Bobby Whitlock, the Memphis-born singer-songwriter and keyboardist who co-founded Derek and the Dominos with Eric Clapton and performed on a slew of basic data within the Nineteen Sixties and ‘70s, has died. Per his supervisor Carol Kaye, Whitlock handed away at house in Texas within the early hours of Aug. 10 following “a brief bout with cancer.” He was 77.
Whitlock is finest identified for his early ‘70s tenure alongside Clapton, Duane Allman, and others in Derek and the Dominos, whose lone album, 1970’s Layla and Different Assorted Love Songs, yielded the seven-minute epic ‘Layla’ and different beloved tracks like ‘Bell Bottom Blues,’ written and sung by Whitlock. However his catalog extends far past that band.
Whitlock obtained his begin within the Memphis music scene within the late Nineteen Sixties, turning into the primary white artist signed to the legendary Stax Data and honing his chops performing with R&B greats like Sam & Dave and Booker T. & the M.G.’s. By 1969, he fell in with Stax signees Delaney & Bonnie, the all-star Los Angeles-based rock and soul collective, contributing keyboards and vocals to their albums House and Settle for No Substitute.
Via his stint in Delaney & Bonnie, Whitlock met Clapton, who additionally logged time within the group. Earlier than the formation of Derek and the Dominos, Whitlock and different Delaney & Bonnie members backed up Clapton on his 1970 self-titled album. Additionally in that circle was George Harrison, who recruited Whitlock to play on 1970’s All Issues Should Move, the triple-album he launched as his solo debut following the dissolution of the Beatles.
Whitlock performed on albums by artists together with Dr. John, Doris Troy, John Simon, and Manassas, and he made an uncredited look on the Rolling Stones’ 1972 masterpiece Exile on Primary Avenue. Within the wake of Derek and the Dominos’ breakup, he launched a solo profession in 1972 with the discharge of two albums, Bobby Whitlock and Uncooked Velvet. Two extra albums adopted, 1975’s One in every of a Type and 1976’s Rock Your Sox Off, earlier than Whitlock retreated from the music business.
He spent many of the Eighties and ‘90s living on a farm in Mississippi, raising children and occasionally doing session work. Not until 1999 did he return with the appropriately titled album It’s About Time, which kicked off a brand new wave of exercise. From there, Whitlock and CoCo Carmel—who he married in 2005—launched a collection of stay and studio albums beginning with 2003’s Different Assorted Love Songs, Stay from Whitney Chapel, a recording partnership that continued for a decade.
