Don "Sugar Cane" Harris

Don "Sugarcane" Harris began his musical path as the guitarist in the 1950s rock duo Don & Dewey. When that act failed to find an audience, he set aside the guitar in favor of violin, even though several Don & Dewey compositions would later become hits for the Righteous Brothers and the Premiers. Classical violin training underpinned Harris’s emerging gift for improvisation, which quickly drew interest across the rock scene and placed him on sessions with John Lee Hooker, Frank Zappa, and Johnny Otis. In 1970 he linked up with British blues musician John Mayall while the latter assembled his first all-American backing band. Beyond those associations with Mayall, Zappa, and other leaders, Harris issued his own recordings on Epic and Polydor. After a prolonged fight with pulmonary disease, he was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment on December 1, 1999, at the age of 61.