In Memoriam - June 2009

Those musicians who made a contribution to the music of our generation often die without most of us noticing their passing. As we get older, there are fewer and fewer left - not only musicians, but producers, writers, and engineers. Hopefully, we don't read the obituaries everyday and mostly these people don't make the obit column. I'll try to keep up with the list of those joining the big band in the sky and pass on the key player's obits as they are published. Many musicians labor in obscurity for most of their lives, many work in the background supporting the famous and infamous, and many make contributions as members of bands long gone and nearly forgotten. Their stories are worth knowing, their impact remains long after their gone.

Last week, we lost two guys who had a big impact on rock & roll and country music.

Bob Bogle, Ventures’ Guitarist, Dies at 75

Bob Bogle, a founding member of the Ventures, the long-running guitar band whose jaunty 1960 hit “Walk — Don’t Run” became an early standard of instrumental rock ’n’ roll and taught generations of guitarists how to make their solos sparkle, died on Sunday in Vancouver, Wash., where he lived. He was 75. Although not the first instrumental band of the rock era, the Ventures were the most successful and enduring, applying their twangy, high-energy sound to dozens of albums. Older than the typical teenage garage band, the members of the Ventures cut wholesome figures, their guitar gymnastics coming across as good, clean sport. The Ventures scored a total of six Top 40 hits throughout the ’60s, including a surf remake of “Walk — Don’t Run,” which reached No. 8 in 1964, and a version of the “Hawaii Five-O” television theme, which went to No. 4 in 1969.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/arts/music/17bogle.html?_r=1&ref=obituaries

Barry Beckett, Muscle Shoals Musician, Dies at 66

Barry Beckett, an Alabama-born keyboardist who helped create the distinctly Southern amalgamation of rhythm and blues, soul and country that became known as the Muscle Shoals sound, and who as a producer recorded a wide range of music with Bob Dylan, Kenny Chesney, Bob Seger, Dire Straits and others, died on Wednesday at his home in Hendersonville, Tenn., north of Nashville. He was 66. As a studio musician in the 1960s, Mr. Beckett played in the band affiliated with Fame Studios, the production house that turned an unlikely Southern town, Muscle Shoals, Ala., into a center of indigenous American popular music. The band, known as the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section and also called the Swampers, split from Fame in 1969 and, helped by the producer Jerry Wexler, created its own studio, the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, in nearby Sheffield. In the mid-1980s Mr. Beckett moved to Nashville, where he worked for a time producing records for Warner Brothers, including Hank Williams Jr.’s album “Born to Boogie,” which reached the top of the Billboard country chart in 1987. He later became an independent producer, working with rock groups like Phish, and country artists like Kenny Chesney and Alabama.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/arts/music/16beckett.html?ref=obituaries