Gene Taylor, famed pianist (from his website Gene-Taylor.com)
Gene Taylor (July 2, 1952 – February 20, 2021) was an American musician. Taylor began his musical training as a drummer at age eight but two years later he had picked up both the guitar and his initial piano skills from boogie-woogie pianist-neighbors. Around the age of 16 he began working with some of the big names in the West Coast blues scene including Big Joe Turner and T-Bone Walker. In the mid-seventies he joined the James Harman Band and had a stint as pianist for boogie group Canned Heat between November 1974 and May 1976. From 1981 to 1984 he toured with The Blasters, and in 1986 finally recorded his first solo album, Handmade. His The Return of the Formerly Brothers, recorded with Amos Garrett and Doug Sahm in 1987, won a Juno Award the following year for Best Roots & Traditional Album.
From 1993 to 2007, Taylor played with The Fabulous Thunderbirds amongst various other projects. He recorded an eponymous second solo album for Pacific Blues in 2003 partly accompanied by James Harman and Bill Bateman. This album included a version of “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie”.
Since 2007, he was based in Belgium, playing and recording with Fried Bourbon, CC Jerome’s Jet Setters, Dave Alvin and Jo’ Buddy. He toured as the Gene Taylor Trio, with drummer Nico Vanhove, and the guitarist Bart De Mulder. He played at the Brussels Boogie-Woogie Festival of 2012, which took place at the Théâtre St Michel on November 24.
On February 20, 2021, Taylor’s housemate found him dead in his bed in their home in North Austin, Texas. The cause of death was unknown, but is believed to have been related to the house having been without heat in the dead of winter due to the statewide power outages caused by the 2021 Texas power crisis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Taylor_(pianist)
* * * * *
Other Notable Musicians’ Deaths…
February 2021
24: Sardool Sikander, 60, Indian folk singer, kidney disease.
23: Mark de Brouwer, 50, Dutch disc jockey (Radio 10 Gold); Ion Enache, 73, Moldovan composer; Sean Kennedy, 35, Australian bassist (Deez Nuts, I Killed the Prom Queen), suicide; Sergiu Natra, 96, Romanian-born Israeli composer; Luz María Puente, 97, Mexican pianist.
22: Paolo Castaldi, 90, Italian composer and essayist; Yalchin Rzazadeh, 74, Azerbaijani pop singer.
21: Mireya Arboleda, 92, Colombian classical pianist; Hélène Martin, 92, French singer and songwriter.
20: Serpil Barlas, 64, Turkish singer; Joe Burke, 81, Irish accordionist; Richard Shephard, 71, British composer and headmaster; Gene Taylor, 68, American pianist (Canned Heat, The Blasters, The Fabulous Thunderbirds) [See In Memoriam].
19: Luigi Albertelli, 86, Italian songwriter (“Zingara”) and television author, complications from a fall; Ðorde Balaševic, 67, Serbian singer-songwriter (Rani Mraz), COVID-19; *James Burke, 70, American soul singer (Five Stairsteps), pneumonia; Philippe Chatel, 72, French singer-songwriter, heart attack; Jerold Ottley, 86, American music director and choral conductor, complications from COVID-19.
* The Five Stairsteps, known as “The First Family of Soul” and later “The Invisible Man’s Band”, was an American Chicago soul group made up of five of Betty and Clarence Burke Sr.’s six children: Alohe Jean, Clarence Jr., James, Dennis, and Kenneth “Keni”, and briefly, Cubie. They are best known for the 1970 song “O-o-h Child”, listed at #402 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Stairsteps
18: Violeta Dávalos, 52, Mexican operatic soprano, peritonitis; Prince Markie Dee, 52, American rapper (The Fat Boys), heart failure; Miles Seaton, 41, American musician (Akron / Family) (death announced on this date);
17: Françoise Cactus, 56, French musician (Stereo Total) and author, breast cancer; Marc Ellington, 75, American-born Scottish folk-rock singer-songwriter, musician and conservationist; Ali Hossain, 80, Bangladeshi composer; Andrea Lo Vecchio, 78, Italian composer, lyricist and record producer, COVID-19: Omar Moreno Palacios, 82, Argentine folk singer-songwriter, guitarist and gaucho, encephalitis; Gene Summers, 82, American rockabilly singer, complications from an injury sustained at home; U-Roy, 78, Jamaican reggae singer.