Steve Ferguson of NRBQ passed away.

[thunderbyrd]

NRBQ seems to have always been the Great Forgotten Band.

http://powerpop.blogspot.com/2009/10...-ferguson.html

Steve died of cancer on 7 Oct.

[mickeydean]

Originally Posted by thunderbyrd

NRBQ seems to have always been the Great Forgotten Band.

http://powerpop.blogspot.com/2009/10...-ferguson.html

Steve died of cancer on 7 Oct.

one of the greatest underrated guitar players of all time.

first capt. lou now this.

[bo]

RIP Steve.

[mudshark]

RIP

[tele-vangelist]

I loves me some NRBQ. Unbelievable that they didn't become huge. Super fun, great chops, excellent songs, amazing versatility.

[Jahmbie]

Ferg lived around the corner from the coffee house where I worked during grad school. I'd see him about a couple times a week and sometimes we'd jam down at the old Mom's Music on Frankfort AV. His health had been pretty bad for the last several years, had a heart condition too, IIRC.

The first time I saw Ferg play was around the time this LP came out, maybe 1988?
Here is a link to Bob Brainen's tribute to Steve Ferguson show on WFMU.
http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/33228

Thanks for the pickin', Steve. RIP.

[Nighthawk]

To bad. Great band that did not get much recognition. Life is uncertain.

[dan1952]

Sad news. RIP, Mr. Ferguson.

[tweedtone]

What a truly visionary guitarist.

I have the supreme pleasure of playing with Tom Staley, the original drummer for the Q. He and Steve were usually roommates on the road so suffice to say, I get to hear lotsa great back-in-the-day stories.

In the late '70s/early 80s, Tom and Steve were in a hot country band in the Miami area and since Steve's passing, Tom's been gracious enough to share some audience recordings of some gigs. Pretty smokin' stuff!

[thunderbyrd]

i never got to see Steve play and until this thread, i never saw a film of him playing or even a photo that i remember. Did he usually play a telecaster? that is one fine looking old warhorse he's playing in this video...

[Jahmbie]

Originally Posted by thunderbyrd

i never got to see Steve play and until this thread, i never saw a film of him playing or even a photo that i remember. Did he usually play a telecaster? that is one fine looking old warhorse he's playing in this video...

Unfortunately there is precious little video of Fergie either solo or with NRBQ. There is some later stuff on YT from an NRBQ reunion, but the sound/video quality is so-so.

That blackguard is nice. Steve played Teles and LPs. I remember a beautiful CAR Custom Tele that he had in the 90s. The switch to Les Pauls seemed to be later in his playing, maybe because it was getting harder for him to bend strings on a Tele.

I also remember him selling his SFSR and getting a 2X12 Carvin because the Fender was too heavy to gig around. About a year later I think he went back to a Super.

[chipl]

The original Q with Steve Ferguson played at my high school on Long Island in the spring of 1970 on a double bill with the Byrds, and it was one of the coolest moments in my high school life. (Not the least of it being that Clarence White was right there ten feet away on my high school stage.)

The Q was great and that performance made me a lifelong fan. When I heard Steve's opening guitar riffs on Flat Foot Floozy, it just knocked me out with its driving rhythm and crunch. (Kinda like Big Al Anderson's later guitar intro on Me and the Boys.) The rest of the band, too, just rocked and one couldn't help but dig Terry Adam's musical zaniness..."Howard Johnson's got his hojo working..."

I had several of their early LPs including Bopping the Blues with Carl Perkins and have a dozen of their albums at least. I also have the two Rhino records CD set of the Q's best and I still get a kick out of hearing those early Q cuts with Steve.

Cut to 2004...there's an NRBQ reunion at the Calvin Theater in Northhampton Mass, that reunited all the original members, including Steve. As fate would have it, as I pulled out of my motel, I saw two horn players walking in the parking lot in front of me...since it was a summer evening I had th windows open, and I'm cranking out the Q tunes. The horn players ask me if I'm going to the show and can I give them a ride into town...it's a mile and half walk maybe.

I brake for musicians so I gave 'em a ride...it was Dave Gordon, the trumpet player and Tyrone Hill, the trombonist in the Whole Wheat Horns.
To pay me back for the ride, they invited me backstage before the show where I got to meet most of the band (and their musical pal John Sebastian) and chat with everyone but Terry.

After the show, I told Steve and Tom Staley how they'd played at my high school 34 years earlier and Tom actually remembered it cause it marked the only gig they did with the Byrds. I talked Teles with Steve for a bit, but for this gig he was playing a borrowed Ibanez cause he hadn't brought his guitar with him that weekend.

To see the original Q on stage with Steve and singer Frankie Gadler, it was just such a blast from the past. I caught another reunion show in 2007 but Steve couldn't make that one.

He was a pretty original and unique player, though unknown to most anyone not a Q fanatic, and he had a great feel for not only rock and roll but jazz, too.

I picked up the 2006 CD he did with Terry called Louisville Sluggers and it's a good demonstration of Steve's skills and musical spirit.

RIP Steve.

[thunderbyrd]

great stories, chipl.

[PaddyBrumson]

I shared this story on another forum last month when we found out about Fergie's passing:

I"ve been telling people about Fergie since 1967. I was lucky enough to be in Miami the Summer of 1967 when NRBQ was formed and got to see their first shows after Fergie and Terry combined with the other Q's from a band called The Seven of Us. There was nothing else like them even from the start. The odd combination of rock, blues, rock-a-billy, country, avantguard jazz (what other rock band would cover Sun Ra?) and anything else they felt like playing including Terry Adams doing a very serious piano solo on a kids toy piano or getting the audience to sing along with them doing Sun Ra's Rocket Number Nine. That group of musicians was about the most diverse, gifted and crazy bunch of guys playing R&R I've ever seen. You never knew what you were going to get when you went to one of their shows. Fergie was the serious one on stage. When he got a hold of a song, it came from the heart even if it was a silly rocker like Flat Foot Flewzy. He brought intensity and a unique funky grove to the band. I love Big Al, but Fergie's DNA will always be in NRBQ.