Obituaries: Motörhead Guitarist Phil Campbell, Canadian Country Star and Actor Blake Emmons

Blake Emmons (born Bruce MacKenzie) a Canadian-born country entertainer, recording artist, TV personality and actor, died on March 8, at age 81.

Canadian country music historian Larry Delaney reports that "Emmons was born in Toronto and spent his early years raised in Peterborough and Almonte, Ontario. He enjoyed a long and illustrious career in country music and a variety of other endeavours, including as a TV actor.

"Blake Emmons' early career years found him in Vancouver writing TV/Radio commercials and performing on stage including stints at the famous Bunkhouse Club. Emmons then took to the road in the mid-1970s heading-up his first tour band which included bass player Valdemar Horsdal, who later went on to fame as country/folk singer Valdy.

"Emmons was the host of the 1974 CTV series Funny Farm, a Canadian version of the popular Hee Haw show, and he co-hosted the Nashville On The Road TV series with the late Jim Ed Brown."

In 1977, Blake Emmons guested on the Jerry Reed TV series Nashville 99, and his television credits would go on to include host of the game show Chain Reaction, as well as cameo roles in the TV sitcoms Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls. Additionally, Blake Emmons hosted the sports show Fish 'n Stars and he appeared in the 1969 TV movie An Old Time Country Christmas. He also authored a children's book, If You Think...You Can Do It.

Emmons was also heavily involved in hosting / performing on numerous Telemiracle and Wounded Soldiers charity fund-raising events at many locations across Canada.

He released four Canadian country hit singles between 1969 and 1976, starting with "You're My Woman" and "Deadest Man Living." In 1978, Blake Emmons released his I Wish You Love vinyl album, which featured the Top 10 hit "Let Me Do Something Lord," and the follow-up single, "Sunchild."

Delaney reports that "Five of the songs on the album were written or co-written by Emmons, including 'Scotia Sunshine,' which was also recorded by Johnny Burke & Eastwind. Emmons followed-up with the 1983 vinyl album, First Flight, and several late career CD album releases, I Can Be and Dear Uncle Sam. He released singles on the Caledon, Stop, ShowBiz, MGB, Condor and Columbia Record labels. In recent years , Emmons had hosted his podcast, My Good Ole Country.

Blake Emmons was inducted into the North American Country Music International Hall Of Fame in 2016.

International

Phil (Philip Anthony) Campbell, a longtime guitarist in legendary British heavy metal band Motörhead, died on March 13, at age 64.

His family said in a statement on Facebook that he passed away after a "long and courageous battle in intensive care following a complex major operation."

On March 14, the official Motörhead Facebook page posted this tribute: "We cannot believe we’re saying this…it is with profound sadness that we have to say Philip Anthony Campbell has passed. He was Motörhead's guitarist for 31 years (the longest serving member aside from Lemmy) having joined in 1984. After Lemmy’s passing, he was blessed to form Phil Campbell and The Bastard Sons with his sons Todd, Dane and Tyla, which recorded and toured together for years. Phil was a wonderful guitarist, writer, performer, and musician who had Motörhead in his veins.

"He always led with his gift of guitar, and carried a great sense of humour, but most of all, Phil led with his heart. You could not be around him without a chuckle or twenty, because quite simply, Phil loved life and lived it with great joy. Much love and RIP Phil. The world has just lost an enormous beam of light, and we are devastated."

A Billboard obituary notes that "Campbell joined Motörhead in 1984 and remained a member until Lemmy Kilmister's death in 2015."

Born in Pontypridd, Wales, Campbell started playing guitar when he was 10 years old, inspired and influenced by guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Tony Iommi, Jimmy Page, Michael Schenker and Todd Rundgren. At the age of 12, Campbell met Lemmy after a Hawkwind gig and asked him for an autograph.

By the age of 14, Campbell was playing semi-professionally with a cabaret band called Contrast, followed by a stint with a pub-rock band called Roktopus. In 1979, Campbell formed the heavy metal band, Persian Risk, playing on their 7" singles, "Calling For You" (1981) and "Ridin' High" (1983). Compilation albums have been issued which feature some of his work with Persian Risk.

In Feb. 1984, following the departure of Brian Robertson, Motörhead held auditions for a new guitarist, narrowing the candidates down to two guitarists: Michael "Würzel" Burston and Philip Campbell. Upon hearing them play together, Lemmy hired both musicians. Campbell subsequently toured the world with the band and remained a constant member of Motörhead until they disbanded.

