A
Phil Brodie Band Muso Page
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MEMORIALS
" Let
us remember the great talent each possessed "
Oliver
Sain
March 1st
1932
~ October 28th
2003
Saxophone player, band leader, songwriter, producer,
studio owner and all-around St. Louis music legend, Oliver
Sain, has sadly died from a bone cancer that had followed on from a
previous bladder cancer he developed in 1995. He was 71.
Oliver
Sain was born in Dundee, Mississippi, into a musical family with his
pianist stepfather Willie Love, and his grandfather was guitarist Dan
Sane. Oliver developed his skills as a saxophone player, as a boy, making
his own horns - bugles and trumpets. Oliver's influences were mainly
Charlie Parker and Louis Jordan. He also played drums and piano and
like many musicians he cut his teeth playing around his home town with
other teenage musicians and listening to the greats. In 1950 he was
drafted into the Army serving one year of the two in Korea.. Soon after
he was playing drums with artists such as Sonny Boy Williamson, and
Howlin' Wolf, and he also played with Elmore James and Little Milton
where he was front man in the horn section; it was in in these early
days he met up with Ike Turner too. Oliver moved to St. Louis in 1959.
His first recording was with Little Milton; a song he wrote himself
"Same old blues", in the old Technisonic studio on the Bobbin
label, then moved on to writing songs and recording for other artists
on the Bobbin record label, Albert King, Fontella Bass, Howling Wolf,
Barbara Carr, Bobby McClure. In 1966 he set up his own recording studio
called the Archway Studio on Natural Bridge Boulevard in St. Louis.
He started recording lots of Blues & Gospel, and the likes Ike and
Tina, Cleophus Robinson, the O'Neal twins, Zella Jackson Price, David
Dee and course his own hits. Over the years nearly every musical style
has been recorded there, from Phil Perry's smooth vocal group The Montclairs,
to avant-gardist Julius Hemphill's Coon Bid-ness and from to Loretta
Lynn to Puff Diddy! During the 1970's Oliver became popular on the dancefloor
with hits such as 'Bus Stop', 'Booty Bumpin', 'Party Hearty' and 'Feel
Like Dancing'. He struck a chord with fusion fans with his 1981 album
entitled 'So Good (In The Morning)', an album that contained the popular
melody 'Cruisin On Sunset'. In 1995, he had a cameo role in the crime
thriller "Cover Story". Apart from his busy studio life, Oliver
toured extensively throughout his life with his band around the States
and Europe. He performed, live, right up until his passing; 1994 he
was diagnosed with cancer of the bladder, but the illness did little
to slow him down and he remained an institution of the St. Louis live
music circuit, playing each Thursday evening at BB's Jazz, Blues &
Soups until his death. In the months prior to his death he was working
on a new album, of all his writings - still unreleased. One of his big
wishes was for St. Louis to promoter their music. QUOTE: "Not enough
Dixieland! And this is a river town! They (city leaders) should have
street musicians everywhere, but instead they sell everything but music!
I think the future of St. Louis blues music looks good, but we need
to get younger talent involved, although I see a lot of younger musicians
are latchin' on and learnin' to play the blues. The blues in St. Louis
are strong; people want to hear this music, but we need to promote the
great talent in this city more. The city fathers don't value blues like
they do in Memphis and New Orleans. Those cities sell their music as
part of their product and St. Louis needs to do the same. But here it's
not like that. They don't care! they're strictly politicians".
Oliver Sain exerted an influence on the evolution of St. Louis soul
and R&B that is rivaled only by that of his close friend and infrequent
collaborator Ike Turner.
Robert
Quine
December
30th 1942 ~ May 31st 2004
Daring, groundbreaking punk guitarist Robert Quine, was sadly found
dead in his New york apartment.
The 61 year old musician died of a heroin overdose Memorial Day weekend.
He had been suffering severe depression after the recent death of his
wife and did not want life without her.
Robert Quine was born in Akron, OH, he started learning the piano, his
early influences included James Burton, Ritchie Valens, and Buddy Holly.
