Blair Cunningham (born October 11, 1957,

Memphis Memphis most commonly refers to: * Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt * Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city Memphis may also refer to: Places United States * Memphis, Alabama * Memphis, Florida * Memphis, Indiana * Memp ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

) is an American drummer who has played for many bands and artists including

Denise LaSalle Ora Denise Allen (July 16, 1934 – January 8, 2018), known by the stage name Denise LaSalle, was an American blues, R&B and soul singer, songwriter, and record producer who, since the death of Koko Taylor, had been recognized as the "Queen of ...

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generati ...

the Detroit Emeralds The Detroit Emeralds are an American R&B/soul vocal group, best known in the early 1970s. They enjoyed a run of successful records in the decade including their 1973 transatlantic hit single, " Feel the Need in Me". Career "The Emeralds" were ...

, Frederick Knight, Echo & the Bunnymen,

Haircut One Hundred Haircut One Hundred (also Haircut 100) were a British new wave group formed in 1980 in Beckenham, London by Nick Heyward, Les Nemes and Graham Jones. In 1981 and 1982, the band scored four UK top 10 hit singles: "Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets ...

John Foxx John Foxx (born Dennis Leigh; 26 September 1948) is an English singer, musician, artist, photographer, graphic designer, writer, teacher and lecturer. He was the original lead singer of the new wave band Ultravox, before leaving to embark on a ...

the Pretenders Pretenders are an English–American rock band formed in March 1978. The original band consisted of founder and main songwriter Chrissie Hynde (lead vocals, rhythm guitar), James Honeyman-Scott (lead guitar, backing vocals, keyboards), Pete ...

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...

, Alison Moyet, Sade, Paul Rutherford, Indigo Girls,

Roxy Music Roxy Music are an English rock band formed in 1970 by Bryan Ferry—who became the band's lead vocalist and principal songwriter—and bassist Graham Simpson. The other longtime members are Phil Manzanera (guitar), Andy Mackay (saxophone ...

Tina Turner Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939) is an American-born Swiss retired singer and actress. Widely referred to as the " Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before ...

, Lionel Richie,

Mick Jagger Sir Michael Philip Jagger (born 26 July 1943) is an English singer and songwriter who has achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and one of the founder members of the rock band the Rolling Stones. His ongoing songwriting partnershi ...

, Ray Davis, Andy Taylor,

Marius Müller-Westernhagen Marius Müller-Westernhagen (born 6 December 1948) is a German musician and actor. He has been a feature in German rock music since the mid-1970s. Müller-Westernhagen is known for his energetic public concerts, and his fans know his anthem-like ...

, Kevin Rowland and the Big Dish. He played drums at a one-off gig by

Sharks Sharks are a group of elasmobranch fish characterized by a cartilaginous skeleton, five to seven gill slits on the sides of the head, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the clade Selachimorp ...

, and on "All Things Are Nice" and "My Baby" from

Blancmange Blancmange (, from french: blanc-manger ) is a sweet dessert popular throughout Europe commonly made with milk or cream and sugar thickened with rice flour, gelatin, corn starch, or Irish moss (a source of carrageenan), and often flavoured ...

's album '' Mange Tout''. Blair is the son of Kelly Cunningham Sr. and Ernestine Cunningham. Blair is the youngest of 13 children, 10 boys and 3 girls. His oldest brother Kelly Cunningham Jr. taught all of the brothers to play drums and was his biggest influence. His brother Carl Cunningham was drummer with

Stax Streaming API for XML (StAX) is an application programming interface ( API) to read and write XML documents, originating from the Java programming language community. Traditionally, XML APIs are either: * DOM based - the entire document is read i ...

group the

Bar-Kays The Bar-Kays are an American funk band formed in 1964. The band had dozens of charting singles from the 1960s to the 1980s, including "Soul Finger" (US ''Billboard'' Hot 100 number 17, R&B number 3) in 1967, "Son of Shaft" (R&B number 10) in ...

. Carl died in the same plane crash that killed

Otis Redding Otis Ray Redding Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American singer and songwriter. He is considered one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. ...

in December 1967.

References

External links

Brief Autobiography
1957 births Living people Musicians from Memphis, Tennessee African-American drummers African-American rock musicians 20th-century American drummers American male drummers Indigo Girls members The Pretenders members Haircut One Hundred members American emigrants to England Black British rock musicians Paul McCartney Band members New wave drummers {{US-drummer-stub