Stu Blank & Friends

about

Stu Blank, who died July 10 2001 of cancer at age 47, never achieved much success in his life, if you measure success in any conventional manner. But he was such a soulful person, a man made of music, that other musicians who saw him play never forgot the experience, which is why about 100 of them played in nearly a dozen benefit concerts for him during his illness. There is success that no amount of money can match. Blank played his final gig a couple of weeks before his death, when he sat in at Santa Rosa's Luther Burbank Center during the last number on what turned out to be the final performance by bluesman John Lee Hooker. Blank was one of the rare and precious musicians who run on instinct. He started fooling with piano when he was a boy and never stopped. He could sit at the keys for hours and play piano bar versions of a hundred rock songs (his take on the Bob Dylan epic "Like a Rolling Stone" was a signature performance). He could spin a blues refrain off the top of his head and always reached for that something extra in his playing. He found it quite often. His career never really went anywhere. Stu Blank and His Nasty Habits, as his band was called, worked all the dives on the Bay Area rock scene through the late '70s and early '80s. He made a few albums on his own. He may not have climbed the ladder of success very high, but there were nightclubs in Alameda where Blank walked as tall as Bruce Springsteen. The problems with drugs and alcohol probably didn't help,

top songs

albums

BBQ Blues - Live From The Majic Lamp

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BBQ Blues: Live From The Majic Lamp

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