David Ruffin born 18 January 1941

Davis Eli "David" Ruffin (January 18, 1941 – June 1, 1991) was an American soul singer and musician most famous for his work as one of the lead singers of The Temptations (1964–68) during the group's "Classic Five" period as it was later known. He was the lead voice on such famous songs as "My Girl" and "Ain't Too Proud to Beg".

The man most of us know by his unmistakable, calming yet disturbed raspy voice was born Davis Eli Ruffin on January 18, 1941, in Whynot, Mississippi. His father, Eli Ruffin, was a Baptist minister. Only months after his birth his mother Ophelia Ruffin died, and his father later remarried, to a schoolteacher.

David began singing and touring at a very young age with his father and siblings in a gospel group. Leaving home at 13 to pursue the ministry, it was David's select showmanship that caught the eyes of some in the secular music industry. He then moved to Detroit, Michigan, and was signed to Anna Records in 1960 and then Check-Mate Records in 1961. David didn't have hits with either label, but they were good showcases for his vocal ability and talent. In 1964 he joined The Temptations, who had yet to chart a hit, at Motown Records.

 

The "Tempts"' hitless status changed in March of 1965 with the classic "My Girl", on which David sang lead. The song stayed at #1 for eight weeks, and paved the way for such majestic follow-ups as "Since I Lost My Baby" (1965), "Beauty Is Only Skin Deep" (1966), "All I Need" (1967), and "I Wish It Would Rain" (1968).

The same showmanship that brought David into the R&B industry caught the attention of fans around the world. His stage performance was dynamic. His dramatic hand gestures and slipping out of chorus to fall to his knees wasn't all this tall, slender man wearing black-framed glasses could do. His voice proved to be powerful, as he went on to sing lead on Temptations hits that brought joy and happiness in the turbulent times of the 1960s. These times also proved to be turbulent for the group, however. Tensions arose when David asked for billing before the group, a practice common among vocal groups of the time. Not only did David not get his name above the group's, but he was dismissed from the group in 1968.

He was Still under contract at Motown, though, and his solo career got off to a promising start with the ballad "My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me"). Subsequent releases failed, however, as did duets with his brother Jimmy Ruffin. Few of the songs charted and he blamed Motown for not properly promoting his music. In 1979 he left the label and went to Warner Brothers, where his career unfortunately went into a complete decline.

He later re-joined The Temptations for a reunion tour, but after that he fell obscurity, and his personal life also took a downward spiral when it came to light that he was suffering from substance abuse and depression. He eventually reunited with former Temptations colleague Eddie Kendricks (who was now also a solo artist) in 1986, and they began touring and performing with 'Artists Against Apartheid', Live-Aid, and Hall & Oates. In 1989 Otis Williams was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and David and Eddie begin touring with ex-Temptation Dennis Edwards. Weeks after the tour ended, David was dropped off at a Philadelphia hospital and an hour later the man who sang the biographical tune "Statue Of a Fool" from every bit of his heart and soul was pronounced dead.

While the official cause of death was ruled a cocaine overdose, his family has come to believe that foul play was involved. When the world lost David Ruffin, it lost a life too short-lived, a heavenly voice, and a whimsical, charismatic man. He had one of the most recognizable voices in music. The joy and sadness in his songs can be felt by all. David's voice will continue to bridge the generation gap just as it crossed the colour lines in the sixties and seventies. To many other music artists, David Ruffin's music influence is everlasting.   (Info mainly IMDB)

Tommy Reynolds born 17 January 1917

Tommy Reynolds (17 January 1917 – 30 September 1986) was an American clarinettist and bandleader who emulated the style of fellow clarinettist Artie Shaw. 

Reynolds was born Anthony Rinaldo in Akron, Ohio, on Jan. 17, 1917, the son of Italian immigrants Salvatore and Nancy Rinaldo. One of 11 siblings, he grew up in a home on Wabash Avenue, where Akron General Medical Centre stands today.  

Musical talent ran in the family: Three of the Rinaldo brothers were destined to become band leaders. It took some coaxing to get little Anthony interested, however. He began violin lessons at the age of 6, but found his calling in the 1920s when he attended an Akron concert featuring a specialty clarinet act. The music was so enthralling that he switched instruments, rededicated himself to lessons and mastered the clarinet in six months. 

