NEW YORK — Donald “Duck” Dunn, the bassist who helped create the gritty Memphis soul sound at Stax Records in the 1960s as part of the legendary group Booker T. and the MGs and played on such classics as “In the Midnight Hour,” “Hold On I’m Coming” and “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” died Sunday at 70.
Dunn, whose legacy as one of the most respected session musicians in the business also included work with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd’s Blues Brothers as well as with Levon Helm, Eric Clapton, Neil Young and Bob Dylan, died while on tour in Tokyo.
News of his death was posted on the Facebook site of his friend and fellow musician Steve Cropper, who was on the same tour. Cropper said Dunn died in his sleep.
Dunn was born in Memphis, Tenn., in 1941. According to the biography on his official website, he was nicknamed for the cartoon character by his father. His father, a candymaker, did not want him to be a musician.
“He thought I would become a drug addict and die,” Dunn said. “Most parents in those days thought music was a pastime, something you did as a hobby, not a profession.”
But by the time Dunn was in high school, he was in a band with Cropper.
Cropper left to become a session player at Stax, the Memphis record company that would become known for its soul recordings and artists such as Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers. Dunn soon followed Cropper and joined the Stax house band, also known as Booker T. and the MGs.
The group had its heyday in the 1960s as backup for various Stax artists. Dunn played on Redding’s “Respect” and “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay,” Sam and Dave’s “Hold On I’m Coming” and Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour.”
Cropper and Dunn later joined Aykroyd and Belushi’s Blues Brothers band and appeared in the 1980 “Blues Brothers” movie. Dunn also did session work on recordings by Clapton, Young, Dylan, Rod Stewart, Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty, according to his discography.