In 1958, he got a guitar and by the time he enrolled at Earlham College
in Richmond, IN, he was playing Link Wray and Ventures covers with a
local band. Soon Robert turned to the blues of John Lee Hooker and Lightnin'
Hopkins and jazz players like John Coltrane, Miles Davis before getting
into the rougher R&B sounds of the Rolling Stones. As
a college student, he hosted a radio programme where he concentrated
on blues and later jazz music. Robert
first saw the Velvet Underground while he was studying law at Washington
University in St. Louis, MO, in 1969 and became an immediate fan. .
He moved to San Francisco in late '69 and struck up a friendship with
the Velvets. Robert did not like the Californian music scene and in
1971 he moved to New York where he met up with Richard Hell. When Richard
Hell formed a new band, Robert joined him and Richard Hell & the
Voidoids was born. The band became one of the most popular and acclaimed
bands on New York's budding punk rock scene,
they recieved rave reviews and critics
soon singled out Robert's gritty but stylish lead guitar for special
praise. In 1982 Robert joined the Lou Reed band and features on The
Blue Mask album. Lou and Robert worked on and off on a few projects
over the years between the two strong character clashes. In 1985 he
become a much in demand, some say choosey, studio musician, prefering
to play in the shadows with the musicians he wanted to work with and
liked to record with, rather than touring. Although sadly (and wrongly)
this made Robert an overlooked guitar player in the media. He went on
to record with the likes of Tom Waits; Scritti Politti; Wiseblood; John
Zorn; Brian
Eno; Marianne Faithfull; Matthew
Sweet; Lloyd Cole; Matthew Sweet; Dim Stars; Suzanne Rhatigan; Hal Willner;
The Odds; Sion; They Might Be Giants; Mike Mainieri; Mikel Erentxun;
Material; Corin Curschellas; Reiss; Material; Kazuyoshi Saito; The Odds;
Wayne Kramer; Andre Williams; The Velvet Underground; Lloyd Cole; Richard
Hell; Michael DuClos; Tom Clark and the High Action Boys; Lys Guillorn;
Linda Lunch; Fred Maher and many others. Sadly
Robert's wife, Alice, died unexpectedly in August 2003 and he fell into
a deep depression. Robert could not live without his beloved Alice and
was tragically found dead in his apartment 5 days after his second suicide
attempt.
Rock critic and friend Lester Bangs once said of him: "Someday
Quine will be recognized for the pivotal figure that he is on his instrument
— he is the first guitarist to take the breakthroughs of early
Lou Reed and James Williamson and work through them to a new, individual
vocabulary, driven into odd places by obsessive attention to On the
Corner-era Miles Davis."
James "Jimmy"
Garrett
1927 ~ March 5th 1993
James Garrett was the music director and road
bassist with the Supremes who helped them develop from a narrow rock
style into the top female group in popular music history.
Mr. Garrett, 66, died of complications of diabetes in Teaneck, N.J.
He is survived by his wife, a son James of Ontario, Calif.; daughters,
Shirley Jackson and Anita of Cleveland and Grace of Dover, Del.; two
sisters; three brothers; nine grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren.
SORRY
I CANNOT
FIND A PHOTO
OF THIS
SADLY FORGOTTEN ~ MOTOWN MUSICIAN
Jimmy
was born in Cleveland and spent part of his childhood in Detroit and
Chicago. He played in the band at old Central High School and studied
at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He also attended military music
school and played with a Navy band in Washington, D.C., during World
War II. After the war Jimmy played with blues man Robert Lockwood Jr.
and studied with many top jazz bass players, including the legendary
Oscar Pettiford. During the 1950s, he played in leading Cleveland jazz
clubs including the Tia Juana, Town Casino and Cedar Gardens. He accompanied
and traveled with top musicians, including Charlie (Yardbird) Parker,
John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie and Billie Holiday. He played with Ray
Charles at a bar near Mr. Garrett's home at E. 69th St. and Cedar Ave.
