Some of you may have heard that the musician and songwriter, Bill Bush, died this week after falling at his home. He was 70. Bill recorded 'Velvet Touch / I'm Waiting' on Ronn in the mid 60s and played with the Fabulous Carousels, a.k.a Little Johnny Clark, prior to forming his own combo.
I'd known Bill for exactly a decade this year since I traced him through a contact at the local newspaper. I brought his band over to the Glasgow Jazz Festival in 2005 and two years later I visited him at his home in Shreveport, Louisiana, meeting Stan Lewis, BB Davis, Eddy Giles and many other great characters from that era.
Anyone who met Bill in Glasgow back in 2005, or at Crossfire allnighter in April 2013, will remember him as a warm and funny bloke, and very, very talented despite never 'making it' big nationally. He played on the same bill as people such as Jerry Lee Lewis and Bobby Bland, to name a few of the stars who crossed his path in a successful performing career of 50 years+. He was still playing live the week before he died.
Although he was not able to perform / do a PA at Crossfire, he did appear onstage and thanked everyone for their support just before Sean Chapman played his Ronn single to a packed dancefloor. That meant a great deal to him.
When he was in the UK last year I tried once again to explain the appeal of his dance track but mentioned that it wasn't like Motown and was a different kind of sound, I asked him what the influence was for it given that 'northern soul' was nowhere on his radar, where had the inspiration come from for that driving beat and soulful delivery, asking him: "What was it supposed to be?" His reply, "It was supposed to be the b-side". So we're still no wiser.
What started for me as a desperate search for an impossible 7" led to friendship and genuine affection, he was a great guy and I'm very lucky to have called him 'friend'.
Thank you to Keith Money for spinning Ronn 17 at the 100 Club back in the early 2000s, without whom none of this would have happened. I remember saying to my other half at the time, "I have to get that record".
added by site
link to interview/feature
http://www.newuntouchables.com/nutsmag/masters-the-fabulous-carousels-interview/
scan from an earlier forum post by Martin
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