Keith Jarrett born 8 May 1945

 Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945) is an American pianist and composer and one of the most prolific, innovative, and iconoclastic musicians to emerge from the late 20th century. 

Jarrett was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, to a mother of Slovenian descent.  Jarrett's father was of mostly German descent. He grew up in suburban Allentown with significant early exposure to music. Jarrett possesses absolute pitch and displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child. He began piano lessons before his third birthday. At age five, he appeared on a television talent program hosted by swing bandleader Paul Whiteman. He performed in his first formal piano recital at the age of seven, playing works by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Saint-Saëns, and ending with two of his own compositions. Encouraged by his mother, he took classical piano lessons with a series of teachers, including Eleanor Sokoloff of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. 

Jarrett attended Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, where he learned jazz and became proficient in it. He developed a strong interest in contemporary jazz, and was inspired by a Dave Brubeck performance he attended in New Hope. He was invited to study classical composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, but he was already leaning toward jazz and turned it down.  After his graduation from Emmaus High School in 1963, Jarrett moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music and play cocktail piano in local Boston clubs. 

In 1964 he entered New York City’s vibrant scene. After sitting in with veteran and aspiring players at clubs, including the Village Vanguard, Jarrett toured first with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. From 1966 to 1968 he was the pianist with the Charles Lloyd Quartet which quickly became one of the most popular groups on the changing late-Sixties jazz scene with best-selling records and worldwide tours. He soon led his own trio with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian (which in 1972 expanded to a quartet with the addition of tenor saxophonist Dewey Redman). Then in 1970/71, Jarrett became a featured member in Miles Davis' electric fusion group, playing electric piano and organ - his last stint as a sideman, thereafter, dedicating himself exclusively to performing acoustic music as a solo artist and as a leader. 

                                    

In 1971, Keith Jarrett began his recording collaboration with German producer Manfred Eicher and ECM Records (Editions of Contemporary Music). This fruitful collaboration has produced over 60 recordings to date, unparalleled in their scope, diversity, and quality. 

The piano improvisations on Facing You, Solo Concerts, The Köln Concert, Staircase, Sun Bear Concerts, Moth and The Flame, Concerts, Paris Concert, Dark Intervals, Vienna Concert, and La Scala incorporate a broad spectrum of musical idioms and languages - classical, jazz, ethnic, gospel, folk, blues and pure sound - revealing a creative process based on a deeply conscious state of awakeness and listening in the moment, producing music both deeply personal, yet universal. This body of solo piano work is without precedent with the 1975 Köln Concert being the best selling piano recording in history. 

Jarrett kicked off the '80s with Celestial Hawk: For Orchestra, Percussion and Piano, recorded at Carnegie Hall. This work wed his instinctual improvisational discipline on the piano to his formal compositional abilities in both vanguard classical music and jazz. In 1983, Jarrett began working in a trio with bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette. It was the beginning of an association that lasted the rest of his career. Throughout the decade they alternated between recording standards and freely improvised sets, among them 1986's Standards Live and 1989's Changeless. 

While his first album of the '90s was the solo Paris Concert, the trio was also busy touring. They stopped briefly to record Bye Bye Blackbird in 1991 as a memorial to Miles Davis. That said, Jarrett spent most of the decade's first half recording classical music. A six-CD box set entitled Keith Jarrett at the Blue Note: The Complete Recordings, was released in 1995, documenting a three-night stand by the trio in June of 1994. 

While on tour with the trio in Europe during 1996, Jarrett became ill with what was diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome. He battled the disease which was caused by an infection from parasitic bacteria for three years. Despite this, he kept up a regular schedule of album releases often as live recordings and in a long relationship with the label ECM. His last release was 2018’s After the Fall, originally recorded in 1998. 

Jarrett suffered major strokes in February and May 2018. After the second, he was paralyzed and spent nearly two years in a rehabilitation facility. Although he has regained a limited ability to walk with a cane and can play piano with his right hand, he remains partly paralyzed on his left side and is not expected to perform again. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)

Bumble Bee Slim born 7 May 1906

Admirl Amos Easton (May 7, 1905 – June 8, 1968), better known by the stage name Bumble Bee Slim, was an American Piedmont blues singer and guitarist. 

