Tommy Allsup in 2009
Tommy Allsup (November 24, 1931 – January 11, 2017) was an American rockabilly and swing musician. Allsup was an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. He worked with entertainers such as Buddy Holly and Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys. Allsup was touring with Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson when he lost a fateful coin toss with Valens for a seat on the plane that crashed, killing Valens, Holly, Richardson, and the pilot on February 3, 1959. Allsup moved to Los Angeles, played with local bands, and did session work, including writing credit for the Ventures’, “Guitar Twist”. (aka “Driving Guitars”)
He returned to Odessa, Texas, where he worked with Ronnie Smith, Roy Orbison, and producer Willie Nelson. In 1968 he moved to Nashville, where he did session work and produced Bob Wills’, “24 Great Hits by Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys”.
In 1979, he started a club, “Tommy’s Heads Up Saloon”, in Dallas. The club was named for Allsup’s coin toss with Valens 20 years beforehand.
He died on January 11, 2017, at 85 years old.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Allsup
# # # # #
On February 3, 1959, rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with pilot Roger Peterson. The event later became known as “The Day the Music Died”, after singer-songwriter Don McLean so referred to it in his 1971 song “American Pie”.
At the time, Holly and his band, consisting of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, were playing on the “Winter Dance Party” tour across the Midwest. Rising artists Valens and Richardson had joined the tour as well.
The long journeys between venues on board the cold, uncomfortable tour buses adversely affected the performers, with cases of flu and even frostbite. After stopping at Clear Lake to perform, and frustrated by such conditions, Holly decided to charter a plane to reach their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. Richardson, who had flu, swapped places with Jennings, taking his seat on the plane, while Allsup lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss.
Soon after take-off, late at night and in poor, wintry weather conditions, the pilot lost control of the light aircraft, a Beechcraft Bonanza, which subsequently crashed into a cornfield, leaving no survivors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died
* * * * *
Armando “Buddy” Greco (August 14, 1926 – January 10, 2017) was an American jazz and pop singer and pianist. His recordings, in several genres, have sold over one million records.
Buddy Greco was born Armando Greco in Philadelphia. His mother introduced him to piano at the age of four. At an early age he was singing and performing on radio and, during his teens, in Philadelphia clubs. When he was 16, he was hired by Benny Goodman and toured worldwide. He spent four years with Goodman’s orchestra, singing, playing piano, and arranging.
After leaving Goodman at the age of 20, he returned to nightclubs, singing and playing piano. He also recorded many hit songs in jazz, pop, and country music, including “Oh Look A-There”, “Ain’t She Pretty”, “Up, Up and Away” and “Around the World”. His most successful single was “The Lady Is a Tramp”, which sold over one million copies. During his career, he recorded over sixty albums. He conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, performed for Queen Elizabeth II and with the Beatles.
In the 1960s, his career expanded into movies and television. He appeared often in the TV series Away We Go and had a role in the movie The Girl Who Knew Too Much. He worked with Ron Escheté from 1969–1970. The duo appeared in several TV shows, including The Mike Douglas Show.
Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_Greco
* * * * *
Lamar Dupré Calhoun (November 18, 1971 – January 9, 2017), better known as DJ Crazy Toones, was an American hip-hop producer and DJ. He was a member of the rap group WC and the Maad Circle and was latterly signed to Ice Cube’s Lench Mob Records.
Calhoun was born in Houston, Texas and was the brother of WC.
Calhoun died from a heart attack on January 9, 2017, at the age of 45.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Toones
* * * * *
Peter Eardley Sarstedt (10 December 1941 – 8 January 2017), briefly billed early in his career as Peter Lincoln, was an English singer, instrumentalist and award-winning songwriter. He was the brother of musicians Eden Kane and Clive “Robin” Sarstedt.
Although his music was classified as pop, it generally encompassed ballads derived from traditional folk music rather than traditional rock and roll. He was best known for writing and performing the single “Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?”, set to a European style faux-waltz tune, and described as a romantic novel in song which topped the UK Singles Chart in 1969 and won an Ivor Novello Award. The record remained Sarstedt’s biggest hit, despite him releasing numerous successful albums and singles from the late 1960s onwards.
He continued to tour throughout the 80s, 90s and 2000s, mainly in 1960s revival-type shows, until his retirement in 2010 due to ill health.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sarstedt
* * * * *
Edward Leilani “Eddie” Kamae (August 4, 1927 – January 7, 2017) was one of the founding members of Sons of Hawaii. He was a ‘ukulele virtuoso, singer, composer, film producer and primary proponent of the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance.
