Monday, April 5, 2021

Morris "B.B" Dickerson, R.I.P.

Bass player Morris "B.B." Dickerson, a founding member of the 1970's funk band War, passed away on April 2nd following a long illness. He was 71.

Originally known as Eric Burdon and War, Dickerson was part of the group along with his uncle Howard E. Scott who was the lead guitarist, percussionist "Papa Dee" Allen, keyboardist Lonnie Jordan, saxophone player Charles Miller, drummer Harold Ray Brown and Danish born harp player Lee Oskar. 

The group worked as a collective and thus Dickerson received songwriting credits on all their hits -"Spill The Wine", "Low Rider", "Why Can't We Be Friends?", "The Cisco Kid", "Summer" as well as "The World is a Ghetto" the title track of their fifth album released in 1972. Notably, Dickerson sang lead vocal on "The World is a Ghetto".

Dickerson departed War in 1979 but in 1994 would join forces with Scott, Brown and Oskar to form The Lowrider Band after they were unable to use the War name after losing a lawsuit to producer Jerry Goldstein (no relation to this author). 

I leave you with Dickerson singing lead on The Lowrider Band's version of "The World is a Ghetto". R.I.P.

No comments:

Post a Comment