The influential UK Blues musician and founder of Savoy Brown has died at the age of 75…
OBITUARY by Ian Woolley
The Beat interviewed the singer back in the 2020 August issue when his band Savoy Brown released their 41st album “Ain’t Done Yet”. Now living in the US where he lived for the past 40 years, he spoke about his long 55-year career with the band.
Savoy Brown (credit Noble PR)
He made the front cover of Guitar Player magazine, was enshrined on the Hollywood Rock Walk of Fame, and accepted into many regional “Halls of Fame” in the USA and Canada. Of the original line-up with Kim, were keyboardist Trevor Jeavons, bassist Ray Chappell, drummer Leo Manning, harmonica player John O’Leary and Brice Portius (The latter was one of the first black blues musicians to be a part of a British rock band). It is worth noting here that as the ’70s heralded, their lineup included most of Chicken Shack .
During their 55 years, Savoy Brown has toured continuously, making it one of the longest-running blues rock bands in existence. Through the years, the band has headlined concerts at many prestigious venues including Carnegie Hall, the Fillmore East, the Fillmore West, and London’s prestigious Royal Albert Hall. Savoy Brown helped spawn the 1968 UK Blues Rock boom and later opened the eyes of many 1970s, American teenagers, to their own home territory blues artists. The British R&B boom of the early 1960s led directly to the British Blues Explosion in 1968.
The original London R&B boom led by The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, Pretty Things and, to some extent, The Beatles, quickly moved into mainstream pop and left a vacuum in the London clubs. This vacuum, in London, was filled in the mid-1960s by John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers featuring Eric Clapton and Savoy Brown’s Blues Band featuring Kim Simmonds. Savoy Brown, having established national status in the 1970s, provided other groups their chance to shine. Bands like Kiss, ZZ Top, The Doobie Brothers, and many, many more acts all opened for Savoy Brown during that era.
Former members, having cut their teeth under Simmonds’ leadership, have gone on to complete their careers with other bands. Among others, these include singer Dave Walker with Fleetwood Mac and Black Sabbath, Bill Bruford with King Crimson, Andy Pyle with the Kinks and Paul Raymond with UFO. In fact, in the 2013 movie, “Jimi Hendrix: All Is By My Side,” a Savoy Brown song co-written by Simmonds was included in the soundtrack.
Forming of the band in London’s Battersea in the mid-’60s, he told the Beat how he get into the music business.
“I had been listening to records since I was a few years old. I had an elder brother who was a music buff. I’d see the rock n roll shows on TV in the late ‘50s and I was always attracted to the guitar. When I was 10 years old, I got some school friends together and we’d pretend we were a band. We “played” Elvis songs. I think I was destined to be a band leader and guitarist.”
and the band’s name?
“It was an imagined blues person’s name. I still don’t know how the name really came about. There was James Brown, Nappy Brown, Gatemouth Brown and Charles Brown. Lots of blues guys with the name Brown. Savoy Brown was in that mould.”
The musician had been battling a very rare form of colon cancer and died on Tuesday last week. He is survived by his wife, Deborah, and a daughter, Eve. No memorial plans have been revealed as yet. He was 75 years of age.