Donald “Duck” Dunn, R.I.P.

Donald “Duck” Dunn

Bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, whose swampy thick bottom grooves anchored many classic soul hits from the 1960s, has died at the age of 70. He was on a tour of Japan with his friend and former bandmate in Booker T. and the MGs, Steve Cropper.

Dunn was an integral part of the Memphis soul sound as bassist for the MGs, the house band for Stax and Volt records. He died Sunday morning after finishing two shows at the Blue Note Night Club in Tokyo, Cropper said in a posting on his Facebook page.

He played with Muddy Waters, Sam and Dave, Freddie King, Otis Redding, Eric Clapton and Rod Stewart among many others. Dunn played bass on the Stevie Nicks/Tom Petty duet “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and was a member of Levon Helm’s RCO All-Stars.

With Cropper, Dunn played on tour with the Blues Brothers (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd). In the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers Dunn played himself and was famous for drawling the line “We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline!”

Donald “Duck” Dunn obituary in the Memphis Commercial Appeal

MP3: “In The Midnight Hour” by Wilson Pickett

MP3: “Nobody’s Fault But My Own” by Otis Redding

MP3: “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” by Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty

MP3: “Everybody Needs Somebody To Love” by the Blues Brothers

MP3: “Time Is Tight” by Booker T. and the MGs

30 Years Out: The Punk-est Punk Band

Social critics and pundits have had their say, they’ve passed the 1970s along to the historians.  Punk rock came and went – many of the bars are now closed, somebody’s swept up the beer cans and wiped up the spit and blood.  But let’s look back once more … at a punk band that was perhaps more obnoxious, more reviled, more retarded and more wrongheaded but totally of their time and perhaps more commercially savvy than any other.