While in New York City in 1961 his future wife, Ella, hired him to back
her while she sang at the famed Small's Paradise in Harlem. "He
also played with Count Basie every Sunday and whatever bass players
were in town came just to watch him work," Ella Garrett said. Jimmy
Garrett joined Motown records in Detroit in 1962 and played with such
greats as Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, George Benson,
the Four Tops and Smokey Robinson. He was named music director of the
Supremes while on tour with them in England. "Earlier directors
had lacked his training and did not provide the versatile arrangements
that Mr. Garrett did", his wife said. He also set trends in stage
appearance when he arrived at Motown, she said. "He had a beard,
but (Motown founder) Berry Gordy told him he had to shave. He said he
would quit first. Pretty soon, everybody had beards, even Mr. Gordy,"
Ella Garrett recalled. In 1972, when Motown sadly moved to LA, Jimmy
played on the "Today and Tonight" television shows, in Broadway
musicals and with the Cab Calloway band. He toured the world and worked
in Japan for more than a year. He performed during the 1988 Olympics
in Seoul, South Korea. James 'Jimmy' Garrett received many awards for
his musicianship as well as citations for the four times his groups
played for the royal family in England. He had appeared in groups on
the Ed Sullivan Show seven times. ~
with courtesy of cleveland.com
Roy
Orbison
April 23rd 1936 ~ December 6th 1988
The legendary singer songwriter, guitarist, Roy
Orbison, The Big O, the most unique voice in the history of rock n roll,
sadly died of a fatal heart attack whilst visiting his mother in Nashville,
He was 52.
Roy Kelton Orbison was born in Vernon, Texas,
to Nadine and Orbie Lee. The music loving family moved to Fort Worth
in 1943 to find work, 3 years later they moved to the small oil town
of Wink. Roy had been given a guitar on his 6th birthday, his father
and uncle helped teach him to play it. He wrote his first song "A
Vow of Love" in 1944 while staying at his grandmothers. In 1945
he entered and won a contest on KVWC in Vernon and this led to his own
radio show singing the same songs every Saturday. By the time Roy was
13 he had formed his own band "The Wink Westerners". The band
appeared weekly on KERB radio in Kermit, Texas. Roy graduated from Wink
High School in 1954. He attended North Texas State College in Denton,
Texas for a year, and enrolled at Odessa Junior College in 1955 to study
history and English. Roy also married Claudette in 1955, for who he
wrote the song "Claudette". (a hit for The Everley Brothers)
The band, now renamed "The Teen Kings" appeared weekly on
local TV, where they met Johnny Cash, who put them in touch with his
record producer, Sam Phillips, of Sun Records. Roy achieved his first
commercial success with Sam Phillips in June 1956 with "Ooby Dooby",
a song written by friends of Orbison from college. But Sun Records were
more hillbilly than Roy, so staying with his love, music, he took a
job at Acuff-Rose Music in Nashville as a songwriter, and given a contract
by RCA, but eventually Chet Atkins referred him to Fred Foster, the
owner of Monument Records, where he moved after his contract with RCA
ended in 1959. Throughout his stay at Monument Records, his backup band
was a group of outstanding studio musicians led by Bob Moore. Under
Fred Fosters guidance Roy developed his own sound, his voice so distinctive
& unique with a four-octave vocal range, never heard before or since
in rock n roll. The early 60's see's Roy an international star, with
chart topping tracks such as "Only The Lonely", "Running
Scared", "Oh, Pretty Woman", "In Dreams", "Love
Hurts", "Dream Baby", "Blue Angel", "Great
Pretender", "Blue Bayou" "In Dreams", "Crying"
and tours with the Beatles as his warm up band in 1963, The Beach Boys
in 1964, and with The Rolling Stones in 1965, having a huge influence
on all these bands. In 1963 he struck up a life long friendship with
the Beatles, and it was Roy who encouraged them to tour America. Tragidy
struck in 1966, he lost Claudette in a motorcycle accident, and two
years later he lost 2 of his 3 sons in a house fire. He met his second
wife, Barbara, in August 1968, in Leeds, England, and they were married
in Nashville on May 25, 1969. Roy signed with MGM Records in 1966, starring
in MGM Studios' western-musical motion picture The Fastest Guitar Alive.
