RIP Duck Dunn and Chuck Brown

Donald "Duck" Dunn, bassist for Booker T. and the MGs, Stax studio ace who played with many of the greats of rock, soul, and blues died over the weekend. He was featured in the Blues Brothers movies. One of my favorites was his playing on Fathers and Sons, the Chess double LP that featured Muddy Waters and other Chicago blues veterans with up and comers Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield. Naturally, they picked Duck to play bass.

 Check out his website, wikipedia entry, and allmusic.com bio. 

I love this early 1960s clip of the Booker T. hit "Green Onions" espeically how animated Duck is. The camera focuses on him during Steve Cropper's guitar solo.



Chuck Brown's death, also this weekend, will attract only a fraction of the notice given to Dunn's passing. Brown, a fixture on the DC music scene for decades, was known as the "godfather of go-go" was an immensely creative musician, guitarist, singer and bandleader. I've never quite understood why "go-go" never caught on the way rap did.

Here is Brown's website (down at the moment), wikipedia entry , allmusic.com pages, and Stephen Crocket's tribute in the Washington Post tribute.

Here is a video of his big hit "We Need Some Money"