Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

October’s deaths included a legendary drummer, a barrier-breaking soap star, the Communist Sinatra, and another Kris Kristofferson collaborator.

The Drummer Legend
By all accounts, Cream drummer Ginger Baker, who has joined Cream colleague Jack Bruce in the great beyond, was a volatile and unpleasant person to many people. But the tributes rightly concentrated on the influence he had on many other great stickmen who followed him. Baker brought jazz and African rhythms to rock drumming in ways that scores of English drummers would copy and build on. Long before he was in Cream, Baker had been a jazz drummer; and his love for African music would see him live in Nigeria in the 1970s and record with Fela Kuti. Baker is credited with having a huge influence on heavy metal — a genre the old grump passionately hated.

The ‘First Bitch’
For people of my generation, the first encounter with Diahann Carroll likely was through her role on the 1980s soap Dynasty. It was a groundbreaking for several reasons; one was that Carroll was allowed to be a successful AND unlikeable black woman on a prime-time TV show. She said herself: “I want to be the first black bitch on television.”

Her character played a former singer, and it was reported at the time that the actress once was a singer of some sort, but I didn’t quite understand until much later just how accomplished she was. She was a fine jazz singer, and also a good stage musical vocalist. She became the first black woman to win a best actress Tony for the Rodgers/Hammerstein musical No Strings in 1962. She also was nominated for an Oscar for 1974’s Claudine. The same year she recorded an album on Motown, which included the featured track, I Mean To Shine, a song written by pre-Steely Dan Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.

Guitar Feats
The son of Hollywood stars Paul and Claudia Bryar, Paul Barrere joined Little Feat in 1972, just as the band was hitting its stride, as the second guitarist and backing singer. He also contributed his own compositions, such as All That You Dream, Skin It Back, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now, and Down On The Farm. When Little Feat was reformed after Lowell George’s death, Barrere took over lead vocal duties. As a guitarist, he also played with the likes of Robert Palmer, Nicolette Larsson, Bonnie Raitt, Carly Simon, John Cale, Taj Mahal, and Travis Tritt. In the 1980s he released three solo albums; he was still performing with Little Feat until this year. Four days before Barrerre died, producer Ed Cherney passed on; he had produced Little Feat, with Barrere on lead vocals, in the 1990s.

The Venture Guitarist
His guitar work is among of the most iconic in the game of TV themes: Gerry (or Jerry) McGee played the lead on the theme of Hawaii Five-O, just months after he had replaced Nokie Edwards in The Ventures. Edwards then replaced McGee in 1972, and in 1985, McGee again replaced Edwards. He’d stay with the band until 2017.

The son of the famous Cajun fiddle player Dennis McGee, he played guitar (with other guitarists) on classic Monkees tracks such as their theme song, Last Train to Clarksville, Saturday’s Child, Valleri and others. He also did guitar work for people like Kris Kristofferson (whose erstwhile collaborators are having a hazardous 2019), Rita Coolidge, Nancy Sinatra, John Mayall, Delaney & Bonnie, Everly Brothers, Linda Ronstadt, Mac Davis, Jimmy Buffett, Gene Clark, Rosanne Cash, Emmylou Harris, Dwight Yoakam, Michael Franks and more. McGee died four days after collapsing on stage during a gig in Japan.

Oh My Gott!
I previously wrote about the Czech singer Karel Gott in relation to his demented German-language and Slavic-tinged cover of the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black. The ambitiously surnamed singer was the second-squarest of the squarest crooners on the German schlager scene. But if grannies loved him for being such a nice boy, German kids loved him for singing the theme song for the animated Maja the Honey Bee series. Gott had mega hits with his German covers of two movie love themes, Lara’s Theme from Dr Zhivago and Where Do I Begin? From Love Story.

Few people — least of all Germany’s grannies — really knew that Gott was also a communist, loyal to his principles even after the regime fell in 1989. But he was no hardliner. Gott was so disgusted by the Soviet crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968 that he later recorded a protest song about the self-immolation of dissident Jan Palach, a Czech cover of All By Myself titled (Kam tenkrát šel) Můj bratr Jan, and before that even considered defecting to West-Germany.

That fact didn’t deter the Czech people from celebrating the life of Karel Gott, who was also an exhibited artist. An estimated 300,000 people turned out for his funeral in Prague, a city of 1,2 million! Voted 42 times Singer of the Year in Czechosvakia/Chech Republic, Karel Gott released around 100 albums.

The Eddie
Just a few weeks ago, Barrie Masters featured on the Any Major Teenagers mix as the singer of Eddie & The Hot Rods. For a brief moment, Eddie & The Hot Rods were riding the punk wave, though they were really a pub rock band. Still, the Sex Pistols played their first London gig supporting the Hot Rods at the Marquee, and the Hot Rods toured the US with the Ramones in 1977.

The band had a UK #9 hit in 1977 with the likable Do Anything You Wanna Do; another minor hit in early 1978, and the band went cold as a charts act. But in changing line-ups around Masters, the band continued to tour and record up to this year. Earlier this year, a one-off gig brought together past and present members.

