Buffalo Springfield Drummer Dewey Martin Dies At 68
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68 is too early to go, but it's no doubt that Buffalo Springfield drummer Dewey Martin left behind one of the most genre-defying drum riffs around -the psychedelic 60s meets 70s anti-war anthem "For What It's Worth" (you can check Martin drumming away to it at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival below). The story goes that Martin also hooked Stephen Stills up with the acid that inspired writing the song.
Acid and timeless hits aside, Martin joined Buffalo Springfield in 1966 after playing with country acts Patsy Kline and The Dillards. The band would only record three albums together - Buffalo Springfield, Buffalo Springfield Again and Last Time Around - before tumultuously splitting up in 1968.
Martin adamantly tried to keep the band going...thrice! Reinventing the line-up in 1968 under the moniker New Buffalo Springfield, but original Buffalo Springfield members Neil Young and Stephen Stills sought legal action against further use of the band name. Martin tried again with a second New Buffalo Springfield line-up, but when that fizzled in 1969/70 he left the music business to become a car mechanic. He came back in the mid-80s with former Buffalo Springfield bassist Bruce Palmer to tour as Buffalo Springfield Revisited. Martin was inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame in 1997. He died at 68 of unknown causes on January 31st.
(photo: LtoR - Richie Furay and Dewey Martin, original members of folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield, relax at the beach a year prior to the release of the band's U.S. hit "For What It's Worth" (1967) via Corbis)
Comments (10)
Poor sod..and he messed up that last fill... "For what..." is THE "go-to" 68/69 footage of "hippies" at monterey/juxtaposed with Kent State University shootings/civil rights march/Martin Luther King backing track..doncha think?
Poor sod..and he messed up that last fill... "For what..." is THE "go-to" 68/69 footage of "hippies" at monterey/juxtaposed with Kent State University shootings/civil rights march/Martin Luther King backing track..doncha think?
Sorry Charley "fat finger double-posting" get rid of me altogether if you want.
He also had a major jones for the music of Otis Redding and added a vocal with Redding-isms to their second LP, if memory serves. Damn shame.
It hurts to lose such good talent. I know circle of life.. that is what happens.. but I don't have to like it.
Such sad news :(
"Another man done gone..."
It's getting to be That Time - John D McDonald's Travis McGee once compared time to a sandbar in a river with all of humanity standing on it.
It washes away at the upstream end, and people get carried away, but it builds at the downstream end, and new people are born to stand there.
Those of us in the Baby Book genration are definitely standing somewhere above the middle point of the sandbar, and our contemporaried are beginning to be washed away in greater and greater numbers.
But some, like Pete Seeger, stand defiantly, far upstream, with the water washing above their waists, but still breaking the current for those of us downstream...
Arrrgh. Why do i always spot the typos after i press "Submit" - but never after i press "Preview"?
"Baby Boom generation"
"contemporaries"
Thanks for the posting. They only did a couple albums but left a huge mark on popular music, and to have been a part of that was something special
I was just listening to a live album of the Springfierld today. Dewey gets his spotlight and does a great soul song. Knowing all these guys are in their 60s and 70s doesn't make it easier watching them go.