Throughout the 60's and early 70's Roy remained on the top, with many
world wide hits. His 1972 rendition of "Danny Boy" is considered
one of the best recordings ever made of this ever popular ballad. Roy
continued to have a very strong fan base in Europe, but not so much
in his native USA until the 80's. Late 70's sees him in poor health,
Roy had triple heart bypass surgery on January 18, 1978. In 1980, he
teamed up with Emmylou Harris to win the 1981 Grammy Award for Best
Country Performance by a Duo or Group with "That Lovin' You Feelin'
Again". He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
1987, the induction speech made by Bruce Springsteen. His pioneering
contribution was also recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He
re-recorded his 1961 hit song, "Crying," as a duet with k.d.
lang in 1987 for the soundtrack of the motion picture, "Hiding
Out". The song would earn the Grammy Award for Best Country Collaboration
with Vocals. In the late 80's, Roy, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff
Lynne and Tom Petty got together and formed the great band the Traveling
Wilburys, His last appearance, a few days before his death, was at an
awards ceremony in Antwerp, where Roy gave his only public rendition
of the hit "You Got It". Many artists and bands have covered
Roy’s songs, including Van Halen, Linda Ronstadt, Al Green, The
Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Led Zeppelin, Count Basie, Dwight Yoakam,
Buddy Holly, John Mellencamp, Kitty Wells, Chris Isaak, Waylon Jennings
and Glen Campbell.
QUOTES: producer Don Was, commenting on Orbison's writing skills, said:
"He defied the rules of modern composition"; Songwriter Bernie
Taupin referred to him "Far ahead of the times, creating lyrics
and music in a manner that broke with all traditions"; Will Jennings
called him a "poet, a songwriter, a vision"; Barry Gibb of
the Bee Gees referred to him as the "Voice of God"; and the
great Elvis Presley proclaimed him "the greatest singer in the
world".
George
Harrison
February 24th 1943 ~ November 29th 2001
The great Beatle star, singer,
songwriter, producer, actor, guitarist George Harrison sadly died at
an undisclosed locacation in the hills surrounding Hollywood. George
had been battling lung cancer which had spread to his brain. He was
58 & survived
by his wife, Olivia Trinidad Arias & son, Dhani Harrison.
George Harrison was born in Liverpool, England, where he attended Dovedale
Infants School, near Penny Lane, then attended Liverpool Institute for
Boys (the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts). At school he was
a loner and not the brightest student. It was here where he met Paul
McCartney. By February of 1958 was playing lead guitar in the band called
The Quarry Men that eventually became The Beatles. His early influences
included Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins and Chet Atkins. After leaving school
in 1959, he took a job as an apprentice electrician at Blacklers Stores
in Liverpool. As a lead guitarist in the Beatles, George's guitar solos
very retricted and controlled by Paul McCartney, at times note for note.
If Paul wasn't doing this George Martin was, George never really had
the freedom to be himself. He wrote his first song, "Don't Bother
Me", in 1963, which appeared on the second Beatles album ('63s
With the Beatles), on Meet the Beatles! in the US in early 1964, and
also in A Hard Day's Night. After that, The Beatles did not record another
Harrison song until 1965, when he contributed "I Need You"
and "You Like Me Too Much" to the album Help!. George was
the lead vocal on all the songs he wrote by himself. He also was the
lead vocal on other songs, "Chains", "Do You Want to
Know a Secret", Please Please Me, "Roll Over Beethoven",
"Devil in Her Heart", With the Beatles, "I'm Happy Just
to Dance With You" and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby".
In 1965, while on tour in the US, David Crosby of The Byrds introduced
George to Indian classical music. He was particually interested in the
sitar, a Hindustani classical stringed instrument and the work of Ravi
Shankar, with whom George later took lessons with on his own sitar.
