Jet Black (musician)

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Jet Black (2006)

Jet Black (actually Brian John Duffy , born August 26, 1938 in Ilford ) is a British musician. He became known as the drummer for the Stranglers .

Early years

Brian John Duffy was born in Ilford in east Greater London in 1938. The parents were Catholics who had immigrated from Ireland and the father was a teacher. Duffy suffered from chronic asthma as a child . During his school days he first learned the clarinet , piano and violin, and later self-taught drums. While still at school he played first in a swing orchestra and later in a skiffle band . He left school without a degree, began training as a carpenter and played drums as a session musician in the evenings . In the mid-1960s, Duffy went into business for himself: he ran an alcoholic beverages business ("off-license") in Guildford, southwest of London, sold accessories for home breweries and owned several mobile ice cream trucks . At that time he was briefly married.

Career

Jet Black (1985)

After Duffy had achieved a certain degree of financial security professionally, he turned back to drumming in the 1970s, taking the stage name "Jet Black". In September 1974, he responded to an ad in Melody Maker , with which blues guitarist Hugh Cornwell was looking for a drummer for his band Johnny Sox. Black joined the band and offered the financially suffering members to move into the rooms above his shop, which they accepted. After a short time, however, he gave the musicians an ultimatum to either professionalize themselves or to forego further cooperation (and free accommodation). Johnny Sox singer Gyrth Godwin and bassist Jan Knutsson then moved back to their home country Sweden. Godwin had previously met the classical guitarist Jean-Jacques Burnel , who joined the band. Cornwell convinced the former Johnny Sox guitarist Hans Warmling to move from Sweden to England and support the band. The quartet was renamed the Guildford Stranglers, after the alleged US mass murderer Albert Henry DeSalvo , the "Boston Strangler". To finance the band, Black sold his ice cream truck. The group's first tour bus was the last remaining car. Black's second marriage to his wife Helena failed because of his musician lifestyle. According to Stranglers biographer David Buckley, Black was the band's organizational talent and the most keenly business-minded member. Burnel referred to Black's role within the band as a "father figure" at the time. Since Black was already in his late 30s and significantly older than his band colleagues at this point, he made himself up to ten years younger in interviews in order not to endanger the band's possible commercial success. Initially, Black tried to get involved in the texting of the Stranglers songs, but met with little enthusiasm from the rest of the band.

"My lyrics used to sound like business letters and used to get vetoed."

"My texts sounded like business correspondence and were rejected."

- Jet Black

In 1980, during the elaboration of the 1981 album The Gospel According to the Meninblack , the band decided collectively to use heroin to support the creative process. Unlike singer Cornwell and bassist Burnel, Black ended the experiment after a day. For the 1983 released album Feline Black began to work with an electronic drum kit for the first time; henceforth he programmed the drum parts of the Stranglers pieces instead of recording them. In the same year he published a book, Much Ado About Nothing , in which he described his view of the riots that the Stranglers sparked on the campus of the University of Nice in 1981 . In 2011 he published another book on the subject, Seven Days in Nice . In 1996 Black patented a pedal , the Jet Black Power Bass Drum Pedal.

Black had been plagued by health problems since the early 2010s, including bouts of shortness of breath and chest infections. In March 2007, he announced that he had permanent atrial fibrillation . Jet Black has been listed as a member of the band since 2015, but no longer plays live. In 2017, poster announcements for the Stranglers' Classic Collection tour featured the new tour drummer Jim Macaulay instead of Black for the first time. In 2018, Black suffered a minor cerebral infarction .

Discography

plant

  • Much Ado About Nothing . Stranglers Information Service, 1983.
  • Seven Days in Nice . Coursegood Books, 2011.

Web links

Commons : Jet Black  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ David Buckley: No Mercy. The Authorized and Uncensored Biography . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1997, ISBN 0-340-68062-8 , pp. 6 .
  2. ↑ a b David Buckley: No Mercy. The Authorized and Uncensored Biography . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1997, ISBN 0-340-68062-8 , pp. 4 .
  3. ↑ MusicianGuide.com: The Stranglers Biography. Retrieved October 21, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b TheGuardian.com: The Stranglers on 40 years of fights, drugs, UFOs and 'doing all the wrong things'. Retrieved November 6, 2018 .
  5. ↑ David Buckley: No Mercy. The Authorized and Uncensored Biography . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1997, ISBN 0-340-68062-8 , pp. 21 .
  6. ↑ David Buckley: No Mercy. The Authorized and Uncensored Biography . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1997, ISBN 0-340-68062-8 , pp. 29 .
  7. ↑ TheBoltonNews.co.uk: Book Review: Seven Days In Nice by Jet Black. Retrieved November 6, 2018 .
  8. ^ Google.com: System for remotely playing a percussion musical instrument. Retrieved November 10, 2018 .
  9. ↑ OxfordTimes.co.uk: Jet set at full throttle - interview with Jet Black of The Stranglers. Retrieved November 7, 2018 .
  10. ↑ Stranglers.net: A Message from Jet Black ( Memento of December 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ↑ AstorTheatrePerth.com: The Stranglers - The Classic Collection. Retrieved December 2, 2019 .
  12. ↑ TheGreatRockBible.com: The Stranglers Biography. Retrieved July 6, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Black, Jet
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Duffy, Brian John (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British musician
DATE OF BIRTH August 26, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Ilford , United Kingdom