Died On This Date (July 14, 2000) Bill Barth / Blues Guitarist
themusicsover Bill Barth
December 13, 1942 – July 14, 2000
Bill Barth was a festival planner and blues guitarist who is perhaps best remembered for being with John Fahey and Henry Vestine when the found early blues great, Skip James in a Mississippi hospital and relaunched his career in 1964. As a musician, Barth helped form blues rock band, The Insect Trust who were likened to Jefferson Airplane and Fairport Convention. The band, which also included Elvin Jones and future rock critic, Robert Palmer, released two albums. During the mid ’60s, Barth founded the Memphis Valley Blues Society which produced five festivals during the late ’60s and featured the likes of Bukka White, Mississippi Fred McDowell, and Sleepy John Estes. Bill Barth was 57 when he passed away on July 14, 2000.
Clarence White started his professional career as founding guitarist for the Kentucky Colonels, a progressive bluegrass outfit formed with his brothers. The Colonels were making a name for themselves in the Los Angeles area in the early ’60s, but their dreams of fame were soon derailed by the one-two punch of the British Invasion, and Bob Dylan going electric. White quickly found plenty of session working on records by the likes of the Monkees, International Submarine Band, and the Flying Burrito Brothers, after which he landed with the Byrds. His tenure with the Byrds started in 1966 with the California-country years of 
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