George used it in many songs, including "Norwegian Wood (This Bird
Has Flown)" and "Within You Without You". It
was while The Beatles were in the Bahamas filming "Help!",
each of them were presented with a book on riencarnation by a Hindu
devotee. This expanded Georges interest in Indian culture. George and
his then wife Pattie, spent several months in India, meeting various
gurus and studying the sitar in more depth. On his return to UK, George
and the other Beatles met Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who introduced them
all to Transcendental Meditation. In 1969, George produced the single
"Hare Krishna Mantra", performed by himself with the devotees
of the London Radha Krishna Temple, it was in the top 10 throughout
the UK, Europe, and Asia. George
embraced the Hare Krishna tradition, and remained associated with it
until his death. By the late 60's Paul was dissatisfied with Georges
guitar playing & bad friction had built up between them. But Lennon
thought his song writing had become as good as Lennon and McCartneys.
In 1969 George co-wrote "Badge" with Eric Clapton. Notable
Harrison compositions from The Beatles' collection include "If
I Needed Someone"; "I Want to Tell You", "Love You
To", "Taxman" , "Within You Without You", "Blue
Jay Way", "Only A Northern Song", "While My Guitar
Gently Weeps", which was strongly influenced by the music of his
friend Roy Orbison and featured lead guitar by Eric Clapton. "Something"
and "Here Comes the Sun" (both from the album Abbey Road),
are probably his two best-known Beatles songs. "Something"
is considered one of his very best works, and was even covered by Elvis
Presley and Frank Sinatra, who famously deemed it "the greatest
love song of the last 50 years". The Beatles finally split in 1970,
George launched his solo career with the top selling "All Things
Must Pass", the first triple album by a single artist in rock history.
George was the first modern musician to organize a major charity concert.
His Concert for Bangladesh on August 1, 1971, drew over 40,000 people
to two shows in New York's Madison Square Garden with the intention
of aiding the starving refugees from the war in Bangladesh. George brought
6 more albums out in the 70s, which produced 15 singles hits. He also
worked with and wrote for Leon Russell, Badfinger, Eric Clapton, Billy
Preston, Cheech & Chong and fellow Beatle Ringo Starr. The 80's
sees George writing an autobiography, "I Me Mine" the only
ex-Beatle to do so. After the murder of John Lennon, he modified the
lyrics of a song he had written for Ringo Starr to make it a tribute
song to Lennon, "All Those Years Ago". George was instrumental
in forming the Traveling Wilburys with Roy Orbison, Jeff Lynne, Bob
Dylan, and Tom Petty. They brought 2 albums out. Also the 80's sees
him financially backing the Python film 'The Life of Brian' after EMI
Films withdrew. He made several cameo appearances in movies, including
appearing as a nightclub singer in Shanghai Surprise, and as Mr. Papadopolous
in Life of Brian. One of his most memorable cameos was as a reporter
in the cult Beatles parody The Rutles, created by ex-Python Eric Idle.
He also made 3 more albums in the 80's and appeared on 9 hit singles.
He toured Japan with Eric Clapton in 1991, this was Georges final tour.Throughout
the 90's George battled with cancer, having tumors removed from his
throat and lung. Then on 30 December 1999, a crazed fan, Michael Abram,
broke into the Harrison's home in Henley-on-Thames, stabbed George multiple
times, ultimately puncturing his lung. George and his wife, Olivia,
fought the intruder and detained him for the police. 35-year-old Abram,
who believed he was possessed by Harrison and was on a "mission
from God" to kill him, was later acquitted on grounds of insanity.
In 2001, George appeared as a guest musician on the Electric Light Orchestra
album, Zoom, and wrote a new song, Horse To The Water, and recorded
it with Jools Holland on what was his final recording, a few weeks before
his death, on Jules's album, Small World, Big Band. "Brainwashed"
was the final studio album by George Harrison and was released in 2002,
a year after his death. In 2004, Brainwashed's "Marwa Blues"
won the Best Pop Instrumental Performance Grammy
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