Bobby Whitlock, the American blues-rock musician who played in the British band Derek & The Dominos with Eric Clapton, has passed away. As Variety reports, Whitlock's manager Carol Kaye confirms that he died early Sunday morning "after a brief bout with cancer." Whitlock was 77.
Robert Stanley Whitlock was born in Memphis, and he quickly fell in love with his city's soul music. As a teenager, Whitlock became the first white artist signed to Stax Records, though he never released anything for the label. Instead, he joined singers Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett in their group Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, and he met Eric Clapton when Clapton also joined that group. Whitlock played keyboard on Clapton's self-titled 1970 solo album, and he also played on George Harrison's solo debut All Things Must Pass in 1970. That year, Clapton and Whitlock also formed the short-lived supergroup Derek And The Dominos.
Derek And The Dominos only released one album, 1970's Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs, before breaking up. Whitlock co-wrote and sang lead on a number of songs from that LP, including "Bell Bottom Blues." Jim Gordon, the Derek And The Dominos drummer who famously murdered his own mother, died in 2023. After the group ended, Whitlock began his solo career with a self-titled 1972 album, which included contributions from all of his Derek And The Dominos bandmates, as well as George Harrison. Whitlock came out with a few more solo LPs in the '70s, and he also played on the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street and on records from people like Dr. John and Stephen Stills' group Manassas. In the '80s, he left the music business behind and lived with his family on a farm in Mississippi.
Whitlock returned with a 1999 album called It's About Time, and he reunited with Eric Clapton for a performance on Jools Holland in 2000. He put out a few more records over the years and published a memoir in 2010. Check out some of Whitlock's work below.
