Bobby Whitlock, the keyboard participant and guitarist who carried out with Derek And The Dominos, Eric Clapton and George Harrison, has died on the age of 77.
Whitlock’s loss of life was confirmed in an announcement from his supervisor: “With profound unhappiness, the household of Bobby Whitlock broadcasts his passing at 1.20am on August 10 after a short sickness. He handed in his house in Texas, surrounded by household.”
Whitlock was born in Memphis in 1948 and reduce his tooth on the metropolis’s Stax Studios, watching classes by the studio’s fabled home band. In 1967, he grew to become the primary white artist to be signed to the Stax label.
After taking part in with native soul bands Brief Cuts and The Depend, he joined husband and spouse duo Delaney & Bonnie, taking part in on the albums House and Settle for No Substitute, each launched in 1969.
Through Delaney & Bonnie, Whitlock got here into the orbit of Eric Clapton, showing on the previous Cream and Blind Religion guitarist’s self-titled 1970 debut solo album. The identical yr, Whitlock additionally performed on George Harrison’s All Issues Should Move album.
But it surely was as a member of Derek And The Dominos alongside Clapton, guitaits Duane Allman, bassist Carl Radle and drummer Jim Gordon that Whitlock scored his greatest success. The band’s 1970 debut album, Layla And Different Assorted Love Songs, was house to the hit single Layla.. Whitlock wrote or co-wrote six of the double album’s 14 songs, together with Bell Backside Blues and
“From the facet of the stage, I took psychological notes of their efficiency… it was their keyboard participant Bobby Whitlock that I watched like a hawk,” mentioned Elton John, whose band opened for Derek And The Dominos on their US tour, later mentioned of Whitlock, who additionally made an uncredited contribution to the Rolling Stones’ Exile On Principal Avenue album.
Whitlock launched 4 solo albums all through the Seventies, Bobby Whitlock (1972), Uncooked Velvet (1972), One Of A Form (1975) and Rock Your Sox Off (1976), however he largely stepped again from the music business through the 80s and 90s, releasing only one single, the Maggie Bell duet Put Angels Round You, in 1983 and making a handful of session appearances.
He returned in 1999 with the album It’s About Time., and went on to launch a string of studio and stay albums together with his spouse, CoCo Carmel.
In 2024, Whitlock was inducted into the Beale Avenue Stroll of Fame in Memphis.
Chatting with Basic Rock simply earlier than his induction, he mentioned: “I am from Memphis. I bought my (musical) bones there. I used to be born there and Don Nix heard me in a band and introduced Duck Dunn to listen to me, after which all the things began to unfold for me. I used to be turned on to the entire of Stax; I may go and are available as I happy, so I bought to listen to all of the greats carry out and did hand claps with Isaac Hayes and David Porter on Sam & Dave’s I Thank You. That was my breaking in.
Recalling his time recording Layla And Different Assorted Love Songs, he mentioned: “After we began, Eric and I have been within the different a part of this huge sound stage room, standing at the back of it, and (govt producer) Tom Dowd, who I knew from Stax, walked up and he had two papers; ‘This is your charts, fellas’ – he known as us fellas,. After which he went strolling again into the studio. I informed Eric, ‘You are gonna need to go speak to this man. We do not have charts, y’know? I do not learn no charts and I do not do no numbers.’ He mentioned, ‘I do not know him; you go speak to him and inform him to remain again there within the management room.
“And I did. I mentioned, ‘Hey man, I gotta inform ya we can’t be needing any charts. We do not do numbers and we would like you to remain behind the management panel again there and we’ll keep out right here.’ And all of it labored out. He revered what we have been doing. He knew we have been a unit, so he simply stayed there and punched ‘document’ the entire time and it was a rompin’ rock’n’roll trip.”