Farewell to Johnny Paris

The sad death of Johnny Paris, the tenor sax player who was the eponymous leader of Johnny and the Hurricanes, of leukemia at the age of 65, brings back fond memories of a time when instrumentals made up a high proportion of the top 30. Some preferred the deep bass guitar of Duane Eddy, others the rhythmic sound of The Ventures, while others (poor deluded fools) preferred The Shadows. But for me, whilst I enjoyed the sound of Eddy and The Ventures, the most exciting instrumental sound of the early 60s was that of Johnny Paris together with organist Paul Tesluck, Dave Yorko on guitar, Lional Butch Mattice on bass and drummer Bill Savich. They made some tremendous records - my favourites included Red River Rock, Reveille Rock, Beatnik Fly, Rocking Goose and Salvation - and the Stormsville LP (an original copy of which I picked up for £1 in a charity shop recently) stills sounds great today. As the popularity of instrumentals waned so did that of Johnny and the boys. But they were a major force in pop music at the time and Johnny was a key part of that exciting Hurricanes sound. The best obit I've seen so far was in The Guardian: http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/obituary/0,,1770620,00.html