Roy Gaines RIP + others

Sorry to hear of the death of bluesman Roy Gaines at the reported age of 84. The Texas born guitarist and vocalist was the younger brother of Grady Gaines and played with many of the greats from the fifties onwards, including Roy Milton, Joe Turner, Chuck Willis - even the Everly Brothers. Later he played with or recorded with the likes of Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Diana Ross, Bobby Bland and many others. It wasn't until 1982 that he recorded his first album 'Gainelining', a rush job in London with members of the Crusaders with whom he was touring at the time. It included possibly his best known number 'A Hell Of A Night Tonight', co-written with Joe Sample. As far as I know I never did see Roy Gaines perform live - but I nearly did. He was due to perform at the Ponderosa Stomp in New Orleans in 2017 but the second day was cancelled due to a threatened hurricane that never arrived. A number of the acts performed at the Ace Hotel and Aussie DJ Mohair Slim tried valiantly to arrange for a performance by Roy, but to no avail. We got to chat to him anyway and the photo above shows Roy with me, Noah Shaffer and Marc Engel. The picture below shows Lloyd (Mohair Slim) in earnest conversation with Roy.

Another recent death is that of reggae instrumentalist and singer Jo Jo Bennett. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, he played with Byron Lee and the Dragonaires but made his name in Canada where he was a member of the Fugitives and formed a pop reggae band called the Saatalites. In between he recorded in Jamaica with Harry Mudie's All Stars and made an album with them called 'Groovy Jo Jo' in 1970.

Finally we say a fond farewell to character actress Una Stubbs, who was a mainstay of many UK films and TV series, including 'Til Death Do Us Part', 'Worzel Gummidge', 'The Worst Witch' and 'Sherlock'. She wasn't a singer but she did star in two of Cliff Richard's early sixties movies - 'Summer Holiday' and 'Wonderful Life' (see photo).