Peter Bardens

It was 8 years ago today that we lost Peter Bardens.

Peter Bardens
6/19/45-1/22/02

Thankfully, we still have his music...






You can see lots more pictures and learn more about Peter Bardens and the 47 other musicians in my tribute book, Everybody I Shot Is Dead.

Peter Bardens

A Happy 64th Birthday to Peter Bardens. He was one of the original founders and keyboardist of Camel.

Peter was also the person who discovered Mick Fleetwood banging on the drums a few doors down from where he lived and got him started on his professional career.

Peter Bardens
6/19/45-1/22/02

This is Skylines from Camel...spotlighting Peter on keyboards...






You can see lots more pictures and learn more about Peter Bardens and the 47 other musicians in my tribute book, Everybody I Shot Is Dead.

Peter Bardens

Seven years ago today, keyboardist Peter Bardens succumbed to lung cancer. I believe I mentioned him in one of the recent Mick Fleetwood posts as Peter is the one who 'found' Mick playing in a house down the street from his and offered him a gig.

I photographed Peter when he was with his prog rock band Camel. I had a good time hanging with Camel when they blew through Vancouver. I didn't realize that Peter had moved from the UK to Malibu ten years after I moved here from Vancouver. I wish I had ran into him down here. He was a cool guy.

Peter Bardens
6/19/45-1/22/02

In case you are not familiar with him, he's the one playing keyboards (duh) and introducing the song on this video...



Note: It feels kind of tacky to put this on a memorial post but several people have told me I should let you all know that most of my music photographs that I post on this blog are available to purchase as prints. So I am now putting a link on the name of the musician so you can easy-click to see what's available...and check out more photos of them. My apologies if this feels like an advert - it's not meant to be.



You can learn more about Peter Bardens and the 47 other musicians in my tribute book, Everybody I Shot Is Dead.

Happy Birthday, Peter Bardens

He would have been 63 today.

Something you may not know about Peter Bardens...Mick Fleetwood credits him for starting his music career.

Here's Camel's Never Let Go with Peter on keyboards and lead vocals:



I'm celebrating Peter's birthday in Bethlehem, PA at the NearFest prog rock festival.

My only question is if Peter Bardens was a trailblazer of progressive rock in the early seventies how can it still be called progressive rock today?

More Dead

I am continuing to work day and night on the book. Last night I finished up around midnight. Since it usually takes a half hour or so to unwind before I can fall asleep, I decided to take another look through a book of black and white negatives that I had previously checked and alphabetized. Sure enough I found two more musicians. Granted they are from more obscure bands, two bands I had checked out before but somehow missed the information of their deaths.

Ron Aspery was part of the English band, Back Door. They recorded four albums with Warner Bros. and toured with Emerson, Lake and Palmer. He passed away on December 10, 2003 after a long illness.

Peter Bardens, also a Brit, is best known for his progressive rock band, Camel. However, his influence on the rock'n'roll world goes much deeper. More on that in the book. He died of lung cancer on January 22, 2002.

I'm still searching for my Muddy Waters and Canned Heat photos, so who knows what else I may find.

Back to work.