THE SCREEN FADES …
THE SOUNDTRACK PLAYS ON
Donald Dunn, musician, 24 November 1941; - 13 May 2012
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| From left: Dunn, Booker T, Steve Cropper and Al Jackson. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives |
When I was at school, once I’d entered my teens, I always dreamt of going to America. That was where the music played all day. Not Victor Sylvester, Henry Hall and Joe Loss; but real rock and roll, played by the men and women who invented it. On a sharp, bright winter morning in 1961 my dream came true. As we sailed into New York on board the MV Port Halifax the sun sliced through the frosty air as the crew stood on the afterdeck, smoking and laughing. We were waiting for a tug and I had brought my trusty Philips transistor radio up and it was stood on the hatch, volume full on. We cruised past the Statue of Liberty as the Big Apple’s finest DJ, Murray the K of 1010WINS New York boomed out with his machine-gun speed enthusiasm. Then it happened; that long, spine-tingling opening note from the brass section, then the irresistible beat. It was number three in the Billboard chart; this exhilarating instrumental was called Last Night, by a group called the Mar-Keys.
I never saw a real Fender bass guitar until about 18 months later. It was wielded by Hull’s Rick Kemp, (later of Steeleye Span) playing in a pub in Hessle, The Marquis of Granby, with a Hull supergroup called Johnny Hawk and the Aces. But I knew that sound – it was the same heart-beating, funky thud I’d heard on the Mar-Keys record, and on that memorable New York morning, it had been played by Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn.
If you want to know all about Booker-T and the MGs, the Stax Records story, I’m not going to re-run it all here. The Internet is awash with it and in any case, I’m too sad about Duck’s death to trawl through it. Just remind yourself of the thrills he was involved in by listening to Otis Redding's I've Been Loving You Too Long (1965) and (Sittin' on) The Dock of the Bay (1967),Eddie Floyd's Knock on Wood (1966), Albert King's Born Under a Bad Sign (1967)and Wilson Pickett’s In the Midnight Hour(1965), or take your copy of The Blues Brothers movie off the shelf and enjoy seeing this talented man in physical action, puffing away on his trademark pipe… and don’t forget Time is Tight and the still thrilling Green Onions. There’s a lot said about the ‘Deep South’ so we have to remember that Booker T and the MGs broke an important mould as a rare example of an integrated group, made up of Dunn and Cropper and African Americans Booker T Jones on organ and piano and Al Jackson on drums. Al Jackson was shot and killed in 1975, resulting in Duck’s outspoken advocacy for gun control.
And now another musical hero, Donald Dunn has died in his sleep at a hotel in Tokyo, aged 70. How strange it is that he should make his exit far away from his hometown, Memphis, in Tokyo, where he was on tour with MGs guitarist Steve Cropper. Cropper found his departed workmate in his hotel room and commented “I have just lost my best friend”. In many ways, so have we all – their sound was the essence of joy and friendship.
Every time I hear the Mar-Keys playing Last Night I am 17 again, looking across the sparkling expanse of New York Harbour on a clear winter morning, the skyscrapers looming up like welcoming, beckoning arms through the frosty haze. Dunn would have been a year older than me on that day. We both had a long life of musical discovery ahead of us. If our lives play out like a movie, then Donald Dunn was part of the soundtrack of mine. The credits may be rolling, but the music will play on until I join him. Rest in Peace, Duck, and thanks for the memories and the thrills.
