subdudes

Johnny Ray Allen of the Subdudes, RIP

Johnny Ray Allen is all the way to the right
Subdudes

Friday night and Saturday morning (Aug. 8 and 9), friends of Johnny Ray Allen filled social media with memories of the bass player, who passed away in New Orleans early Friday, at age 56. Allen was the original bassist for the soulful Americana rock group the Subdudes, writing or co-writing most of the band’s songs between the early 1980s and its dissolution in 1996.

The three other founding subdudes – singer and guitarist Tommy Malone, drummer Steve Amedee, and keyboard and accordion player John Magnie had re-formed the band in 2002 with longtime road manager Tim Cook on bass, and an added guitarist, Jimmy Messa, who had played with Magnie, Malone and Allen in a version of the Continental Drifters. In early 2014, it was announced that Allen would reunite with Malone and Amedee, whom he had first met as classmates at Edgard High School in Edgard, La., plus Magnie, for a run of original-lineup subdudes gigs. [NOLA]

Rest in Peace subdude.


Too Soon To Tell … The Subdudes with Bonnie Raitt