Dick Heckstall Smith: Sad News

Posted on Jack Bruce Website (coincidently just discovered after driving south and listening to  Heckstall-Smith blowing some fine jazz blues on the CD player.):

This was posted at Jack's website:

18 December 2004

It is with a terrible sense of loss that I have to announce the death
of my great friend, Dick Heckstall - Smith who died last night in a
London hospital.

Dick was one of my very closest friends and when I first came to London
in the early sixties he took me under his wing. I looked up to him as an
older brother and he introduced me to many aspects of music that changed
my whole life. Indeed it was Dick who got me my first important job with
Alexis Korner's Blues Inc. Dick it was who first played me the early
music of Bob Dylan and the Beatles He turned me on to great writers I
had not known as
yet like Joseph Heller and Malcolm Lowry.

If it had not been for his encouragement and guidance, I might never
have been a part of the blossoming London scene. Dick introduced me to
Ginger Baker and told me to check out a brilliant new guitarist called
Eric Clapton!

Dick never received the recognition he deserved. He was without doubt
the world's foremost blues saxophonist. His ability on tenor and soprano
saxes (sometimes both at the same time) was unsurpassed in his chosen
field.

Goodbye Dick. It was a great honour to have known you and a great
privilege to have played with you. You will live in my heart forever.
18/12/2004