Ray Charles sideman, bandleader gone at 74
By American staff
Hank Crawford, whose fluidly emotional saxophone solos as a sideman for Ray Charles led to a long career as a leader of jazz and soul bands and a lengthy discography, died Thursday, Jan. 29, 2009, at his home in Memphis. He was 74.
The cause was complications of a stroke he had in 2000, his sister Delores said.
Beginning in the early 1960s, when Crawford was music director for Charles’ big band and also recorded as a bandleader, he was best known as an alto saxophonist who melded a wailing blues style to modern jazz, funk and soul. He proved an especially flexible musician over the decades as popular music changed and he adapted
A sampling of his tracks from the ‘60s and ‘70s would encompass “The Peeper,” a bluesy swing number; “New York’s One Soulful City,” rhythmically funky if melodically saccharine; and “I Hear a Symphony,” a soulful disco cover of the 1965 Supremes hit, which charted.
But Crawford’s distinctively piercing sound remained constant, a forceful and urgent plaintiveness that was rooted in the blues and delivered with a preacher’s fervor. In addition to working with Charles, over the years he was an arranger, co-leader or sideman for blues masters such as B. B. King, Etta James, Jimmy McGriff and Eric Clapton.
The pop jazz saxophonist David Sanborn cited Crawford as a major influence.
“He has a rich, throbbing tone and a way of phrasing like a blues singer,” Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times in 1986. “Mr. Crawford’s solos are artfully shaped, but they convey a naked emotionality.”
Bennie Ross Crawford Jr. was born in Memphis on Dec. 21, 1934, into a large family and a jazz and gospel household, as Delores Crawford described in a phone interview Monday. A pianist who played in church, he attended Manassas High School, an incubator of musical talent with alumni including Jimmie Lunceford and Isaac Hayes.
Among Crawford’s own schoolmates were the future jazz notables George Coleman, Harold Mabern and Charles Lloyd.
Crawford’s father was a truck driver who badly wanted to play the saxophone but did not have the chops. “He was a confused saxophone player,” Crawford said. But he brought a saxophone home with him from the U.S. Army, and put it in Hank’s hands. Crawford credited Johnny Hodges, Louis Jordan and Charlie Parker as early influences and inspiration.
Crawford was given his nickname as a teenager by some fellow musicians who thought he sounded like a local saxophonist named Hank O’Day. He attended Tennessee State University in Nashville and was just short of a degree in music when Ray Charles came to town and offered him a gig in his band playing baritone sax.
Crawford played baritone on several of Charles’ records, including Ray Charles at Newport and What’d I Say. He later switched to alto and became Charles’ musical director through 1963.
During his years with Charles, the saxophone section also included David (Fathead) Newman, with whom he later collaborated frequently, and Leroy (Hog) Cooper. Both Newman and Cooper also died in January.
Crawford, whose first marriage ended in divorce, was a widower. In addition to Delores Crawford, he is survived by two brothers, Danny and Ceylon; three sisters, Shirley, Marva and Alma; a son, Michael; a daughter, Sherri; and a granddaughter, Tiffany. All live in Memphis.
Sources: All About Jazz, Wikipedia.