On 28 December 2015, band founder and sole constant member Lemmy Kilmister died. The following day, drummer Mikkey Dee announced that Motörhead had ceased as a band.

In November 2016, his new project Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons released their first recording, a self-titled EP. The band subsequently performed in supporting slots with Guns N' Roses, Hawkwind, Saxon and Airbourne. In Jan. 2018, a debut full-length album, The Age of Absurdity, which was released on Nuclear Blast Records.

Campbell's debut solo studio album Old Lions Still Roar was released on 25 October 2019 and featured guest vocals from Alice Cooper, Rob Halford, Dee Snider and Benji Webbe.

Subsequent album releases by Phil Campbell and the Bastard Sons were We're The Bastards (2021), Live In The North (2023) and Kings Of The Asylum (2023).

Augie Meyers, a keyboardist whose work with The Sir Douglas Quintet and the Texas Tornados made him a Texan music legend, died on March 7, at age 85.

A Rolling Stone obituary observes that "Meyers' distinctive playing propelled the songs of the Sir Douglas Quintet with Doug Sahm and later the Texas Tornados supergroup."

"Born in San Antonio in 1940, Meyers met the musician Doug Sahm when they were just teenagers in 1953, and bonded over rock & roll. A little more than a decade later, the pair co-founded the Sir Douglas Quintet, a group that mixed psychedelic rock, blues, jazz, country music, and the ethnic vibes of the Texas and Mexican border into a uniquely bright and vibrant sound.

"While Sahm was the voice of the band, Meyers’ Vox Continental organ was responsible for the group’s unmistakable sonics. In songs like 1965’s 'She’s About a Mover,' 1968’s 'Mendocino' and the following year’s 'And It Didn’t Even Bring Me Down,' Meyers propelled the arrangements with bouncing, often irresistible rhythms, and underscored songs like 'At the Crossroads' with well-chosen accents."

In its tribute, Texas Public Radio notes that "Meyers was also part of the musical movement sometimes called San Antonio’s 'West Side Sound,' a mix of rock, conjunto, Tejano and rhythm and blues that reflected the city’s cultural blend. Much of that music grew out of San Antonio dance halls and neighborhood clubs where bands experimented with styles that crossed cultural boundaries."

Rolling Stone adds that "Despite never achieving mainstream success, the Sir Douglas Quintet is credited with influencing artists across the roots-music spectrum, from Steve Earle and Alejandro Escovedo to Uncle Tupelo and the Mavericks. After their dissolution in 1973, Meyers and Sahm continued to work together, most famously in the Nineties when they founded yet another influential Tex-Mex outfit, the Texas Tornados, with conjunto accordionist Flaco Jiménez and Tejano singing star Freddy Fender.

"The Tornados released a string of albums, beginning with their self-titled 1990 debut, which contained one of the band’s most popular songs. '(Hey Baby) Que Pasó,' co-written by Meyers, was a love song delivered in both English and Spanish, and earned a reputation as San Antonio’s citywide anthem.

In 1991, the group released its second studio effort, Zone of Our Own, highlighted by their version of “Is Anybody Goin to San Antone,” a song originally made famous by the country singer Charley Pride that Sahm recorded for his 1973 solo debut. Meyers was the last living member of the Texas Tornados: Sahm died in 1999; Fender in 2006; and Jimenez last summer.

The Texas Tornados reunited in the 2000s for a string of shows with Sahm’s son on vocals. Meyers also played on albums by Willie Nelson, Tom Waits, and Raul Malo. In 1997, he joined Bob Dylan in the studio to provide organ and accordion on Time Out of Mind and reunited with Dylan in 2001 to play on Love and Theft.

Meyers continued to perform up until his death, sitting in with bands like the Mavericks and Los TexManiacs, and sailing with the Outlaw Country Cruise. Rolling Stone noted that "he remained an inspiration to young artists, especially those coming out of the Lone Star State."

Dilworth Karaka, founding member and frontman of popular New Zealand reggae/soul band Herbs, died in early March, at age 75.

Tearepa Kahi, director of the documentary Herbs: Songs of Freedom, told Radio New Zealand that Karaka was a quiet and self-effacing man who played a major role in shaping New Zealand music. "He's responsible for quietly changing New Zealand's perception of music and putting us onto the waka of reggae. He's done that with a very light touch and the fact that we have all these great bands today, Fat Freddy's Drop, Six60 and the likes, Herbs was the forerunning."