He played lead clarinet in the South High School band and earned extra cash by performing in local groups. Anthony and his younger brother Frankie, who played saxophone, became well known in Northeast Ohio. While travelling to the South in the mid 1930s there were a lot of places that would not book them because of the ethnic name, so the Italian-American teens changed their stage names from Rinaldo to Reynolds and it made it a lot easier for them to play some of the clubs and dance halls in the South. 

A popular band leader in Ohio, Frankie later formed the Frankie Reynolds Orchestra, organized and directed the Akron Pops Orchestra and operated Frankie Reynolds Music on West Exchange Street. He passed away in 2006 at age 89. Joe Rinaldo, who played drums for 40 years, led the Joe Rinaldo Orchestra and the Good Times Band, which served as the house band at Akron's Tangier and Fairlawn Country Club.  

Tommy Reynolds studied briefly at the University of Akron before quitting to pursue a career in music. His reputation as a clarinettist was growing. His first break came in 1939 when he replaced Woody Herman in Isham Jones' band. After a few months, he decided to strike out on his own.

 

 

In Cleveland, he formed Tommy Reynolds and Your Band of Tomorrow, a name inspired by the futuristic 1939 World's Fair in New York. The band played in East Coast ballrooms and appeared on live radio broadcasts. They signed a deal with Columbia subsidiary Vocalion and recorded such songs as Marcheta, Deep Night, I'll Tell It to the Breeze, Once Over Lightly and the band's theme, Pipe Dreams.  
 

Changing its name to Tommy Reynolds and His Orchestra, the 14-piece band travelled from coast to coast. Besides listening to radio broadcasts and seeing his big brother perform in Akron, Rinaldo travelled to the Roseland in New York. Reynolds shared the stage with a revolving cast of musicians and singers. Some of the notables included trumpeters Billy Butterfield and Pee Wee Erwin, saxophonists Serge Chaloff and Illinois Jacquette, drummer George Wettling and vocalist Mary Ann McCall. Future orchestra leader Nelson Riddle got his start at age 18 as a trombonist in Reynolds' band. Hal Linden, the future star of TV's Barney Miller, sang and played clarinet.  

Reynolds performed in radio shows with Abbott and Costello, Jerry Colonna, Martha Raye and the Mills Brothers. He substituted for Les Brown in a two-week tour with Bob Hope in Canada.  

He released some of his featured tunes in sheet music and also filmed at least six songs for ''Soundies,'' a 1940s version of music videos that captured the orchestra at its peak. He also recorded songs for the Okeh, Derby and Atlantic labels. Reynolds' orchestra continued to work steadily until the mid-1950s. The band leader bowed out just when rock 'n' roll was coming into vogue. 

Reynolds and his wife, Alberta, settled in Danbury, Conn. Around 1955, he accepted a job as music director at WOR-AM radio in New York and directed the program Bandstand USA, which aired on 500 stations.  

Later, he served as music director at WOR-TV and program director at WOR-FM. He remained with the RKO Company for the rest of his life. Tommy Reynolds was 69 when he died Sept. 30, 1986, in Manhattan after a long illness. (Info edited from Akron Beacon Journal)

 

Here’s a soundie of Tommy Reynolds duetting with Phyllis Lane (now Phyllis Kluger) The dancer is Rose Marie McGill Circa mid 40’s.
 

Long John Baldry born 12 January 1941

John William "Long John" Baldry (12 January 1941 – 21 July 2005) was an English and Canadian blues singer and a voice actor. He never became famous in the United States, despite having hits in Britain and helping the careers of future global superstars Rod Stewart and Elton John, who appeared in bands led by Baldry in the 1960s. He enjoyed pop success in the UK where Let the Heartaches Begin reached No. 1 in 1967 and in Australia where his duet with Kathi McDonald You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' reached number two in 1980.

 

John Baldry was born Jan. 12, 1941, in East Maddon, England. He entered the British blues scene as a teenager, singing folk, jazz and R&B in London clubs and coffee bars. The raspy-voiced Baldry was one of the first British singers to perform folk and blues numbers.
 

He played in Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated, serving for a time as vocalist of the group, which featured the cream of the early-'60s British blues crop (Mick Jagger was one of its singers for a brief period). Baldry was featured on the band's R&B from the Marquee (1962), considered to be one of the first British blues albums. 