Easton was born in Brunswick. Several original sources confirm that he spelled his first name "Admirl". One of six children, he was four years old when his father died. His mother remarried, and Easton began working in the fields soon afterward. At age nine he made his first attempt to leave home, setting up a stand where he cut hair and sold peanuts until his family found him and brought him back. When he was about fifteen, Easton joined the Ringling Brothers’ circus and traveled around the South and Midwest for two years. Returning to Georgia, he worked at a variety of jobs and was married briefly before heading north on a freight train.

In 1928 he settled in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he met pianist Leroy Carr, who with guitarist Scrapper Blackwell formed one of the most innovative blues duos of the period. Easton, now using the stage name Bumble Bee Slim, was impressed by Carr’s light, expressive singing and by Blackwell’s guitar technique, and their influence can be heard throughout Slim’s work. After refining his skills by playing halls and rent parties, Slim moved to Chicago. In 1931 he made his first recordings for Paramount Records, “Stumbling Block Blues,” “Yo Yo String Blues,” and four others. The following year his song ”B&O Blues” was a hit for Vocalion Records, inspiring a number of other railroad blues and eventually becoming a popular folk song. 

                                    

Between 1934 and 1937 Slim recorded more than 150 titles. His wry, streetwise songs, while not particularly innovative, reflect the realities of African American life during the Great Depression and convey the warmth and resilience of Slim’s personality. During this period Slim released two or three records a month for the Decca, Bluebird, and Vocalion labels, often accompanied by such skillful musicians as Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Minnie, Tampa Red, Washboard Sam and Peetie Wheatstraw. In contrast to the raw, emotional blues of earlier artists, Slim’s material and vocal delivery were light and even frivolous, an approach welcomed by many listeners during the hard times of the depression. 

Slim with Georgia White

By 1937 Slim had become frustrated with the limitations of the piano/guitar arrangements imposed on him by his record companies, as well as by the limited income he was receiving from his work and by the following year he was dropped by all three labels. He returned to Georgia, then relocated to Los Angeles, California, in the early 1940s, apparently hoping to break into motion pictures as a songwriter and comedian. He soon went back to blues music, however. 

During the 1950s he recorded several albums for Fidelity, Marigold and Specialty, but these made little impact in a marketplace dominated by the new rhythm-and-blues sound. In an effort to cross over to the growing white audience for blues, he recorded his final album for the Pacific Jazz label with jazz musicians, but it too failed to sell. Slim continued to perform in clubs around Los Angeles until his death on June 8, 1968 aged 62. 

Bumble Bee Slim was a forgotten legend of his time. Although his instrumental skills are considered less accomplished than many of his contemporaries, he is remembered for his ability to write great blues lyrics and his vocal delivery. His Complete Recorded Works have been reissued on several CDs by the Document label. 

(Edited from Wikipedia & The  New Georgia Encyclopedia)

Emme Kemp born 6 May 1935

Emme Kemp (born 6 May 1935) is an American pianist, vocalist, bandleader, Broadway composer, lecturer, and music researcher. 

Born Emmelyne Kemp, as a child prodigy, she was reared in the musical melting pot of  Chicago, where she launched her career at the age of six by presenting her first piano recital, playing Mozart and Strauss along with several of her own compositions..She attended Morgan Park High School and studied at the Northwestern University, was a private pupil of the great classical pianist Egon Petri in California. She then broadened her approach to jazz at the Berklee School of Music and with the New York University Jazz Ensemble. 

She also served for three years in the Women's Army Corps where she produced shows for Special Services and was assigned to the Judge Advocate’s office.. Her jazz anthology goes from classic to modern. Emme played at Josephine Baker's Welcome Back Party and has appeared on numerous college campuses and at festivals, venues in Japan and her beloved Harlem. She played in a trio which consisted of Earl May (bassist), Earl Williams (drums). In Woody Allen’s film “Sweet and Low Down,” Emme is shown in the Chicago jazz session scenes with Sean Penn. 

