XPost: alt.toronto, bc.general, soc.culture.british 
 XPost: soc.culture.canada, uk.music.rhythm-n-blues 
 From: jack@yahoo.com 
  
 Long John Baldry dies in Vancouver 
 Last Updated: Jul 22 2005 12:42 PM PDT 
  
 Blues legend Long John Baldry has died at age 64 at Vancouver General 
 Hospital 
 after a four-month battle with a severe chest infection. 
  
 Baldry's agent posted an announcement on the musician's website that Baldry 
 had 
 passed away Thursday night in Vancouver, where he had been living. 
  
 "Our world is a lesser place without him, for John was a person that 
 enhanced 
 this world with his enormous presence and talent," said the statement 
 posted on 
 the website. 
  
 The musician was admitted to the intensive care unit of Vancouver General in 
 April after returning from a trip to his native Britain. 
  
  
 Baldry was nicknamed "Long John" because of his height - six foot seven - 
 and 
 had been living in Canada for the past 25 years. 
  
 The bluesman named Leadbelly, Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry as 
 his 
 musical influences. 
  
 Baldry, born in London in 1941, is recognized as one of the chief 
 influences in 
 British blues and rock music in the 1960s. 
  
 His seminal 1962 album, R&B From The Marquee is considered the first British 
 blues album. Baldry hit the top of the singles charts there in 1967 with Let 
 the Heartaches Begin. He also performed in the Beatles' first worldwide 
 television special in April 1964. 
  
 During the last half of the 1960s, he led a band called Bluesology that 
 included Reginald Dwight, who went on to become Elton John. 
  
 Baldry has released more than 40 albums, performing with a string of other 
 famous musicians including Rod Stewart, Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger. The 
 Rolling 
 Stones opened for Baldry in London in the early 1960s before the Stones hit 
 it 
 big. 
  
 Stewart considered Baldry a mentor and was at his bedside when he was 
 admitted 
 to hospital in March. 
  
 In 1979, he teamed up with Seattle singer Kathi MacDonald to record a very 
 successful version of You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'. 
  
 After spending time in New York City and Los Angeles in the late '70s, 
 Baldry 
 chose to settle permanently in Vancouver, and became a Canadian citizen in 
 1980. 
  
 He continued to record - for Stony Plains Records in Edmonton, owned by 
 Holger 
 Peterson who is also the host of CBC Radio's Saturday Night Blues. 
  
 "There are very few performers that I can think of that were as 
 entertaining, 
 as talented and as professional as Long John Baldry," he says. 
  
 Peterson also says two of Baldry's best-selling albums - It Ain't Easy, and 
 Everything Stops For Tea - will be reissued by Stony Plain in the near 
 future. 
  
 Baldry may be better known to many young people as the voice of Dr. 
 Robotnik in 
 the Sonic the Hedgehog video games and TV series 
  
 --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05 
  * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)