 

Baldry, nicknamed Long John because of his 6-foot-7-inch height, then split with Korner to tour Germany with a jazz band. After returning to the UK, Baldry hooked up with Cyril Davies, with whom he had played in an R&B group earlier in his career. Davies enlisted Baldry to be part of his band, the R&B All-Stars. After Davies died of leukemia in 1964, Baldry recruited some of the All-Stars to start his own group, the Hoochie Coochie Men, featuring Stewart as a second vocalist, and also  Geoff Bradford (who had been in an embryonic version of the Rolling Stones) on guitar. In 1964 the band issued its debut LP, Long John's Blues. 

Rod Stewart quoted "I was 18 and playing harmonica and singing a Muddy Waters song in a railway station, when Long John Baldry ran over to me from the other side of the tracks. I had just been to see him play at a club; he was one of the top Bluesmen in England. But John didn’t sing Muddy Waters songs – he knew Muddy Waters, had performed with him and with Ramblin' Jack Elliott too. And now he was asking,” Would you like to join the band?”  

In 1965 the Hoochie Coochie Men split. Baldry formed Steampacket with Stewart and others, including future Animals guitarist Vic Briggs, Rod Stewart, Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger. But that band was short-lived as well, and after its breakup Baldry founded Bluesology, featuring Reginald Dwight (the future Elton John) on piano. In 1966 Baldry also opened some dates for the Rolling Stones. He was a well-liked figure on the London club circuit, and in fact the Beatles took him on as a guest on one of their 1964 British TV specials, at a time when the Fab Four could have been no bigger, and Baldry was virtually unknown. 

Following the release of Bluesology's 1967 single "Cuckoo," Baldry left to go solo officially. Ironically, his greatest commercial success came not with blues, but orchestrated pop ballads. The 1967 single "Let the Heartaches Begin" reached number one in Britain, and Baldry had several other small British hits in the late '60s, the biggest of which was "Mexico" (1968). (None of these made an impression in the U.S.) Baldry also began acting. 

 

 

The commercial success of his ballads led Baldry to forsake the blues on record for a few years. He returned to blues and rock in 1971 on It Ain't Easy, for which Rod Stewart and Elton John shared the production duties. The album contained a tiny American chart item, "Don't Try to Lay No Boogie-Woogie on the King of Rock'n'Roll," and Stewart and John split the production once again on the 1972 follow-up, Everything Stops for Tea. Baldry toured the United States and took up residence there. He never caught on as an international figure, though, and by 1980 moved to Canada and soon became a citizen of that country where he lived with his partner of 28 years Felix "Oz" Rexach. Baldry continued to record, and did commercial voice-overs. He is known to kids as the voice of Doctor Robotnick, enemy of the popular cartoon and video-game hero Sonic the Hedgehog, He also and narrated "Winnie the Pooh" recordings for Walt Disney Records. 

In 2002 Baldry with guitarist Bobby Cameron played a 10-venue sell-out tour of Canada.


He played his last live show also with Cameron in Columbus, Ohio, on 19 July 2004, at Barristers Hall. Baldry's final UK Tour as 'The Long John Baldry Trio' concluded with a performance on Saturday 13 November 2004 at The King's Lynn Arts Centre, King's Lynn, Norfolk, England.  

 

 

In April 2005 he checked into the Vancouver General Hospital battling a chest infection. Rod Stewart paid for most of the medical bills. John's partner Oz said, "Rod was, as always, very supportive and came to see him in Vancouver, which gave him a big boost. They even made plans to do things when John got better." 

 

Things didn't get better and after battling the chest infection for several months, Long John Baldry passed away on July 21, 2005 whist still in hospital. He was 64. His cremated remains were returned for installation in the family reliquary at St. Lawrence Church, Whitchurch Lane, North London. (Info edited from VH1, AMG, Readers Digest & Wikipedia)

Jeanne Carroll born 15 January 1931

 

Albertha Jeanne Carroll (15 January 1931, Ruleville, Mississippi - 9. August 2011,Aalst, Belgium) was an American blues and soul blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter.