                          Here’s Creole Love Call from above album

                                     

  Over the years she has appeared as a pianist, singer and actress in concerts, clubs, theatres and on television throughout the USA, Europe and Japan.  Kemp is multilingual, performing in six languages. She has performed at festivals in Martinique, Italy’s Umbria, Monte Carlo’s Sporting club in front of Princess Grace, and Lincoln 92nd Street & to the Schomburg Center. On Broadway, she composed music for, and acted in, Bubbling Brown Sugar, and wrote music for The American Dance Machine and Don't Bother Me I Can't Cope, and Lorraine Hansberry's musical "Raisin. She has performed her originals tunes on the Guiding Light and Captain Kangaroo. 

Emme and Eartha Kitt

Kemp has appeared in Dick Hyman's Jazz in July series at the 92nd Street Y, the Schomberg Center's Women in Jazz Festival and received an Audelco Pioneer Award for her theatre contributions.. Her lectures and writings form a significant overview on popular culture.  Her deep spirituality has given Ms Kemp a compassion that is the lifespring of her music.  As a bandleader she has hired the creative likes Paul Quinichette, Ernie Wilkins, Arvell Shaw and many others. She played with the U Jazz Ensemble under the direction of Jimmy Guiffre at Carnegie Hall. 

Her keyboard narrative “Someone To Sing To” premiered in Berlin in 1992 co-starring Queen Yahna and a cast of thirteen. Ms. Kemp also has created a various versions of “Someone To Sing To” geared to the size and audience for any venue, allowing her to share this wonderful musical theatre experience everywhere. Commissioned theater piece “Echoes Out of Time” premiered at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry. “The Ballad of Box Brown” followed in Philadelphia Emme Kemp has also received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, ASCAP, NANBPW, and IWJ. 

In 1998 Emme sang and played on her album” Someone To Sing To featuring” seven original compositions. Researcher of American music, Emme Kemp initiated the 100 Anniversary celebration of W.C. Handy’s birth at NYC’s Overseas Press Club and was recently acknowledged at the New York Press Conference announcing the US Congressional resolution designating 2003 as the Year of The Blues. New York Post said of her “Her lyrics bear distinctive identity; blending wry, tough introspection and engaging soft heartedness.” The New York Times noted “. . .an unusually sensitive understanding.”

During August 2020 Emme played piano and sang on The On Channel, Home Spun Sundays Show. She was accompanied by Bassist Lonnie Plaxico, Saxophonists Patience Higgins and Bill Saxon with other surprise guests.

(Edited from Wikipedia, AllAboutJazz, jazzsingers.com, blogtalk radio)

Please note- It was hard to get some sort of time line for this bio as only a few dates were given on all the cited sources. Also I have noticed that her eyesight was ok until she was photographed  with a patch over one eye. I could find no information as to why, but as the years rolled by her sight in her other eye seemed to become less and less. Perhaps some kind person will supply a bit more information about her eye sight. 

The following clip is from the last performance offered by Broadway Icon and Jazz Master, Emme Kemp during 2020. Then at the age of 85 years young Master Kemp was still at the top of her game.                         

Joyce Collins born 5 May 1930

Joyce Collins (born 5 May 1930, Battle Mountain, Nevada - died January 3, 2010) was a jazz pianist, singer and educator. 

Collins began playing piano professionally at the age of 15 while still attending Reno High School in Nevada. Later, while studying music and teaching at San Francisco State College, she played in groups and solo at various jazz clubs, eventually going on tour with the Frankie Carle band. 

In the late 1950s, Collins settled in Los Angeles, working there and also in Reno and Las Vegas, where she became the first woman to conduct one of the resort's show bands. During this time Collins worked in film and television studios, spending 10 years in the band on the Mary Tyler Moore Show and also on comedian Bob Newhart's shows. 

                      Here’s “Fee Fi Fo Fum” from above album.

                       

In 1975, she recorded with Bill Henderson. Their Street Of Dreams and Tribute To Johnny Mercer albums were Grammy nominees. Collins continued to work in films, coaching actors Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges for their roles in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989). 

Beginning in 1975, Collins taught jazz piano at the Dick Grove Music School. Collins wrote and arranged extensively, including a program, performed live and on radio, tracing the involvement of women in jazz as composers and lyricists. She appeared twice on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz radio show, most recently in 2002. 