"Kahi's film about Herbs, a group that grew out of the social activism of the late 1970s and 1980s, was released in 2019. Combining the influences of Bob Marley and the music of their Polynesian heritage, Herbs were pioneers of a Pacific reggae sound.

Born in 1950, Karaka co‑founded the band in Auckland in 1979 with Toni Fonoti, Spencer Fusimalohi and Fred Faleauto. He was the band's regular guitarist and lead singer for the next 40 years. Herbs collaborated with some big local names including Tim Finn (‘Parihaka’), Annie Crummer (‘See What Love Can Do’) and most successfully with Dave Dobbyn on the hit single ‘Slice of Heaven’, off the movie soundtrack Footrot Flats. It shot to no.1 in October 1986 and stayed there for eight weeks."

British reggae band UB40 toured with Herbs in the 1980s. In a social media post, frontman Robin Campbell says they were the first friends the UK band made in New Zealand when they met them off the plane and treated the British musicians like family. "RIP Dilworth your music lives on."

In a Facebook post, NZ music history website AudioCulture posted this tribute to Karaka: "'We were the voice for a lot of people that just weren‘t getting heard.' – Dilworth Karaka. A mighty kauri has fallen. We are beyond sad to acknowledge the passing of Herbs rangatira Dilworth Karaka.

"Already a highly regarded musician playing venues such as the Great Northern Hotel with Papa in the 1970s, Dilworth joined an embryonic Herbs when they were starting out at the Trident Tavern in Onehunga. In the decades since, as members came and went, Dilworth came to be not just the leader of the band but a mentor to Māori and Pacific Islander music makers throughout the region.

"He helmed the Herbs waka while it created the Pacific reggae that condemned the Crown’s treatment of Māori land rights protesters and so-called Pacific Island overstayers, organised religion, French nuclear testing and Japanese drift-net fishing in the Pacific, even South Africa’s apartheid system.

"When the documentary Herbs: Songs of Freedom was released in 2019, Herbs founder Toni Fonoti gave thanks to Dilworth Karaka for keeping the Herbs legacy alive for the preceding 40 years. 'In most ways, he is the face of Herbs,' Fonoti said. 'Dilworth grew the band more while always maintaining the core message of voicing social injustice. A freedom fighter for Bastion Point, and in tune with the issues of the Pacific. We stood strong together as brothers, as Māori and Pacific, in a time when Māori and Pacific were not united.' We at AudioCulture | Iwi Waiata send our thoughts and hugs to Dilworth's whanau and his vast network of friends in this time of loss."

Herbs were inducted into APRA's New Zealand Hall of Fame in September 2012.

Tommy DeCarlo, an American rock vocalist best known for singing with the hit rock band Boston, died on March 9, at age 60, of cancer.

The singer’s family confirmed the news in a Facebook post. “After being diagnosed with brain cancer last September, he fought with incredible strength and courage right up until the very end,” they wrote.

A Billboard obituary reporte that "DeCarlo discovered and became a fan of Boston in 1977, when he was 12. The band had debuted in 1976 with the Epic album Boston, which rose to No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and remained on the chart for 138 weeks.

"The band’s next two albums, Don’t Look Back (1978), also on Epic, and Third Stage (1986), on MCA, both reached No. 1. In the 1990s, DeCarlo began recording cover versions of his favorite Boston songs. In March 2007, original Boston lead singer Brad Delp died by suicide at age 55. DeCarlo wrote and recorded an original song about Delp and recorded a couple of Boston covers.

"His daughter suggested he post the songs on a MySpace page. DeCarlo sent a link to his MySpace page to Boston management. Not long after, he was contacted by Boston founding member Tom Scholz, who invited him to audition for the band. DeCarlo was the lead vocalist (or co-lead vocalist) for every subsequent touring lineup of Boston." Prior to joining the band, he was a 43-year-old working at a Home Depot in North Carolina.

DeCarlo toured with Boston for nearly 20 years and sang on their 2013 album, Life, Love and Hope. It reached No. 37 on the Billboard 200. DeCarlo sang lead vocals on the title track, “Someday,” “You Gave Up on Love (2.0)” and “The Way You Look Tonight.”

DeCarlo formed the band DECARLO with his son Tommy DeCarlo Jr. in 2012. The band signed a deal with Frontier Records Srl and released an album, Lightning Strikes Twice, in January 2020.

In November 2021, DeCarlo recorded and released the audiobook, Unlikely Rockstar – The Tommy DeCarlo Story. In 2022, DeCarlo signed a solo record deal with Frontier Records for Dancing in the Moonlight, which was released in December 2022.