Respected soul and blues bassist Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn has died at the age of 70.
He’s remembered for being a member of Dan Akroyd and John Belushi’s comedy revue outfit the Blues Brothers and for his long-term membership of session stars Booker T and the MGs.
With that band he laid down bass lines on Otis Redding’s Respect, Sam and Dave’s Hold On I’m Coming and Albert King’s Born Under a Bad Sign, among many others. He went on to play with Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Rod Stewart, Tom Petty, Bob Dylan, Jerry Lee Lewis, Levon Helm, and Freddy King.
In the Blues Brothers’ 1980 movie he was given the line: “We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.”
Dunn was semi-retired, partly caused by back problems which made walking painful. But he had just completed a five-night tour of Japan, ending with two shows in the Blue Note Night Club in Tokyo. He’d been playing as part of the Stax Show with MGs guitarist Steve Cropper and Stax singer Eddie Floyd.
Cropper said via Facebook: “Today I lost my best friend. The world has lost the best guy and bass player to live, ever.”
