A co-founder of the 70s band Derek and the Dominos has died.
Bobby Whitlock was 77 years old.
His manager confirmed his death, saying that Whitlock died on Aug. 10 at 1:20 a.m. at home in Texas after a brief illness, surrounded by his family, TMZ reported.
Variety reported the illness was cancer.
Whitlock’s wife, Coco Carmel Whitlock, said in a statement to TMZ, “How do you express in but a few words the grandness of one man who came from abject poverty in the south to heights unimagined in such a short time?”
Bobby Whitlock was born in Memphis in 1948, Billboard reported.
He was the son of a minister and said that his upbringing was abusive. He escaped the situation by playing music in a group called the Counts, focusing on the music that was coming out of his hometown, Variety reported.
He played with such groups as Booker T. and the MGs and Sam & Dave after becoming a cornerstone of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends. During that time, he became close friends with Eric Clapton.
He was also a session player on George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass,” one of three keyboard players on the classic.
Bobby Whitlock co-founded Derek and the Dominoes, known for a single album, the 1971 LP “Layla and Other Associated Love Songs,” Variety reported. He cowrote seven tracks, including “Bell Bottom Blues.”
He called the album “lightning in a bottle.”
Bobby Whitlock blamed a failed follow-up album on “Everybody was doing entirely too much drugs and alcohol,” along with ego conflicts among some bandmates, Variety reported.
He told the Houston Press in 2011, “We were getting along pretty good until the hard drugs came into play. Jim (Gordon) and Carl (Radle) and me had been together for several years prior to the Dominos thing, and we always got along really well. Jim was a great guy when he was straight. But when he started getting heavily involved in heroin and coke and booze, his personality changed drastically. I am very happy that the one studio record was the ‘one’ and that was it. It never will have anything other than itself to be compared to. It was the beginning and the end, and the all and all of itself — it’s magnum and opus all wrapped up in one.”
After the members of Derek and the Dominoes went their separate ways, he released several solo albums.
Bobby Whitlock was inducted into the Beal Street Walk of Fame in 2024, Variety reported.
He leaves behind his wife, three children and his sister.
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