Carroll grew up in Mississippi, near Clarksdale and sang from infancy in the local church and by her late teens was performing in Chicago clubs where she was soon able to establish herself in the jazz and blues club scene.

During World War II, she sang with the  Charlie Agnew Orchestra, which was then based at the El Rancho in Las Vegas. She also appeared in the 1944 movie musical Sing a Jingle. She eventually returned to Chicago, where she sang in clubs.

Through the 50s she shared stages and sometimes performed with noted blues and jazz artists of the period. Singing the blues, she also toured nationally with jazz and blues package shows, occasionally travelling abroad. In the 60s, Carroll appeared in Canada, performing at concerts and on television. She sang often with Franz Jackson’s Chicago-based band, making records and also touring US military bases in the Pacific and Southeast Asia.

 

                                   Here's "Oh Daddy" from above album. 

Throughout her career she appeared with the orchestras of Count Basie , Duke Ellington , as well as Muddy Waters , Willie Dixon , Buddy Guy and Little Brother Montgomery, recording in Chicago with the pianist’s trio in 1968/9 for FM, Matchbox and Adelphi Records. Also in the group were bass player Truck Parham and drummer Red Saunders.

In the 1970s she toured with Art Hodes Jazz Four of North America and appeared with Bessie, Billie & Bo musical revue. She continued to work mainly in Chicago, recording there with pianist Erwin Helfer.

In the early 80s, she recorded in Chicago with pianist and singer Marc Lincoln Braun, drummer J.C. Heard and others. She also toured Europe where she was met with considerable acclaim. In the early 90s she recorded in Germany with the Jumping Jivers, a multi-national band that also included saxophonists Bob Ruckerl and Diane Ellis, jazz journalist Mike Hennessey on piano, and Al Merritt on drums. By the late 90s, Carroll had decided to settle in Germany where she sang with her own trio, which included pianist Christian Rannenberg and blues harpist Ignaz Netzer.

She gave concerts at the Ingolstadt Jazz Festival and most recently in early 2011 in Berlin A-Trane and was very popular with German jazz and blues enthusiasts. Her daughter, Karen Carroll, is also an accomplished blues singer.

Jeanne suffered a massive heart attack on Sunday, 7^th August, 2011, while she was performing on stage with her daughter Karen Carroll at the 11th Annual Blues Oan Daa Stoazze in Hamme, Belgium.Shw died two days later 9th August  at Aalst, Flanders, Belgium.  She was eighty-years-old. (Info edited from various sources mainly AMG and Wikipedia)  

Recorded live in "Kish" by A. Hutzler in January 2010
Jeanne Carroll & blue heat are:
Jeanne Carroll vocals

Jürgen Schottenhamml guitar

Stephan Greisinger saxophone

Tom Hübner organ

Güven Sevincli drums 

Katie Webster born 11 January 1936

Katie Webster (January 11, 1936 – September 5, 1999), born Kathryn Jewel Thorne, was an American boogie-woogie pianist. Her 35 years of professional piano work has appeared on at least 500 singles, including the original version of "Sea of Love," and countless albums.

A piano-pounding institution on the Southern Louisiana swamp blues scene during the late '50s and early '60s, Katie Webster later grabbed a long-deserved share of national recognition with a series of well-received Alligator albums.

Poor Kathryn Thorne had to deal with deeply religious parents who did everything in their power to stop their daughter from playing R&B. But the rocking sounds of Fats Domino and Little Richard were simply too persuasive. Local guitarist Ashton Savoy took her under his wing, sharing her 1958 debut 45 for the Kry logo ("Baby Baby").

 

Webster rapidly became an invaluable studio sessioneer for Louisiana producers J.D. Miller in Crowley and Eddie Shuler in Lake Charles. She played on sides by Guitar Junior (Lonnie Brooks), Clarence Garlow, Jimmy Wilson, Lazy Lester, and Phil Phillips (her gently rolling 88s powered his hit "Sea of Love").

 

The young pianist also waxed some terrific sides of her own for Miller from 1959 to 1961 for his Rocko, Action, and Spot labels (where she introduced a dance called "The Katie Lee"). Webster led her own band, the Uptighters, at the same time she was spending her days in the studio. In 1964, she guested with Otis Redding's band at the Bamboo Club in Lake Charles and so impressed the charismatic Redding that he absconded with her. For the next three years, Webster served as his opening act.

