Don Sugarcane Harris

Don Francis Bowman "Sugarcane" Harris (born June 19, 1938 in Pasadena , California , † November 30, 1999 in Los Angeles ) was an American violinist and guitarist . As a violinist he took a leading position in fusion jazz in the early 1970s , but also played jazz , blues and rock .

Life

Harris was of Creole- Indian-Afro-American descent and grew up in Pasadena. He received classical violin lessons. In the 1950s he played guitar with his childhood friend Dewey Terry in the group "The Squires", which released various singles . From 1957 to about 1967 he and Terry formed the duo "Don and Dewey", which brought out some singles on the Specialty Records label , which in 1974 were put together into an album . Harris and Terry co-wrote the early rock and roll classics Justine, Farmer John, Leaving It All Up to You, and Big Boy Pete. These pieces were with other performers such as the Righteous Brothers to hit . When the success for Don and Dewey did not materialize, the duo separated.

Harris then turned to the electrically amplified violin. From the late 1960s he was a guest musician with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers , Little Richard , John Lee Hooker and Johnny Otis . For Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention, he worked on the recordings for the albums Hot Rats , Burnt Weeny Sandwich , Weasels Ripped My Flesh , Chunga's Revenge , Apostrophe (') and The Lost Episodes . Harris was also a member of two lineups in the zappas Hot Rats live band. Zappa considered the Don and Dewey single "Soul Motion" to be one of the best rhythm and blues records of all time.

With the drummer Paul Lagos and the guitarists Harvey Mandel and Randy Resnick he played in the early 1970s in the group "Pure Food and Drug Act", which brought out the 1972 album Choice Cuts .

In 1971 Harris was invited by Joachim-Ernst Berendt to the “New Violin Summit”, which took place on November 7th during the Berlin Jazz Days ; Jean-Luc Ponty , Michal Urbaniak and Sinto Nipso Brandner also took part in this Geiger summit, the recordings of which were mostly released by the record label MPS as an album of the same name . Harris' previous Jazztage performance on November 5th with the Sugar Cane Harris Group with the participation of Volker Kriegel and Wolfgang Dauner was also released by MPS under the title Sugar Cane's Got the Blues . The haunting version of Horace Silver's "Song for My Father" found on it, however, comes from the recording of the Summit appearance. In the years that followed, the record company MPS, which worked together with Berendt, produced a number of records of varying quality, among which the album Fiddler on the Rock made a positive impression.

After that, Harris went quiet for a while. It was not until the late 1970s that he went on tour again as a member of the John Mayall Band. Because of his drug abuse, he had increasing mental health problems. In the early 1980s he was a member of the experimental rock band "Tupelo Chain Sex" for a short time in Los Angeles, after which he went on tour again with Don & Dewey .

The musician, who had had lung disease for a long time, was found dead on December 1, 1999 in his apartment in southern Los Angeles.

Discography

Solo albums

• Don "Sugarcane" Harris - 1970
• Keep On Driving - 1971
• Fiddler On The Rock - 1971
• Choice Cuts - 1972
• Sugar Cane's Got The Blues - 1973
• Cup Full Of Dreams - 1974
• I'm On Your Case - 1974
• Keyzop - 1975
• Flashin 'Time - 1976
• Anthology Volume One - 2001

With other musicians

• Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee
• John Mayall "Back to the roots" 1970 (Archive to eighties 1988 is CD version)
• John Lee Hooker : Folk Blues - 1959
• Little Richard : Little Richard is Back - 1964
• Johnny Otis : Cold Shot - 1969
• John Mayall & Bluesbreakers : The Best of John Mayall - 1969
• Frank Zappa : Hot Rats - 1969
• The Mothers of Invention : Burnt Weeny Sandwich - 1970
• The Mothers of Invention: Weasels Ripped My Flesh - 1970
• Frank Zappa: Chunga's Revenge - 1970
• John Mayall: USA Union - 1970
• Little Richard: Well Alright! - 1970
• Johnny Otis: Cuttin 'Up - The Johnny Otis Show - 1971
• Harvey Mandel: The Snake - 1972
• Pure Food & Drug Act: Choice Cuts - 1972
• New Violin Summit - 1972, with Jean-Luc Ponty , Michal Urbaniak , Nipso Brantner , Terje Rypdal , Wolfgang Dauner , Robert Wyatt , Neville Whitehead
• Ken Little: Solo - 1973
• Harvey Mandel: Shangrenade - 1973
• John Mayall: Ten Years Are Gone - 1973
• John Lee Hooker: Born In Mississippi - 1973
• Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee : Sonny & Brownie - 1973
• Frank Zappa: Apostrophe (') - 1974
• Don & Dewey: Don and Dewey - 1974
• Spud: Happy Handful - 1975
• John Mayall: New Year, New Band, New Company - 1975
• John Mayall: Notice To Appear - 1975
• John Mayall: Banquet In Blues - 1976
• Billy Bang : Changing Seasons - 1980
• Tupelo Chain Sex: Ja-Jazz - 1983
• Tupelo Chain Sex: Spot The Difference - 1984
• Don & Dewey: Bim Bam! - 1985
• John Mayall: Archives To Eighties - 1988
• Don & Dewey: Jungle Hop - 1991
• John Mayall: Room To Move (1969-1974) - 1992
• Freddie Roulette: Sweet Funky Steel - 1993
• John Mayall: Cross Country Blues - 1994
• Frank Zappa: The Lost Episodes - 1996

Web links

• Don Sugarcane Harris at Discogs (English)
• Steve Kurutz at Allmusic

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Also Sugar Cane Harris
2. ↑ Recordings with Zappa (as of February 2008)
3. ↑ Touring with Zappa (as of February 2008)
4. ↑ Zappa praise ( Memento of the original from February 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Status: February 2008)  
5. ↑ Album Choice Cuts ( Memento of the original from February 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (Status: February 2008)  
6. ^ New Violin Summit - Review on Allmusic
7. ↑ Sugar Cane's Got the Blues on Discogs
8. ↑ Publications