RIP Andy Rourke (May 19, 2023)

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Oh man, this hurts. Tweet from Johnny:


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Times obituary (May 20, 2023).
 
I'm sorry Andy.
For me it was (mostly) all about the bass, though I didn't know much about you, and probably never really realized how great you were.

But you were, and in the part of your life that connected with ours, you know we know you were as important as the others. And it's all that matters.
 
Steve White - longtime (excellent) drummer for Weller:

 
Words are very hard right now. Just prayers for you, gratitude, deep gratitude . . . and love.
 
Once again Brummie Boy retrieves the Morrissey-baiting press article before anyone else. o_O
'It’s easy to paint the Smiths as a two-man show: Morrissey and Marr wrote the songs; moreover, both were such lavishly talented and original artists that they cut figures almost impossible to overshadow. Indeed, it’s a line of thought Morrissey in particular has pursued with vigour in recent decades, belittling the Smiths’ rhythm section’s contributions, behaving as though they were, in the memorable words of a lawyer instructed to act for drummer Mike Joyce, “as readily replaceable as the parts of a lawnmower”.

But it isn’t true. Rourke was as gifted a bass player as Marr was a guitarist: when fabled session bassist Guy Pratt was drafted into rehearsals following the drug bust, he arrived assuming no one would notice Rourke’s absence (“let’s face it,” he later wrote, “how many people would be bothered?”) but found himself marvelling at the “sophistication” of what he was expected to learn. In Pratt’s retelling, the general sigh of relief when it becomes apparent that Rourke’s arrest won’t stop him touring the US is almost palpable.

He also provided ample evidence of the breadth of music influences that were funnelled into the Smiths’ sound, something that was easy to overlook given the limited musical worldview their frontman was given to espousing in interviews. Morrissey may have thought that reggae was “vile”, but that clearly wasn’t a view shared by Rourke: listen to his bass part on the 1986 B-side Rubber Ring. Morrissey “detested” modern soul – “this discofied nonsense” – but on Barbarism Begins at Home, regularly held up as the greatest example of Rourke’s playing in the Smiths’ oeuvre, he plays writhingly funky slap bass that wouldn’t have sounded out of place in the world of “discofied nonsense”. “I don’t think Morrissey thought it was cool,” he subsequently confessed.


Andy Rourke was the other melodic genius in the Smiths: spry, funky and masterful
Alexis Petridis


https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/19/andy-rourke-the-smiths-bassist
 
Poor Andy. I remember when he lived in Burnage for a short while, he was such a friendly guy and very approachable.
 

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