Although she performed mostly in solo, duo and trio work, Collins occasionally sat in with big bands, such as that led by Bill Berry. She also recorded with Paul Horn and under her own name. Her first album appeared in 1961, her next, Moment To Moment, after a long gap. Centered mainly in Los Angeles, Collins worked farther afield in places such as Mexico City, Paris, New York and Brazil. 

Joyce Collins died from pulmonary fibrosis on January 3, 2010.

 (Information from Wikipedia)

Nick Ashford born 4 May 1941

Nickolas Ashford (May 4, 1941 – August 22, 2011) and Valerie Simpson (born August 26, 1946) were an American husband-and-wife songwriting, production and recording duo. 

The son of a construction worker, Ashford was born in Fairfield, South Carolina, and grew up in Willow Run, Michigan, singing in a church choir as a child. After briefly attending Eastern Michigan College, he moved to New York to follow a career in jazz dance. He turned to songwriting in 1963 when he met Simpson, a music student, at the White Rock Baptist church in Harlem, where she was a featured singer. Ashford often credited their church background as a vital influence on the duo's songs. "So much soul comes out of the Baptist church, it's so embedded in you. You could go out any minute and turn the sweetest ballad into a gospel song if you felt real good about it." 

Their first success came with a song whose sentiments were anything but devotional. They were staff writers for the Scepter/Wand record company when their song Let's Go Get Stoned, a No 1 hit in the R&B chart for Ray Charles in 1966, brought them to the notice of Berry Gordy, head of the most renowned African-American music company, Tamla Motown. Ashford recalled that the song came out of creative frustration: "We had been trying to write something all day but we couldn't come up with anything. So I said 'Let's go get stoned.' I meant, just go and have a drink, so we started laughing out the door, singing, 'Let's go get stoned.'" 

Gordy quickly contracted Ashford and Simpson to write exclusively for his artists and for the next five years they were major contributors to Motown's dominance of black pop music. The couple moved to Detroit and often played, or sang backing vocals, on Motown tracks. They were especially adept at providing duets for Gaye and Tammi Terrell, such as Your Precious Love (1967), Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing (1967) and You're All I Need to Get By (1968). 

Ashford and Simpson were also assigned to compose for Diana Ross, crafting such hits as Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand) in 1970 and Surrender (1971). Perhaps the masterpiece of their Motown years was Ain't No Mountain High Enough, a No 1 hit for Ross in 1970. This six-minute epic was also produced by Ashford and Simpson. Ashford had previously co-produced the 1968 recording by Diana Ross, the Supremes and the Temptations of I'm Gonna Make You Love Me. 

                                   

Ashford and Simpson had made a few recordings soon after they met, and they petitioned the autocratic Gordy to allow them to revive their recording career. He viewed them as writers and producers rather than performers, but in 1971 he reluctantly acceded. Simpson made the albums Exposed and Keep It Comin', but despite critical acclaim, neither compared favourably with Motown's stars in sales terms. Ashford and Simpson severed their Motown contract and moved to Warner Brothers in 80’s as recording artists, although Gordy retained their services as occasional writers and producers, notably for Ross. During the Warners years, the husband and wife (they married in 1974) recorded a series of albums typified by their celebratory romantic songs. 

Their records sold well to the African-American community but there was also the occasional crossover song that appealed to white audiences, such as Found a Cure and Solid. The intensely uxorious Solid was the title track from the couple's second album under a new contract with Capitol Records. Ashford & Simpson's music has been used as themes for international events, such as the opening of the Olympic Ceremonies, and the Hands Across America theme "Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand.” 1993 had everybody humming their smash hit “I’m Every Woman,” recorded by Whitney Houston for The Bodyguard soundtrack. 

In latter times, Ashford & Simpson recorded and toured sporadically, and in 1996, they opened a restaurant and live entertainment venue, Sugar Bar in New York City, with an open mic on Thursday nights. The pair were inducted into the Songwriters Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. They even performed at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration, rewriting their song “Solid” as “Solid as Barack.” 

