Guitarist Rob Buck Dies

Rob Buck, founding member and guitarist for 10,000 Maniacs, died Tuesday night of complications from liver failure; he was forty-two. According to a source close to the band, Buck died at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in Pennsylvania.

Buck, along with guitarist John Lombardo, keyboardist Dennis Drew, bassist Steven Gustafson and vocalist/lyricist Natalie Merchant, formed 10,000 Maniacs in their hometown of Jamestown, N.Y. in 1981. After adding drummer Jerome Augustyniak, the band issued their first full-length album Secrets of the I Ching in 1983. A year later, the band landed a deal with Elektra and issued The Wishing Chair. But it was 1987's In My Tribe where the Maniacs broke through commercially with their college radio-friendly pop driven by Merchant and Buck's collaborations on "What's the Matter Here" and "Hey Jack Kerouac." As a songwriting tandem, the pair struck gold again with "These Are Days," one of the band's biggest hits from 1992's Our Time in Eden.

With Merchant's departure a year later, the Maniacs brought Lombardo (who left the band in 1986) back into the fold along with his wife Mary Ramsey and continued. The band released Love Among the Ruins in 1997 and Earth Pressed Flat in 1999.

The band's official Web site (www.10000maniacs.com) lists an address for a medical fund for Buck's family. Memorial offerings should be sent to Robert Buck Family Medical Fund, c/o Key Bank, 730 Foote Avenue, Jamestown, NY, 14701.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Star Trek' Is Crazy Good
• 
  TV
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“Is It True”

Brenda Lee | 1964

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter