Carl Radle

Carl Dean Radle (June 18, 1942 – May 30, 1980) was an American bassist who toured and recorded with many of the most influential recording artists of the late 1960s and 1970s. Radle is best remembered for his work with Eric Clapton from 1969 to 1979, including as a member of his band Derek and the Dominos. Radle is sometimes called Clapton's "right hand man" as he helped him during dark periods of his life battling drug addiction.

Radle had first found fame as the bassist for pop band Gary Lewis & the Playboys from 1965 to 1967. In 1969 he joined the session group who backed husband and wife recording duo Delaney & Bonnie, which is where he met Eric Clapton and formed Derek and the Dominos in 1970. Radle played on all of Clapton's solo material released in the 1970s before Clapton fired all of his backing members in 1979.

Over the course of his career, Radle played on a number of gold and platinum singles and albums and garnered the respect of many musicians. Radle died in 1980 from organ failure caused by effects from hard drug and alcohol consumption and was posthumously inducted to the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2006.

Carl Dean Radle was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1942. He picked up many instruments as a teen including the clarinet, piano and guitar before sticking with the bass guitar at age fifteen.

Radle's professional career started out when Leon Russell, a fellow Tulsa sound musician, offered him his entry into the music industry, inviting him out to California.

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.