Dave Mason, the English singer, songwriter and guitarist who wrote mainstays of the classic-rock canon like “Feelin’ Alright?” and “Solely You Know and I Know,” and who was a founding member of the seminal band Site visitors earlier than beginning a profitable solo profession, died on Sunday at his house in Gardnerville, Nev. He was 79.
His demise was confirmed by his publicist, Melissa Dragich. She didn’t present a explanation for demise.
Mr. Mason’s model of “Feelin’ Alright?”, initially recorded with Site visitors in 1968, was not a right away hit. However the tune grew to become a staple of classic-rock radio and was coated by greater than two dozen stars, together with Joe Cocker, the Jackson 5, Gladys Knight & the Pips and Grand Funk Railroad. In 2004, Mr. Mason was inducted into the Rock & Roll Corridor of Fame for his work with Site visitors.
As a solo artist, Mr. Mason racked up three gold albums, together with his solo debut in 1970, “Alone Collectively,” which contained a few of his most extremely regarded songs. He additionally scored one platinum set, “Let It Circulation.” It was boosted by his prime charting single, “We Simply Disagree,” which reached No. 12 in Billboard in 1977.
Mr. Mason’s solo observe, “Solely You Know and I Know,” grew to become ahit when it was coated by the rock-soul group Delaney and Bonnie in 1971.
His lead guitar work, marked by advantageous fingerings, fiery solos and soulful phrasings, was a constant characteristic of his solo profession. “I strategy the instrument prefer it’s a voice,” he advised Guitar Participant Journal in 1975. “That’s why I took guitar up within the first place — to have a method of expressing myself.”
Mr. Mason additionally labored as a session musician with distinguished stars. To the Rolling Stones’ “Road Preventing Man,” he added the wails of the shehnai, an Indian reed instrument. On Jimi Hendrix’s model of Bob Dylan’s “All Alongside the Watchtower,” he performed a 12-string acoustic guitar.
He joined an early model of Derek and the Dominos, a band fashioned by Eric Clapton and the Memphis-born keyboardist Bobby Whitlock. And he performed guitar on “All Issues Should Cross,” a 1970 album by George Harrison, and on “Take heed to What the Man Mentioned,” a 1975 single by Paul McCartney’s band Wings.
His profession was marked by a number of bracing lows, together with unfavorable recording offers, two bankruptcies and a bunch of lawsuits. Within the Seventies, he battled his former label, Blue Thumb, in court docket over the possession of his master recordings. In 2011, he joined different artists to sue Common Music Group over digital music royalties.
Mr. Mason’s time with Site visitors was equally fraught.
Whereas he wrote and sang “Gap in My Shoe,” the most important hit from the British model of Site visitors’s 1967 debut album, “Mr. Fantasy,”, he felt overwhelmed by the highlight and selected to depart the group after it was launched. The band’s file firm later erased his face from the duvet of the file’s U.S. model.
He rejoined the group midway by means of its second album, a self-titled work for which he wrote or co-wrote a number of songs. However although it grew to become successful in Britain and the US, he was fired shortly after its launch.
In his 2024 memoir, “Solely You Know & I Know,” Mr. Mason recalled one other co-founder, Steve Winwood, bluntly telling him, “I don’t like the best way you write, I don’t like the best way you sing. I don’t like the best way you play and … we don’t need you within the band anymore.”
“I used to be in shock,” Mr. Mason told The Guardian newspaper in 2024. “For me, that was the final word band.”
Mr. Mason had different brushes with Site visitors through the years, together with a six-date tour of Britain in 1971 that resulted within the spirited dwell album “Welcome to the Canteen.” However he was not requested to remain on, and his efforts through the years to get the unique band again collectively have been unsuccessful.
Although he remained a solo artist, he advised Goldmine Journal in 1996 that he had by no means supposed to take that route.
“I needed to hold a profession going, one way or the other,” he mentioned. “I did the solo album, however I wasn’t seeking to be a solo artist.”
David Thomas Mason was born on Might 10, 1946, in Worcester, England. His dad and mom, Edward Mason and Nora (Wilson), ran a sweet retailer. Within the Goldmine interview, he described his childhood in a rural space of the Midlands as a “Tom Sawyer existence, working round fields and constructing rafts and tree homes however by no means speaking an excessive amount of.”
Although his dad and mom weren’t musical, he grew to become obsessive about the sounds of guitar gamers he heard on the radio, together with Hank Marvin of the English rock band the Shadows, he advised Guitar Participant.
As a teen, he begged his father to purchase him a guitar, and taught himself to play by mimicking licks he heard on the radio from blues gamers like Elmore James and Buddy Man, in addition to the jazz artist George Benson. After forming his personal band as a teen, he grew to become pleasant with Jim Capaldi, a future member of Site visitors, and joined him in a brand new group known as the Hellions in 1964.
When Mr. Capaldi moved on to a different band, Mr. Mason labored as a roadie for the Spencer Davis Group, whose star was a teenage Steve Winwood. When Mr. Winwood determined to type a extra adventurous band, he tapped gamers he had been jamming with, together with Mr. Capaldi, woodwind participant Chris Wooden and Mr. Mason.
Calling themselves Site visitors, the quartet searched for his or her sound by isolating themselves within the countryside. “We created an entire life-style for ourselves, out of which got here the music,” Mr. Mason advised Goldmine.
Site visitors’s debut produced two British hits, “Paper Solar” and “Gap in My Shoe,” however the different band members disliked the pop course of Mr. Mason’s tune, in addition to his tendency to put in writing on his personal whereas they collaborated. Mr. Mason typically mentioned he believed that the enmity was a operate of jealousy.
After his cut up from Site visitors, he produced a well-regarded debut album by the British art-rock group Household and later moved to the US. That’s the place he met Delaney and Bonnie, a duo whose soulful music transfixed a few of the brightest stars in British rock. Two of them, Mr. Clapton and Mr. Harrison, joined the duo for a 1969 tour that additionally featured Mr. Mason.
One tour date yielded the gold-selling live performance album “On Tour with Eric Clapton.” In the course of the tour, Mr. Mason confirmed Mr. Harrison some lyrical slide guitar strikes. He later joined Mr. Clapton’s nascent band, Derek and the Dominoes, however left when the periods stalled a number of weeks later.
Following the success of “Alone Collectively,” his solo debut, Mr. Mason recorded an adventurous album along with his buddy Cass Elliott, previously of the Mamas & the Papas. Mr. Mason tried to renegotiate his contract along with his label, Blue Thumb, however when talks broke down, he seized the tapes he had been engaged on. In retaliation, the corporate launched “Headkeeper,” a group of half-recorded songs that Mr. Mason disavowed.
The dangerous blood impressed Mr. Mason to hunt a brand new contract with Columbia Information. The consequence was a profitable 1973 album “It’s Like You By no means Left.” He later sued Columbia to finish his contract.
In 1994, Mr. Mason joined Fleetwood Mac for one unsuccessful album, “Time.”
His last solo album, “A Shade of Blues,” was launched in 2023. He later stopped touring due to poor well being.
Mr. Mason is survived by his spouse, Winifred Wilson, and by a daughter from a earlier marriage, Danielle Mason. A son, True, from a earlier marriage, died in 2006.
Mr. Mason advised Goldmine that efficiently navigating the peaks and valleys of his profession was a degree of pleasure.
“I’ve been by means of 4 earthquakes, three marriages, two bankruptcies, one main hurricane and I’ve survived the music enterprise,” he mentioned. “That’s a fairly good file.”
Francesca Regalado contributed reporting.
