Died On This Date (October 27, 2011) David Rea / Influential Folk Singer-Songwriter

David Rea
October 26, 1946 – October 27, 2011

Photo by Jack Bawden

David Rea was folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist who, although he was born in Ohio, became a longtime fixture of the Canadian folk scene.  Over a career that spanned four decades, Rea collaborated with the likes of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Judy Collins, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Tom Rush, and perhaps most famously,  Ian & Sylvia, and Gordon Lightfoot. He can be heard on Lightfoot’s debut album as well as tapes from his early shows.  For Ian & Sylvia, Rea played on So Much For Dreaming, Nashville, and Full Circle.  The duo recorded a handful of Rea’s songs as well.  As a songwriter, Rea’s biggest hit came with Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” which he co-wrote with Leslie West, Felix Pappalardi, and Corky Laing.  He recorded several respectable albums of his own over the years as well.  As reported by Spinner, 66-year-old David Rea passed away on October 27, 2011.  Cause of death was not immediately released.

Thanks to Scott Miller for the assist.



Died On This Date (July 14, 2000) Bill Barth / Blues Guitarist

Bill Barth
December 13, 1942 – July 14, 2000

Photo by Tim Kendall

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.

 



Died On This Date (October 20, 1997) Henry Vestine / Canned Heat

Henry “The Sunflower” Vestine
December 25, 1944 – October 20, 1997

Henry Vestine is best remembered as a guitarist for boogie blues rock band, Canned Heat.  His original tenure with the band ran from 1966 to 1969.  Prior to that, he played in Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention.  He was one of rock music’s unsung guitar heroes, ranking in Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time” list.  Vestine, along with childhood friend and fellow music junkie, John Fahey, was responsible for finding a hospital-ridden Skip James in 1964 and helping him re-launch his career during the folk revival.   In later years, Vestine did session work and toured with a reformed Canned Heat.  While in Europe at the end of such a tour in 1997. Henry Vestine died of a heart failure at the age of 52.

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Canned Heat

Died On This Date (October 3, 1969) Skip James / Blues Legend

Nehemiah “Skip” James
June 21, 1902 – October 3, 1969

skip-jamesSkip James was a hard living bootlegger, a sharecropper and a hard laborer.  But above all, he was one of the most influential of the early Delta bluesmen.  With a unique and highly sophisticated style of picking coupled with a ghostly falsetto voice, James was indeed one of a kind.  His form of playing and singing was a direct influence on many, such as Robert Johnson, but no one has ever truly been able to replicate it effectively.  James’ professional music career began in 1931 when he began recording sides of Paramount Records.  James re-recorded many blues standards at the time, but it was generally his versions of the songs that later got covered by the likes of Johnson and even later, Cream, Deep Purple and Beck.  As quick as James came onto the scene, he vanished.  Over the next three decades, he rarely performed live and made no new recordings, becoming not much more than a footnote in blues history, until the early ’60s when he was “re-discovered” during the folk and blues revival.  After being descovered by folk guitarists John Fahey, Bill Barth, and Henry Vestine in a Mississippi hospital in 1964, James’ career was put back on track.  During his later years, he was a featured performer at the Newport Folk Festival and recorded for Takoma Records and Vanguard Records, where he was dubbed a “Vanguard Visionary” by future Vice-President, Dan Sell.   His influence on pop culture has been felt in recent years as well.  Indie rock icon, Beck covered his “He’s A Mighty Good Leader” in 1994, while Chris Thomas King recorded his “Hard Time Killing Floor Blues” for the O’ Brother, Where Art Thou flim and soundtrack.  And his “Devil Got My Woman” was prominently featured both the plot of and soundtrack to the 2001 cult hit, Ghost World, starring Thora Birch and Scarlett Johansson.  With his health deteriorating in later years, Skip James passed away in 1969 at the age of 69.

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Blues from the Delta - Skip James