Rocky Morales passes

[paul secor]

I got an e-mail from a musician friend recently, and he mentioned that Rocky Morales, the tenor saxophonist who recorded many times with Doug Sahm had died. My friend got the news from a fellow musician who had played with Rocky.

Very sad news if it's so. Perhaps one of our Texas members can let us know if he has, indeed, passed.

Edited August 14, 2006 by paul secor

[rostasi]

I got an e-mail from a musician friend recently, and he mentioned that Rocky Morales, the tenor saxophonist who recorded many times with Doug Sahm had died. My friend got the news from a fellow musician who had played with Rocky.

Very sad news if it's so. Perhaps one of our Texas members can let us know if he has, indeed, passed.

It look like that this is true. He'd been in poor health for a few years.

This is from the San Antonio Express-News:

http://tinyurl.com/okjlf

Rod

Edited August 13, 2006 by rostasi

[paul secor]

Sad to read this confirmation of Rocky Morales' death. I removed the ? from the title of this thread.

Rocky Morales was one the last great r&b/rock n roll tenor saxophonists. My introduction to his playing was on Doug Sahm's The Return of Doug Saldana LP - though he'd played and recorded with Doug Sahm more than ten years prior to this recording. One listen to Doug's intro - "West side tenor! Do it Rocky!" - and Rocky's wailing solo on "Wasted Days, Wasted Nights", and I was hooked. I'll be listening to Rocky's tenor until I can't listen anymore.

I hope that there are Forum members who perhaps knew Rocky, played with him, heard him play live - I only heard him live once, and that was a great night - or, like myself, mostly heard his music on records, will pay their respects.

Rest well, Rocky. You were one of the cats.

[Tony Pusey]

More sad news. I also enjoyed his playing with Sir Doug, And yes, Paul, Wasted days from the Return of Doug Saldana is a mother! Doug sure surrounded himself with some funky cats! I no longer have it, but there was a great album called I think West Side Blues Again.

In fact its time for a thread about all these guys-Shades of Joy et al.....

[paul secor]

Yeah, Tony. It's called the "West Side" Sound Rolls Again. It was originally issued in the U.S. on Teardrop Records - think that was the label - the pressing was so bad that I got rid of my copy. It was reissued in Sweden on Amigo Records in listenable form. When I asked Doug Sahm if he'd sign my copy back in 1995, he said that the guy who ran Amigo never returned the tapes, so they may be lost somewhere in Sweden. Anyway, you're right - West Side Rolls is a great, great record.

[Soul Stream]

A funny story about Rocky...

A couple of friends of mine were in the backup band for The Westside Horns which were overseas somewhere. Rocky and the rest of the horn players were kind of a little lit up after the gig, they saw my buddies and said "Hey man, we didn't know ya'll were here too! We just got done playing, you should have seen us!" My friends then told them they were in the band and they had just played with them. RIP Rocky.