The Chamber Brother
The Chambers Brothers didn’t do much, but they gave the direction of popular music a mighty push when they scored a 1968 hit with Time Has Come Today, a track that fused soul and funk with psychedelic and acid rock, helping to pave the way for acts like Sly & The Family Stone and The Temptation who were on the same trip. Of the four Chamber Brothers, bassist and oldest sibling George Chambers is the first for whom the time has come. Non-brother and drummer Brian Keenan died in 1985.

Beverly Watkins, 80, American blues guitarist, on Oct. 1
Dr Feelgood & The Interns – Mr Moonlight (1962, as member on guitar)
Beverly ‘Guitar’ Watkins – Impeach Me Baby (2007)

Bat McGrath, 73, singer, musician and songwriter, on Oct. 1
Bat McGrath – Blue Eagle (1976)

Karel Gott, 80, Czech schlager singer, on Oct. 1
Karel Gott – Weißt du wohin (1967)
Karel Gott – Rot und Schwarz (1969)
Karel Gott – Můj bratr Jan (1977)

Barrie Masters, 63, singer of English rock band Eddie and the Hot Rods, on Oct. 2
Eddie and the Hot Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do (1977)
Eddie And The Hot Rods – Telephone Girl (1977)

Morten Stützer, 57, guitarist of Danish trash-metal band Artillery, on Oct. 2

Kim Shattuck, 56, singer, guitarist and songwriter, on Oct. 2
The Muffs – Sad Tomorrow (1995)

Vinnie Bell, 87, guitarist and electric sitar inventor, on Oct. 3
Vinnie Bell – Airport Love Theme (1970)

Diahann Carroll, 84, singer and actress, on Oct. 4
Diahann Carroll – Rebel In Town (1956)
Diahann Carroll, The André Previn Trio – The Party’s Over (1960)
Diahann Carroll – Goin’ Out Of My Head (1966)
Diahann Carroll – I Mean To Shine (1974)

Glenmore Brown, 75, Jamaican reggae musician, producer, on Oct. 4
Glen Brown – Tell It Like It Is (1974)

Ed Ackerson, 54, singer-songwriter of ‘90s rock band Polara, on May 4
Polara – Is This It? (2002)

Peter Stone Brown, 68, singer-songwriter, on Oct. 5
Peter Stone Brown – Before I Go (1996)

Ginger Baker, 80, legendary English drummer, on Oct. 6
Terry Lightfoot And His Band – (What Did I Do To Be) So Black And Blue (1958, on drums)
Cream – Deserted Cities Of The Heart (1968)
Blind Faith – Well All Right (1969)
Public Image Limited – Ease (1986)

Larry Junstrom, 70, bassist of rock band .38 Special, on Oct. 6
.38 Special – Caught Up In You (1982)

Martin Lauer, 81, German schlager singer and athlete, on Oct. 6

Malcolm ‘Molly’ Duncan, 74, Scottish saxophonist of the Average White Band, on Oct. 8
Average White Band – Cut The Cake (1975)
Average White Band – Shine (1980)

Gerry (Jerry) McGee, 81, lead guitarist of The Ventures (1968-72), on Oct. 8
The Monkees – Hey Hey We’re The Monkees (1966, on guitar)
The Ventures – Hawaii Five-O (1968)
Kris Kristofferson – Shandy (The Perfect Disguise) (1974, on guitar and backing vocals)

Thomas Lück, 76, (East-) German schlager singer and actor, on Oct. 10

George Chambers, 88, bassist and singer with The Chambers Brothers, on Oct. 12
The Chambers Brothers – Time Has Come Today (1968)
The Chambers Brothers – Funky (1970)

Dallas Harms, 84, Canadian country musician, on Oct. 12

Kenny Dixon, 27, session drummer, in car crash on Oct. 12

Steve Cash, 73, singer-songwriter with Ozark Mountain Daredevils, on Oct. 14
Ozark Mountain Daredevils – If You Wanna Get To Heaven (1973, also as co-writer)

Cacho Castaña, 77, Argentine singer and actor, on Oct. 15

Ray Santos, 90, Afro-Cuban jazz saxophonist, arranger and composer, on Oct. 17

Peter Hobbs, 58, singer-guitarist of Australian metal band Hobbs’ Angel of Death, on Oct. 21

Garry Koehler, 64, Australian country musician and songwriter, on Oct. 22
The Bobkatz – The Man In The Picture (2006, as writer)

Ed Cherney, 69, producer and engineer, on Oct. 22
Pops Staples – World In Motion (1992, as producer)

Don Baskin, 73, singer of garage-rock band Syndicate of Sound, on Oct. 22
Syndicate of Sound – Little Girl (1966)

Walter Franco, 74, Brazilian singer and songwriter, on Oct. 24
Walter Franco – Feito Gente (1975)

Joe Sun, 76, country singer, on Oct. 25
Joe Sun – Old Flames Can’t Hold A Candle To You (1978)

Paul Barrere, 71, singer, guitarist, songwriter with Little Feat, on Oct. 26
Little Feat – All That You Dream (1975, as songwriter)
Robert Palmer – Every Kinda People (1978, on guitar)
Paul Barrere – Fool For You (1983)
Little Feat – Drivin’ Blind (1995, produced by Ed Cherney; see Oct. 22)

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