Webster toured the country with Redding, and can be heard on his Live At The Whiskey A-Go-Go album. Unable to join Redding on tour in 1967 because she was pregnant, Webster was not on the plane that took Redding's life. Devastated by his death, she kept a very low profile until the early 1980s, when she made her debut tour of Europe. European audiences couldn't get enough of Webster, and she returned over 30 times. She recorded albums for the German record label, Ornament Records.

She cut You Know That's Right with the band Hot Links.

During the 1980s, Webster began to win over her American audience at numerous high profile festival gigs, including the Chicago Blues Festival, The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, The Boulder Blues Festival, The Newport Folk Festival, The San Francisco Blues Festival and many others. "She can floor the timid listener," raved the Boston Globe. "Webster can say more about the pain of betrayal with one low, sad growl, and more about the joy of fighting back against cruel life with one teasing roll of her eyes, than most could write in a book."

The Alligator connection commenced in 1988 with some high-profile help: Bonnie Raitt, Robert Cray, and Kim Wilson all made guest appearances on Websters album The Swamp Boogie Queen. She performed at both the San Francisco Blues Festival and Long Beach Blues Festival. The lovably extroverted boogie pianist encored with Two-Fisted Mama! and No Foolin'.

In 1993, Webster was felled by a stroke while touring in Greece, and lost some of the use of her left hand and almost all of her eyesight. But her magnificent voice and wonderful right hand, not to mention her inimitable spirit, kept her going strong. She continued to appear at selected festivals. Even though her health wouldn't support extended touring, her final performances were filled with the same boogie-woogie drive and spirit that originally earned Katie Webster the title Swamp Boogie Queen.

She died from heart failure in League City, Texas, 5th September 1999 at the age of 63.

(Info edited from AMG & alligator.com & Wikipedia)

Here's Katie at a special jazz event recorded live at the Roman Theater in Verona July 1990

Sal Mineo born 10 January 1939

                 

Salvatore "Sal" Mineo, Jr. (January 10, 1939 – February 12, 1976), was an American film and theatre actor, known for his performance as John "Plato" Crawford opposite James Dean in the film Rebel Without a Cause (1955). He was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his roles in Rebel Without a Cause and Exodus (1960).

Born Salvatore Mineo Jr., in the Bronx part of New York City to Italian immigrants who had come from Sicily, he was thrown out of school at age 8, and quickly became a member of a street gang. After an arrest for robbery at age 10, the judge gave him an option of juvenile confinement or enrolment in a professional acting school. He chose the latter, with his first appearance in "The Rose Tattoo" (1951) on Broadway.

 He soon began appearing in supporting roles in such films as "The King and I" (1952) and "Six Bridges to Cross" (1955), reaching his peak of fame with his role as Plato in "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955).

In 1957, Mineo made a brief foray into pop music by recording a handful of songs and an album. He released two singles. The first was "Start Movin' (In My Direction)", which stayed in the US top 40 for 13 weeks and reached the #9 position. It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. The second was "Lasting Love", which stayed on the charts for three weeks and reached #27. The singles were followed up by an album on the Epic label. In the UK the records were released on the Philips label.  

 

                                    

He starred as drummer Gene Krupa in the movie Drum Crazy(1959), directed by Don Weis with Susan Kohner, James Darren, and Susan Oliver. He donated the drum he used in the film to another teen idol, David Cassidy, the day after a dinner with David and his father, Jack Cassidy. David was 13 at the time.

Sal continued working in films and television but offers gradually declined in the '60s. He made a couple of mid-decade attempts at rekindling his music career with one-shot releases on the Decca and Fontana labels. A choice he made in 1962, to pose nude for painter Harold Stevenson, may have come across as an affront to the morals to many in the entertainment industry (hard to imagine that) and could be partly responsible for the lack of work. The high point of this period was his portrayal of Uriah in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

Expanding his repertoire, Mineo returned to the theatre to direct and star in the play "Fortune and Men's Eyes" with successful runs in both New York and Los Angeles. In the late 1960s and 1970s he continued to work steadily in supporting roles on TV and in film, including Dr. Milo in Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) and Harry O (1973). In 1975 he returned to the stage in the San Francisco hit production of "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead".

