Died On This Date (January 5, 2008) Drew Glackin / The Silos
themusicsover Drew Glackin
1963 – January 5, 2008
Drew Glackin is best remembered as the bassist for critically praised Americana band, the Silos. He also played bass for Graham Parker, Susan Tedeschi, and the Crash Test Dummies. A multi-instrumentalist, Glackin could play the piano, trumpet and French horn while still in elementary school and soon thereafter picked up the guitar and bass. He studied music while in college in Hartford, Connecticut where he worked booking talent at a local club. He joined the Silos in 1998. Drew Glackin was 44 when he died on January 5, 2008 of cardiac arrest brought on by an undiagnosed thyroid condition.
Charlie Gillett was an influential British radio disc jockey, music historian and writer. During the mid ’60s, Gillett was working as a college professor when he began contributing weekly music-related articles to the Record Mirror. In 1970, he released his first book, The Sound Of The City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, a comprehensive history of popular music that is still considered one of the best. He was soon contributing to Rolling Stone and New Musical Express magazines. In 1972, Gillett moved over to radio where he hosted a popular weekly program on Radio London. It was through that medium that he was the first to play early demos by the likes of Elvis Costello, 
Micky Jones was the founding lead singer and influential guitarist for ’70s Welsh rock band, Man. They were one of the acts that helped popularize what became known as British “pub rock,” a back-to-basics trend in rock that was also being cultivated by the likes of Brinsley Schwarz, Graham Parker, and Dave Edmunds. As time passed, Man’s sound grew more psychedelic, often drawing comparisons to the Grateful Dead or Quicksilver Messenger Service. In fact, it could be argued that they were the world’s first jamband. Though relatively unknown in the U.S., the band had several moderate hits in the U.K. and were very popular concert draws. The original group split up in 1976, but Jones reformed a variation of it in 1980 and continued to make a solid living along the pub rock circuit through the ’90s. In 2005, Micky Jones was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which lead him to permanently leave the group for treatment. The cancer ultimately took his life on March 10, 2010. He was 63.
Jim Ford was an American singer songwriter who some have called the “Godfather of Pub Rock,” a back-to-basics form of rock ‘n roll that popped up in the UK during the late ’70s. Ford’s mix of soul, country and folk was an influence on the likes of Graham Parker, Dave Edmunds and Brinsley Schwarz. Ford’s songs have been recorded by Schwarz, Edmunds, Bobby Womack, Nick Lowe, Aretha Franklin, Ronnie Wood, and onetime girlfriend, Bobbie Gentry. By all accounts, Ford seems to have fallen into obscurity after the ’70s only to resurface in 2004. After a deluxe re-issue of his 1969 Harlan County album in 2007, new interest in Ford’s music lead to talks of a new album to be produced by the legendary 