Eddie Leilani Kamae was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, and raised both there and in Lahaina, Maui. His grandmother was a dancer for King David Kalakaua’s court.
He learned to play the ‘ukulele with an instrument his bus driver brother found on the public transport. Eddie would sit by the radio and try to play with any rhythm section he was hearing, usually Latin, classical and jazz tunes. When he was 14 years old, his father would take him to jam sessions where Eddie would get up on stage to play, earning accolades from the audiences who threw money at the performers’ feet. Kamae began going to Queen’s Surf to listen to the Hawaiian music being played.
In 1948, Kamae and Shoi Ikemi formed the Ukulele Rascals, the first known professional all-ukulele act.
Eddie began to teach ‘ukulele. 2006 ‘Ukulele Hall of Fame Inductee Herb Ohta Sr., also known at Ohta-San, was mentored by Eddie. Kamae died on January 7, 2017 at the age of 89.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Kamae
* * * * *
Sylvester Potts of The Contours
The Contours were one of the early African-American soul singing groups signed to Motown Records. The group is best known for its classic chart-topping 1962 hit, “Do You Love Me,” a million-selling single that became a major hit all over again in 1988 [in the soundtrack of the movie “Dirty Dancing”].
Joe Billingslea (born November 14, 1937) and Billy Gordon founded a singing group called The Blenders in their native Detroit, Michigan in 1959. They completed the group with Billy Hoggs and Billy Rollins, who had responded to an ad placed in the local newspaper by Billingslea. The group soon added Leroy Fair (in place of Billy Rollins) and bass singer Hubert Johnson and changed the name to “The Contours”. In the fall of 1960, the group auditioned for Berry Gordy’s Motown Records. Gordy turned the act down, prompting the group to pay a visit to the home of Johnson’s cousin, R&B star and Gordy associate Jackie Wilson. Wilson in turn got the Contours a second audition with Gordy, at which they sang the same songs they had at the first audition, the same way, and were signed to a seven-year contract.
The group’s first single, “Whole Lotta’ Woman,” was released in January 1961 and failed to chart. Within months of its release, Leroy Fair was replaced by Benny Reeves, brother of Martha Reeves. Shortly thereafter, Benny Reeves left to serve in the United States Navy and he was replaced by Sylvester Potts. In 1961 the group’s second single, “The Stretch”, was released and it also failed to chart. In early 1962, Gordy had the Contours record “Do You Love Me,” a composition allegedly originally meant for The Temptations. But, in a 2008 interview for MOJO Magazine, original Contour Joe Billingslea stated that this was not the case. In the article, Billingslea stated to author Phil Alexander that the song’s author, Motown founder Berry Gordy, offered the song to the Contours first, only intending to give The Temptations the song after he saw that the Contours were having trouble with it. However, after practicing the tune again, Gordy gave the nod—and the song—to the Contours.
The resulting record, with its shouted lead vocals from Billy Gordon, hit #1 on Billboard’s R&B chart and crossed over to #3 on the Hot 100 in 1962. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Contours
* * * * *
Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths… January 2017
Check out Studio 10 & Keith Urban’s video honoring some of the iconic musicians we lost in 2016.
https://www.facebook.com/Studio10au/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf
11: Tommy Allsup, 85, American rockabilly and swing musician.
10: Buddy Greco, 90, American jazz and pop singer, actor (The Girl Who Knew Too Much) and pianist.
9: Crazy Toones, 45, American hip-hop record producer and DJ, heart attack; Travis Peterson, 40, American music video director (Ariel Pink, Vivian Girls).[32] (body discovered on this date).
8: Buddy Bregman, 86, American arranger, producer, and composer; Peter Sarstedt, 75, English singer-songwriter (“Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?”), progressive supranuclear palsy.
7: Eddie Kamae, 89, American musician (Sons of Hawaii); Jerzy Kossela, 74, Polish guitarist and vocalist (Niebiesko-Czarni, Czerwone Gitary).
6: Johnny Dick, 73, Australian drummer (John Paul Young, Fanny Adams, Wild Cherries); Sylvester Potts, 78, American soul singer (The Contours).
5: Géori Boué, 98, French operatic soprano.
4: Mike Gaborno, 51, American musician (Manic Hispanic), liver cancer; Abdul Halim Jaffer Khan, 88, Indian sitar player; Bade Fateh Ali Khan, 82, Pakistani singer, lung disease; Georges Prêtre, 92, French orchestral and opera conductor; Vlastimir Trajkovic, 69, Serbian composer.