By 1976, Mineo's career had begun to turn around. While playing the role of a burglar in a series of stage performances of the comedy, P.S. Your Cat Is Dead, in San Francisco, Mineo received substantial publicity from many positive reviews, and he moved to Los Angeles along with the play.

Mineo was arriving home after a rehearsal on February 12, 1976, when he was stabbed to death in the alley behind his apartment building near the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. Mineo was stabbed just once, not repeatedly as first reported, but the knife blade struck his heart, leading to immediate and fatal internal bleeding. It’s sad that he came to such an end at the age of only thirty seven. His remains were interred in the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York.

In March 1979, pizza deliveryman Lionel Ray Williams was sentenced to 57 years in prison for killing Mineo and for ten robberies in the same area. Although considerable confusion existed as to what witnesses had seen in the darkness the night Mineo was murdered, Williams claimed to have no idea who Mineo was. Corrections officers later said they had overheard Williams admitting to the stabbing.

 Although taken away far too soon, the memory of Sal Mineo continues to live on through the large body of TV and film work that he left behind. (Info edited mainly from Wikipedia & IMDB) 

Dave Sampson born 9 January 1941

Dave Sampson (9 January 1941 – 5 March 2014) was an English rock singer.

Perhaps somewhat unfairly lumbered with the one-hit wonder tag, Dave Sampson made a minor impression on the British charts with the catchy self-penned Sweet Dreams, which peaked at number 29 in July 1960. A fine singer of beat ballads and light rockabilly tunes, Sampson’s style was probably too close to that of his friend Cliff Richard for him to achieve lasting success of his own.

David John 'Dave' Sampson was born 9 January 1941 at Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, England. On leaving school he found employment as a messenger boy for an advertising agency in London’s West End, prior to forming a skiffle group in 1957 with friends in Chingford, where he lived.

He moved on to play in various bands on the London rock'n'roll scene, notably The Parker Royal Four which included some schoolmates of Cliff Richard. His first ever recording was a four tune extended play demo disc with Steve Laine later of the Liverpool Five. Both Dave and Steve were the singers with a band that never was named.

After meeting and performing with Cliff and The Shadows, Dave wrote the song "Sweet Dreams" with Cliff in mind. Sampson made a demo recording of the song in a Soho studio, which he took along to Cliff Richard’s house to see what he thought of it. In turn, Richard played the disc for EMI producer Norrie Paramor, who ended up signing Dave to record the song himself.

Sweet Dreams" became a UK hit single in May 1960 for Dave Sampson and his backing band, The Hunters, which peaked at number 29 on the UK Singles Chart.  "Sweet Dreams" was released on the Columbia Records label, and spent six weeks in the chart.

 

Dave Sampson & the Hunters made five singles and an EP in the early '60s that were very much in the Cliff Richard & the Shadows mold, with their imitation of the tamer elements of Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson, as well as the cleanly echoing, almost surf-Hawaiian sound of the guitars. After “Sweet Dreams” none of his subsequent efforts charted. Dave Sampson wasn't without his virtues, he wrote a couple of his singles, including "Sweet Dreams," and had occasional brushes with a polished rockabilly sound.

During the 1960s Dave toured with a number of British pop stars of the day. As well as Cliff Richard and the Shadows, they included Billy Fury, Marty Wilde and Joe Brown. From 1963 he worked in Hamburg at The Star Club and The Top Ten Club along with The Beatles and other international stars including Jerry Lee Lewis, before returning to England and running a record shop in Walthamstow for several years.

In the late nineties, Sampson and the Hunters reformed for the occasional show, with the RPM label issuing a CD containing their entire recording output.

A recent highlight of Dave's career was his 2005 appearance with the legendary guitarist James Burton in the Ricky Nelson tribute show, Remembering Ricky.  Dave has also made several appearances via the 2i's Reunion at the 100 Club in Central London. He also appeared to an audience of Teddy boys at The Pavilion pub in Battersea organised by the International Edwardian Teddy Boy Association in 2010 in which he appeared with Clem Cattini and Cliff Edmonds in a session band called "The 2i's Boys".

Sampson died at Colchester Hospital, Colchester, Essex, in March 2014, aged 73.

(Info mainly from theStage.co.uk, Wikipedia & AMG)