Bobby Whitlock, the keyboard player and vocalist who co-founded Derek and the Dominos with Eric Clapton and played on classic albums like George Harrison‘s “All Things Must Pass,” died Sunday at age 77.
ABC Audio reported Whitlock’s death, quoting manager Carol Kaye as saying, ““With profound sadness, the family of Bobby Whitlock announces his passing at 1:20 a.m. on Aug. 10 after a brief illness. He passed in his home in Texas, surrounded by family.”
The Memphis-born musician was signed to Stax Records at an early age and played with artists like Booker T. and the MG’s and Sam & Dave on his way up before becoming an integral member of Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, during which he forged an alliance on tour with Clapton.
He soon found himself working on “All Things Must Pass,” and with three keyboard players credited on that all-time classic, who played what has been murky. But among the parts he is given credit for is the piano on the track “Beware of Darkness” — which millions of people are hearing play out this weekend as the opening music in the horror hit “Weapons.”
Derek and the Dominos turned out to be a one-album wonder, but what a “one album” — the 1971 double LP “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” is considered by many to be one of rock’s greatest albums. Whitlock co-wrote seven of its tracks, including “Bell Bottom Blues” and “Tell the Truth.”
After the breakup of Derek and the Dominos, he went on to release a series of solo albums in the 1970s, starting with “Bobby Whitlock” in 1972, which included all the members of the recently split group, albeit not all on the same tracks.
He also made an uncredited appearance on the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street,” and made the claim that he was cheated out of a rightful co-writing credit for the song “I Just Want to See His Face.”
His other credits as a guest musician include self-titled albums by Clapton and Doris Troy, Dr. John’s “The Sun, Moon & Herbs” and Stephen Stills & Manassas’ “Down the Road.”
In the early 2000s, he began doing club shows with his wife, CoCo Carmel Whitlock (who formerly was married to Delaney Bramlett), performing the “Layla” songs acoustically.
“The songs on that album are as new today as they were then,” he said in a 2006 interview with the Austin Chronicle. “They just never had anyone perform them that had anything to do with them.” The shows resulted in a live album by the duo, “Other Assorted Love Songs,” in 2003.
After a brief sojourn in Tennessee (“I was a little too soulful for Nashville,” he laughed), Whitlock moved to Austin in 2006. “It reminds me of Memphis in 1965, when it was about the music, and everybody was supportive of everybody. Now I can’t imagine living anyplace else.”
Whitlock was inducted into Memphis’ Beale Street Walk of Fame in 2024.
In recent years, he had undertaken painting and had his artwork displayed in galleries.
Besides his wife, he is survived by three children, Ashley Brown, Beau Whitlock and Tim Whitlock Kelly, and his sister Debbie Wade, according to ABC.
More to come…