Don

by Steve KurutzBeginning his career as the guitar playing half of the 1950s rock duo, Don & Dewey, Don "Sugarcane" Harris, put down the guitar and picked up the violin after the lack of success for Don & Dewey (oddly enough the group's songs became hits for other artists such as the Righteous Brothers and the Premiers). Classically trained as a violinist, Harris' skill at improvisation began attracting attention from the rock world and soon he was appearing on records by John Lee Hooker, Frank Zappa and Johnny Otis. In 1970 Harris joined forces with British blues musician John Mayall when the latter was forming his first all American backing band. In addition to joining the backing bands of Mayall, Zappa and others, Harris also recorded a series of albums for labels such as Epic and Polydor. After a lengthy battle with pulmonary disease, on December 1, 1999 he was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment at the age of 61.