bowl and Madison Square Garden, New York, as support for Elton John. They found Elton courteous and professional, connecting over chat about football. He was a Watford fanatic, they followed Stoke City.

Sutherland Brothers and Quiver were probably more popular in the US than they ever were in the UK. They had a hit in North America in 1973 with (I Don’t Want to Love You But) You Got Me Anyway. They wrote a couple of songs specifically for Rod Stewart and worked with him on demos with the intention that he would record one of them for his 1975 album Atlantic Crossing. It came as surprise to them when they discovered he had recorded Sailing. They did not even recognise it at first. It was only when he started singing that they recognised their song. No one knew then just how phenomenally successful it would become, selling over a million copies in the UK. It was credited to Gavin as writer, though he said he and Iain wrote it together. 

In 1976 the Sutherland Brothers and Quiver headlined at the Glasgow Apollo and the Usher Hall in Edinburgh (£1 for the upper tier) and with the success of Arms of Mary they found themselves “graduating” from Old Grey Whistle Test to Top of the Pops. The Sutherland Brothers released eight albums during the 1970s, six of them with Quiver, and had a few other minor hits before disbanding. 

Both of the Sutherland brothers attempted to launch solo careers on their own during the early '80s, but both failed to retain the audience of their previous band. Iain had returned to the Stoke area, where he had his own music studio. Iain’s last solo album was Back To The Sea in 2015. “I just write and record for my own purposes and if anyone is interested, all well and good. The sort of stuff I write is difficult to categorise - maybe it’s folk, but it harks back to our Scottish roots.”  

Iain died died peacefully at home in Wollerton, Shropshire, after an undisclosed illness on 25 November 2019, aged 71. Gavin is still recording and his most recent album A Fragile World, was released on Bandcamp during October 2024. He currently posts on Facebook. 

(Edited from The Scotsman, AllMusic & Gavin Sutherland Music)

 

W.C. Clark born 16 November 1939

W.C. Clark (November 16, 1939 – March 2, 2024) was an American blues musician. He is known as the "Godfather of Austin Blues" for his influence on the Austin, Texas blues scene since the late 1960s. 

Wesley Curley Clark was born and raised in Austin, and grew up in its segregated east side, singing Gospel in in the choir at St. Johns College Heights Baptist Church, and learning guitar at the age of 14. Clark played his first solo show at the city’s legendary Victory Grill at the age of 16, and learned all kinds of styles, including jazz and R&B. He found his first major gig playing in the band of Joe Tex, who was famous for fusing R&B with soul and country. It was this early experience with the “rub” between genres that would make W.C. Clark so important to all aspects of Austin music. 

The gig with Joe Tex took W.C. Clark all around the United States, which was good because at the time, W.C. felt the scene in the Texas Capital had grown stale. But when he returned, he found a new crop of young White performers hanging out on Austin’s east side and learning from the oldtimers. This renewed the energy in the Austin blues scene, especially through two brothers originally from the south Dallas area—guitarist Jimmie Vaughan who would go on to found The Fabulous Thunderbirds, and his little brother named Stevie Ray. 

W. C. Clark formed his own band called Southern Feeling in the mid/late ’70s, and started taking songwriting more seriously. Through this time, Stevie Ray Vaughn kept coming by to hear W.C. Clark play, admiring W.C.’s guitar skills and writing. Eventually along with Lou Ann Barton, the three would form the now legendary Triple Threat Revue in September of 1977, which was a blues explosion in Austin, and set the standard for the Austin blues scene. 

When W.C. Clark left the trio in May of 1978, Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Double Trouble came to life, but the influence of W.C. Clark would remain, while Clark found world-renown success all his own through a solo career. Clark played with the likes of B.B. King, James Brown, along with Albert King and Freddie King throughout the era. Jimmie and Stevie Ray Vaughan weren’t W.C. Clark’s only protégé’s. Brothers Will and Charlie Sexton also became big acolytes of the W.C. Clark sound, with Charlie Sexton carrying that influence on as a producer and a mainstay in the band of Bob Dylan, speaking to W.C. Clark’s far-reaching impact. 

                        Here’s “My Texas Home” from above CD

                                     

Clark released his first solo album called Something for Everybody in 1986 on his own label. He famously appeared on the vaunted Austin City Limits TV show in 1990, with Stevie Ray, Jimmie, Lou Ann Barton, Will Sexton, and others showing up to pay respects to their mentor. W.C. Clark would later release Heart of Gold in 1994, and Texas Soul in 1996 on the BlackTop label. Texas Soul won a WC Handy Award for “Soul Blues Album of The Year.” 

In 1997, tragedy struck W. C. Clark when his tour van was involved in a fatality accident near Sherman, TX while returning to Austin for SXSW from a show in Milwaukee. Clark only injured his arm, but his fiancée and drummer Brenda Jasek died in the accident. Clark was driving the van, and this sent both his personal life and his professional career in a tailspin. The experience would later inspire Clark’s 1998 album Lover Plea, and the song  “Are You Here, Are You There?” dedicated to his fiancée. Throughout his career, he has released 8 albums, with W.C. Clark being his last in 2018. 

In recent years, W.C. Clark had settled into being considered the preeminent blues legend of Austin, while also touring regularly. In 2016 he appeared with his song Rough Edges on the album Texas Blues Voices by Italian harmonica player and Grammy Nominee, Fabrizio Poggi.  Clark played his final show at Austin, TX honky tonk Giddy Ups in Manchaca on February 20th, and reportedly entered hospice care shortly thereafter as he was diagnosed with cancer. He died on March 2, 2024 at Christopher House hospice in Austin. He was 84. 

His soulful voice, masterful guitar playing, and unwavering dedication to mentoring the next generation of musicians has ensured that his influence would be felt for generations to come. Wesley Curley Clark's life and career stand as a testament to the power of music to inspire, transform, and unite, making him a true legend of the blues world. 

(Edited from Saving Country Music, Discogs & Austin American Statesman)