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Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum
Jerry Kennedy
FYI
Obituaries: A-List Country Producer and Guitarist Jerry Kennedy, Pogues Drummer Andrew Ranken
This week we also acknowledge the passing of pioneering funk bassist Billy Bass Nelson, Nova Scotian country artist Don Haggart and French musician and composer Michel Portal.
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Don Haggart, a Nova Scotian country singer-songwriter, died on Feb. 7, at age 74.
Larry Delaney of Cancountry sent Billboard Canada this obituary: "Haggart is remembered best for his years performing as The Haggarts, with his brother Jim Haggart, who passed away in 2006. They were originally from Pictou, NS, and, after moving to Toronto in 1971, they recorded a pair of albums produced by Gary Buck.
"Their I'm Coming Home vinyl album featured seven songs written by Jim Haggart as well as two co-written with Don Haggart. Three singles reached the RPM Charts including the title track tune which topped out at #5. The follow-up singles, 'Pictou County Jail' and 'He' were both Top 20 hits."
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A second album, Balladeers, on the Arpeggio label, was equally successful, with five singles reaching the RPM Charts .The Haggarts also had their songs recorded by Nancy Ryan, The Newman Sisters and more.
Jim and Don Haggart were inducted into the Nova Scotia Country Music Hall of Fame in 2006. After Jim Haggart's passing, Don Haggart continued to be active as a country gospel singer and recording artist.
International
Jerry (Glenn) Kennedy, a prolific A-list Nashville session guitarist, record producer and label head, died on Feb. 11, at age 85.
In a tribute, Kyle Young, CEO Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, writes that “Before an artist ever sang the first line of 'Stand By Your Man,' ' Harper Valley P.T.A.' or 'Oh, Pretty Woman,' Jerry Kennedy’s masterful guitar playing had already marked the song as a hit.
"As a first-call session musician, he created signature licks that were as recognizable as song titles, and as a producer and a record label executive, he built a sonic platform for giants to stand on. He carried a spiritual understanding of music’s power to reach beyond social and stylistic boundaries, and he spent his career making it better and bigger. Jerry Kennedy was soft-spoken and understated, but his permanent impact on American music was anything but quiet.”
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The Saving Country Music website declares that "Jerry Kennedy was considered one of the most important guitarists and instrumentalists in country music history. As a recognized member of the 'Nashville ‘A’ Team,' he was an inaugural inductee into the Musicians Hall of Fame in 2007 with guys like Harold Bradley, Floyd Cramer, Pete Drake, and Charlie McCoy. In fact, the Musicians Hall of Fame named their performance space the Jerry Kennedy Theater after him."
A Country Music Hall of Fame obituary notes that "Before he was a celebrated producer, an executive, and a guitar player on numerous hits, Jerry Kennedy was a kid curled up by the radio, listening to the Louisiana Hayride. Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, Kennedy had the good fortune to have Hayride guitarist Tillman Franks as his first music teacher. By the time he was sixteen, Kennedy himself had become a guitarist on the popular radio program."
At just 11, Kennedy signed his first recording contract with RCA, working with Chet Atkins on a handful of singles, but it was as a guitarist and producer that he found fame. After singing backup for numerous artists recording for Mercury Records while a teenager, he developed a strong relationship with that label.
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In 1960, he and Tommy Tomlinson, a Louisiana Hayride star from Louisiana, developed four instrumental albums for Mercury Records. The albums, titled Tom & Jerry, covering all genres of music, also involved Hank Garland, Boots Randolph, Bob Moore, and Harold Bradley.
The Jerry Kennedy Orchestra participated in the complete recording sessions for French star Johnny Hallyday in 1962. Five discs were issued from these sessions.
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Saving Country Music writes that "Jerry Kennedy regularly worked as a session musician, playing on songs and albums from folks like Kris Kristofferson, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Tammy Wynette, Leroy Van Dyke, Ricky Skaggs, Charlie Rich, Stonewall Jackson and so many more. The Nashville A Team collectively is credited with over 130,000 recording sessions, with even more songs on top of that. Jerry Kennedy played on many of them."
"Along with his guitar work, Kennedy regularly contributed dobro to recordings, including 'Harper Valley PTA.' He was especially prolific performing on the albums of Jerry Lee Lewis. Though he’s primarily credited as a musician, Kennedy also was a songwriter and composer."
According to the Country Music Hall of Fame, "Kennedy came to Nashville in 1960 to play on Mercury sessions. In little time he became a first-call session guitarist who can be heard on countless hit country singles and Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde album.
"As a producer at Mercury, Kennedy launched the career of a young songwriter named Roger Miller in 1964. Two years later he produced Bobby Bare’s breakthrough recordings. He brokered rock & roller Jerry Lee Lewis’s introduction to country music audiences with hits including 'What’s Made Milwaukee Famous (Has Made a Loser Out of Me)' and 'Another Place, Another Time' in the late 1960s, and in 1972 he produced Mexican American star Johnny Rodriguez’s chart-topping debut. Kennedy also produced albums for Patti Page, Brook Benton, Ray Stevens, Mickey Newbury, Leroy Van Dyke, Charlie Rich and more artists."
In 1968, Kennedy was appointed the head of Mercury’s sub-label Smash Records. When Smash was shut down in 1970, they made Kennedy the head of Mercury’s country division. As both an executive and producer, Kennedy was behind many hit artists at that label.
Famously, Kennedy played recognizable guitar on Roy Orbison's "Oh Pretty Woman" and Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man."
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After departing Mercury in 1984, Kennedy formed JK Productions, recording important albums by Reba McEntire, the Statler Brothers, Connie Smith, Mel McDaniel and others. A versatile guitarist, he also played on numerous R&B sessions for artists including Ruth Brown, Clyde McPhatter, Johnny Adams and Jimmy McCracklin.
In 2008 the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum spotlighted him in its Nashville Cats series. Watch that here.
Over his career, Jerry Kennedy earned four Grammy Awards.
Andrew ‘The Clobberer’ Ranken, a drummer and a founding member of Irish/English folk rock band The Pogues, died on Feb. 10, at age 72. A cause of death has not been reported.
His bandmates announced his passing in an Instagram post in which they wrote, “It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of Andrew Ranken, drummer, founding member and heartbeat of the Pogues.”
Ranken joined the group in 1983 after stints as the singer in two London bands, The Stickers and The Operation. A Billboard obituary notes that "Ranken played on all their seven of the Pogues' studio albums, including their 1984 debut, Red Roses For Me. He provided sometimes bashing, sometimes martial, army band-like percussion on such beloved tunes as 'Fairytale of New York, 'Dirty Old Town,' 'A Pair of Brown Eyes,' 'If I Should Fall From Grace With God,' 'Sunny Side of the Street' and countless others.
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"In addition to playing drums and harmonica, Ranken took the occasional vocal turn as well, taking lead on the minute-long, movie monster-like interlude 'Worms' from 1988’s If I Should Fall From Grace With God and adding backing vocals on 1990’s Hells Ditch."
In a 2023 Instagram post, the band credited Ranken with suggesting the title of The Pogues' breakthrough 1985 album, Rum Sodomy & the Lash. sharing that he said, “it seemed to sum up life in our band."
Billboard notes that "Ranken was born in London and was working towards a degree in media and sociology at Goldsmiths College at the University of London when he joined a then-gestating band called Pogue Mahone (whose Irish translation is roughly 'kiss my arse'). The band’s unique blend of traditional Irish folk, punk and rock was anchored by late frontman MacGowan’s shambolic, mesmerizing, often inebriated performance style, along with the eclectic attack of multi-instrumentalist Jem Finer (banjo, vocals, saxophone, piano, guitar), singer/tin whistle player Spider Stacy and James Fearnley (accordion, piano, guitar)."
The Pogues went on to gain a large international following, influencing countless Celtic-punk flavoured bands. The substance issues of singer and chief songwriter Shane MacGowan led to a parting of ways with the rest of the band after 1993 album Waiting For Herb. MacGowan died in 2023 at age 65, following years of drug and alcohol use.
Ranken continued to tour with the band and appeared on the Pogues’ seventh and final studio album, 1996’s Pogue Mahone, on which he wrote and shared vocals on the Cajun/Irish rocker “Amadie.”
Following the band’s split, Ranken returned to the kit for their series of reunion tours from 2001-2014. For 35 years, he was also lead vocalist in the London-based blues/R&B band Mysterious Wheels and also played with the Recidivists.
William "Billy Bass" Nelson Jr., an American musician who was the original bassist for Funkadelic, died on Jan. 31, at age 75.
