On Sunday, December 28, 2008 at 8:27:06 PM UTC-8, Hyfler/Rosner wrote:
> Delaney Bramlett: Singer, songwriter and producer who worked with
> Lennon, Harrison, Clapton and Hendrix
> Monday, 29 December 2008
>
> http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/delaney-bramlett-singer-songwriter-and-producer-who-worked-with-lennon-harrison-clapton-and-hendrix-1214978.html
> For a couple of years, in 1969 and 1970, Delaney & Bonnie, the gifted
> duo comprising the singer-songwriter and guitarist Delaney Bramlett and
> his vocalist wife Bonnie, were the names on the lips of the rock
> cognoscenti.
> Eric Clapton enthused about the Bramletts' blue-eyed soul after hearing
> The Original Delaney And Bonnie – Accept No Substitute, their 1969
> album, and asked them to open for Blind Faith, the supergroup he had
> formed in the United States with Steve Winwood of Traffic and the former
> Cream drummer Ginger Baker.
> "For me going on after Delaney and Bonnie was really, really tough,
> because I thought they were miles better than us," Clapton recalled in
> his autobiography last year. "Their band was made up of all these great
> Southern musicians, who had such a strong sound and performed with
> absolute confidence ... Needless to say it wasn't long before I dropped
> all my responsibilities as being part of Blind Faith and started to hang
> out with them.
> "There was something infectious about their approach to music. They
> would have their guitars on the bus and would play songs all day. I took
> to travelling and playing with them. The truth is I was the man in the
> hallway, who has come out one door, only to find it has closed behind
> him while another one is opening. Through that door were Delaney and
> Bonnie, and I was irresistibly drawn towards it."
> In 1969, Clapton guested on "Comin' Home", Delaney & Bonnie and Friends'
> sole British Top 20 hit, and appeared on the On Tour live recording,
> which made the charts on both sides of the Atlantic in June 1970.
> Delaney Bramlett also convinced the British guitarist to sing lead more
> – "I told him he had a pretty good voice, and if you don't use it, God
> will take it away from you!" said Bramlett, who was a soulful singer and
> an accomplished rhythm and slide guitar player.
> He also acted as co-writer and producer on Clapton's eponymous solo
> album recorded in Los Angeles with Bonnie and the aforementioned Friends
> and issued in September 1970, most notably contributing to the track
> "Let It Rain".
> "I was totally in awe of Delaney," Clapton wrote. "He was the first to
> instill in me a sense of purpose. Delaney brought out something in me
> that I didn't know I had. My solo career really began there. I'll never
> be able to repay Delaney for his belief in me. He saw something I had
> stopped looking for."
> When the Friends broke up, Clapton formed Derek and the Dominos with the
> former Friends, bassist Carl Radle, Bobby Whitlock on keyboards, and Jim
> Gordon on drums, as well as Duane Allman, another Bramlett associate.
> Delaney Bramlett's role as a catalyst in Clapton's career is paramount,
> since he also introduced the British guitarist to the music of J.J.
> Cale, who had been in his backing band.
> A musician's musician, Bramlett worked with some of the biggest names in
> rock and pop, including George Harrison, Jimi Hendrix, Gram Parsons,
> Billy Preston, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Dr John. With Leon
> Russell he co-wrote the yearning ballad "Groupie (Superstar)", which
> became a standard following The Carpenters' hit in 1971 (under the title
> "Superstar"), and has been covered by Joe Cocker, Bette Midler, Luther
> Vandross and even Sonic Youth. Another of his compositions, "Never
> Ending Song Of Love", a US hit for Delaney & Bonnie in 1971, has been
> recorded by Ray Charles, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Patty Loveless and
> Dwight Yoakam.
> Born in Pontotoc County, Mississipi, he was the son of a sharecropper
> who ran off leaving his mother, nicknamed Mamo, to raise him and his
> brother. She loved singing and playing and made the best of their
> reduced circumstances. "We lived in a log house," he recalled. "We
> didn't have no bathroom or electric lights. She worked for 30 cents a
> day, pickin' cotton, and me and my brother picked cotton right along
> with her. She taught me to play and sing from the time I was a little
> bitty boy. And there was a black guy that lived with us named R.C.
> Weatherall, and he taught me about the blues."
> Bramlett was making up songs by the time he was eight, and later
> appeared on local TV after winning a talent contest. In the late 1950s
> he joined the Navy for three years then moved to Los Angeles, where he
> became a budding songwriter, collaborating with Jackie DeShannon among
> others, and writing "Searchin' For Somewhere" for Clint Eastwood in
> 1962. "It's the woooorst song," Bramlett said. "Sounds like a guy
> sittin' by a cactus bush, and it's terrible! But I tell you what, it's a
> classic, [on] the only album he ever put out! That song made me a grand
> total of $4.57!"
> Bramlett also became a regular member of the house band on the TV show
> Shindig. In 1967, he met Bonnie Lynn O'Farrell while playing the
> Carolina Lanes Bowling Alley in Los Angeles. She had been a member of
> Ike and Tina Turner's Ikettes and had also backed Fontella Bass and
> Albert King. Five days later they were married and began assembling
> their first group.
> For two years, they played clubs in Los Angeles, and were the first
> white act to sign to the Stax label, though their first album, Home,
> only found an audience when it was repromoted after their early burst of
> fame. By 1969, Delaney & Bonnie had moved to Elektra Records and seemed
> on their way to becoming a major attraction thanks to their sterling
> musicianship and their friendship with Clapton.
> In Europe, Harrison joined the touring party and offered to sign them to
> the Beatles' Apple label. Delaney & Bonnie and Friends attracted the
> cream of British musicians to their concerts, with the Rolling Stones
> also enthusing about their heady mix of blues and Southern soul.
> Following a hectic 18 months the Bramletts took a break, their former
> musicians becoming part of Lennon's Plastic Ono Band and Joe Cocker's
> Mad Dogs and Englishmen, as well as Derek and the Dominoes. They
> released two more albums, on Atco, To Bonnie From Delaney (1970),
> recorded with Duane Allman, and Motel Shot (1971), and also appeared in
> Richard C. Sarafian's cult 1971 film Vanishing Point.
> They scored another US hit with "Only You Know And I Know", before
> signing to Columbia in 1972. By then, though, their career had lost
> momentum and their marriage was on the rocks. They divorced, Bonnie
> becoming a born again Christian. She made several gospel albums, while
> Delaney went solo. In 1977, he teamed up with guitarist Steve Cropper of
> Booker T & The MGs and Stax fame for the Class Reunion album on Motown.
> Bramlett spent time on his ranch and in the late 1990s went back to his
> blues roots with the Sounds From Home album.
> Bramlett, who died from complications following gall-bladder surgery,
> mentored many musicians and was always keen to share his talent and spur
> others on to greater heights. For instance, he was credited with showing
> Harrison how to play slide guitar and inspiring the former Beatle to
> write "My Sweet Lord". Bekka, his daughter with Bonnie, was a member of
> Fleetwood Mac in the mid-'90s and recorded the Time album with them in
> 1995, co-writing the track "Nothing Without You" with her father. His
> most recent album, A New Kind Of Blues, was released earlier this year.
> Pierre Perrone
> Delaney Bramlett, singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer: born Pontotoc
> County, Mississipi, 1 July 1939; twice married (three daughters); died
> Los Angeles 27 December 2008.

didn't even know he was still alive talk about fall off the planet