According to the Guardian, "It's one thing to write a love song, it's another to convince an audience you inhabit one.” Ashford & Simpson's stage shows captivated audiences everywhere and their songs continued to bring joy to people all over the world. In 2009 they released The Real Thing, a compilation of live recordings. 

Ashford died at the age of 70 in a New York City hospital on August 22, 2011, four days before Valerie Simpson's 65th birthday, of complications from throat cancer. His publicist, Liz Rosenberg, said that he had undergone radiation therapy to treat his illness.

(Edited from The Guardian, Wikipedia & Songhall)

 

Freddie Roulette born 3 May 1939

Freddie Roulette (May 3, 1939 – December 24, 2022) was an American electric blues lap steel guitarist and singer. He was best known as an exponent of the lap steel guitar. He was a member of the band Daphne Blue[ and collaborated with Earl Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite, Henry Kaiser, and Harvey Mandel. He also released several solo albums. One commentator described Roulette as an "excellent musician". 

Frederick Martin was born and raised in Evanston, Illinois. He learned to play the steel guitar in high school. In the 50s, the sweeping sound of steel guitar was usually heard only in Country and Western music, but even as a teenager Freddie was attracted across town to play on Chicago's South-side Blues scene and in 1965 began work in Earl Hooker's backing band, touring and performing with him until 1969. Hooker's band, with the pianist Pinetop Perkins, the harmonica player Carey Bell, the vocalist Andrew Odom, and Roulette, was "widely acclaimed" and "considered one of the best Earl had ever carried with him". Roulette performed on several of Hooker's singles; his 1967 album, The Genius of Earl Hooker; and the 1969 follow-up, 2 Bugs and a Roach. 

Roulette later developed a friendship with Charlie Musselwhite and (credited as Fred Roulette) recorded with him on the 1969 album Chicago Blue Stars. He toured with Musselwhite and backed him on the albums Tennessee Woman and Memphis, Tennessee, before relocating to the San Francisco, California, area where he has lived ever since. He played there in a band with Luther Tucker and recorded with Earl Hooker's cousin John Lee Hooker. 

After leaving Chicago for the San Francisco Bay area, Roulette began "teaming up with the 14-year-old guitarist Ray Bronner ('Daphne Blue Ray'), and some veterans from Chicago in the band Daphne Blue, Freddie was often joined by ‘Big Moose’ (Johnny Walker), ‘Pinetop Perkins’ and Clarence ‘Gatemouth’ Brown at gigs and on record." "Freddie released an album, Daphne Blue: Legendary Blues Instrumentals, which contains 15 excellent tracks, which he considers to be among his finest works." 

                          Here’s “Sleepwalk” from above album

                                   

In 1973, Roulette released his debut solo album, Sweet Funky Steel, which was produced by the guitarist Harvey Mandel. Don "Sugarcane" Harris played on several tracks. Over the next 20 years, Roulette continued to perform with other musicians and occasionally led his own band, while also working full-time as an apartment manager. On the 1996 album Psychedelic Guitar Circus, he worked in a group with Mandel, Kaiser and Steve Kimock. 

The producer Larry Hoffman brought Roulette to Chicago where the artist recorded his 1997 album, Back in Chicago: Jammin' with Willie Kent and the Gents, backed by the Willie Kent Band featuring Chico Banks on guitar. It was released on Hi Horse Records. The album won an award from Living Blues magazine as 'Best Blues Album of 1997'. Following that album's success, Roulette began performing widely at blues festivals and recorded the 1998 album Spirit of Steel, featuring the Holmes Brothers and produced by Kaiser. He also contributed to Kaiser's album Yo Miles, a tribute to Miles Davis. 

Roulette played at numerous music festivals over the years, including the Long Beach Blues Festival, the San Francisco Blues Festival (1979), and the Calgary Folk Music Festival (2000). He continued to play club dates in the San Francisco area, often with Mandel. In 2012, Jammin' With Friends was recorded at three separate studios with various musicians. It was produced by Michael Borbridge, who also played drums on all the tracks. 

Roulette's solo album Man of Steel (2006) featured guitar playing by Will Bernard and David Lindley; Kaiser also played guitar and produced the album. It was recorded in Fantasy Studios, in Berkeley, California, and included strains of jazz, country, soul and reggae in the overall blues setting. In the same year, Roulette played locally in a small combo including Mike Hinton. 