He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in 1997 with fifteen other members of Parliament-Funkadelic.
A Billboard obituary reports that "As a teenager, Bass (real name: William Nelson) worked for [Parliament/Funkadelic leader] George Clinton at a barbershop. He was recruited to back his boss's vocal group, then known as the Parliaments. In his 2014 autobiography, Clinton recalled how Bass helped him write the band's first big hit single, 1967's '(I Wanna) Testify.'"
"That tune and another, the yearning, cinematic 'All Your Goodies Are Gone,' would both later be packaged on the extended edition of Parliament’s 1974 classic Up For the Down Stroke LP. 'Goodie' was the first indication that Clinton and company — whose initial desire was to be signed to the iconic R&B/soul label Motown Records — had a trippier, more experimental vibe in mind.
"Though he began his tenure on guitar in the Parliaments, Nelson was the one who suggested the band try out Eddie Hazel, a masterful player whose keening, emotive solo on Funkadelic’s 10-minute epic 'Maggot Brain' cemented his legend as one of rock’s premiere guitarists."
The backing band was originally unnamed, but Nelson later coined the name "Funkadelic" to reflect the style (funk) and connect it with the then-burgeoning psychedelic music scene. By 1970, Funkadelic was a full band consisting of Nelson, Hazel, drummer Tiki Fulwood, guitarist Tawl Ross, and keyboardist Mickey Atkins (later replaced by Bernie Worrell). George Clinton would later take on the collective name Parliament-Funkadelic.
Ultimate Classic Rock reports that "Bass went on to perform on Funkadelic's first three groundbreaking albums: 1970's Funkadelic and Free Your Mind... and Your Ass Will Follow and 1971's Maggot Brain, as well as a newly rechristened Parliament's 1970 debut Osmium. In addition to bass, Bass handled lead vocals for a song or two on each of the Funkadelic albums.
"As Clinton's official website notes, Nelson was the first of many musicians to leave the P-Funk organization over financial disagreements, but he returned for a brief appearance on a 1975 album, Let's Take It To The Stage.
Nelson left the group in late 1971, and he and Hazel next performed with The Temptations. Nelson later played with The Commodores, Chairmen of the Board, Fishbone, Jermaine Jackson, Parlet, Lionel Richie, Smokey Robinson, and Lenny Williams
In the 1990s, Nelson was often name-checked by such legendary bassists as John Norwood Fisher (Fishbone) and Flea (the Red Hot Chili Peppers), while his early Funkadelic work was often sampled by hip hop artists.
Joining with some other P-Funk alumni, in 1994 Nelson released the album Out of the Dark under the name O.G. Funk. After 1994, he served in various touring lineups of Parliament-Funkadelic and with P-Funk spinoff acts the 420 Funk Mob and Sons of Funk
Guitar Player once described Nelson as "the Wynton Marsalis of funk: an opinionated player with strong views about what is and isn't genuinely funky."
Michel Portal, a French pioneer of European modern jazz and a prolific writer of film music, died on Feb. 12, at age 90, his agent reports.
In its obituary, RTE describes Portal as "a multi-instrumentalist at home with the clarinet, saxophone, and the Argentine bandoneon or the Hungarian tárogató. Portal's 1965 album Free Jazz was considered a landmark in Europe's efforts to end American domination of the genre.
"He also wrote music for more than 50 films from the 1960s through to 2015, including the award-winning 1982 historical drama The Return of Martin Guerre. Portal won three French César awards for his cinematic music."
Born in Bayonne in 1935, Portal started playing the clarinet aged eight and joined local folk orchestras. He later started contributing to the works of contemporary music giants such as Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Portal co-founded the New Phonic Art improvisational group, and his later Michel Portal Unit gained an international reputation.
His last album, released for his 85th birthday in 2021, won the jazz album of the year at France's Victoires music awards. Portal also performed and recorded in the classical realm.
On Facebook, noted Canadian jazz critic and author Mark Miller posted a tribute that reads, in part: "Master French reedman Michel Portal has died at the age of 90. At the 1984 Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, he, fellow saxophonist François Jeanneau, bassist Henri Texier and drummer Daniel Humair gave a memorable performance on a St. Denis street stage before a largely unsuspecting, but soon captivated audience of passersby who called for three encores. It remains one of my very favourite concerts of the 20-some years that I attended the festival."
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