As of 2015, Roulette was still playing with the Daphne Blue Band.  In February 2019, the Chicago Reader published an article on Roulette and his band members, along with sound clips, titled: "The Secret History of Chicago Music: Pivotal Musicians That Somehow Haven't Gotten Their Just Dues." Roulette died at his home in Vallejo, California on December 24th 2022 at the age of 83..

(Edited from Wikipedia & AllMusic)

 

Randy Cain born 2 May 1945

Randy Cain (May 2, 1945 – April 9, 2009) was a Philadelphia soul singer with The Delfonics (early 1960s to 1971). He also helped set up the group Blue Magic. 

Herbert Randal Cain III was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Growing up, he befriended two brothers, Wilbert and William Hart. During their attendance at Overbrook High School, Cain joined the Harts' existing vocal group, the Orphonics when a couple of its members dropped out. They loved recreating the doo-wop sound of Little Anthony and the Imperials and Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers in the Harts' basement and became good enough to play colleges and high schools and enter local talent shows. 

In 1966, they acquired as manager and promoter Stan Watson, who suggested a name-change to the Delfonics. He introduced them to Bell, working as pianist and arranger at Cameo Parkway, the Philadelphia label famous for Chubby Checker, Dee Dee Sharp and The Tymes. William Hart and Bell wrote "He Don't Really Love You", with the studio musician turned producer playing most of the instruments on the track. 

The following year, they released "You've Been Untrue", another Bell-Hart composition, but the partnership really delivered in 1968 with the smooth ballad "La-La (Means I Love You)" which reached No 4 in the US. The same year the Delfonics played Vegas with Sammy Davis Jnr and were supported by the Jacksons in Chicago (Cain loved telling the story of a 10-year-old Michael Jackson bringing them tea and honey in the dressing room and telling everyone they were his favourite group). 

With Bell's gift for melody and orchestration, the Delfonics ushered in the era of slick, sophisticated, symphonic Philly Soul, and helped define the genre with three excellent albums – including 1969's Sound of Sexy Soul – and a run of singles which crossed over from the R&B to the pop charts including "Break Your Promise", "I'm Sorry", "Funny Feeling", "Somebody Loves You", "When You Get Right Down To It" and "Over and Over". 

                                   

As the second tenor, Randy Cain played an important part in creating the Delfonics' distinctive blend of three-part harmonies with Wilbert Hart – lead and baritone – and his older brother, William, whose swoop from aching tenor to falsetto made listeners swoon and became the group's trademark. William "Poogie" Hart co-wrote most of the group's hits with Bell and remains its de facto leader to this day. 

Cain was a mainstay from 1965 to 1971, the year the Delfonics won a Grammy Award for Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for "Didn't I", and he also helped the band to score three Top 40 hits in the UK  and appeared on Top of the Pops, but Cain either became ill or fell out with the Harts, depending on whose account you believe. He was replaced by Major Harris of the Jarmels. Thom Bell had also moved on as well, working with groups such as The Stylistics and The Spinners. 

Chubby Checker & Randy Cain

In 1973, Cain, then working for WMOT Productions (the initials stood for We Men of Talent), suggested that the singer and songwriter Ted Mills get together with a quartet called Shades of Love. As Blue Magic, they scored a No 1 R&B hit with "Side-show" and also placed "Three Ring Circus" in the US Top 40 in 1974. 

The Delfonics’s fifth album, Alive & Kicking (1975), produced by Stan Watson, generated lackluster sales and the critical consensus was that the group had creatively fallen behind other TSOP groups such as The Stylistics. Shortly after its release, Major Harris left the band and the remaining original Delfonics disbanded. 

Cain rejoined the Delfonics for a while in the '80s, and again recently, though in the intervening years both he and Wilbert Hart had filed and won civil suits against William Hart, the sole owner of the name, and Arista Records/Sony BMG, the owners of the Delfonics' catalogue, for back royalties. 

Cain died at his home in Maple Shade Township, New Jersey in April 2009, aged 63.

(Edited from The Independent & Wikipedia)