Blair Cunningham (born October 11, 1957, Memphis,

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

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

Robert Johnson Robert Leroy Johnson (May 8, 1911August 16, 1938) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His singing, guitar playing and songwriting on his landmark 1936 and 1937 recordings have influenced later generations of musicians. Although his r ...

the Detroit Emeralds The Detroit Emeralds are an American Rhythm and blues, 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 ...

, Frederick Knight,

Echo & the Bunnymen Echo & the Bunnymen are an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1978. The original line-up consisted of vocalist Ian McCulloch (singer), Ian McCulloch, guitarist Will Sergeant and bassist Les Pattinson. By 1980, Pete de Freita ...

, Haircut One Hundred, John Foxx,

The Pretenders The Pretenders are a British 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 Farndon (ba ...

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

Alison Moyet Geneviève Alison Jane Ballard (; ; born 18 June 1961), formerly known as Alf, is an English singer. Noted for her powerful bluesy contralto voice, she came to prominence as a member of the synth-pop duo Yazoo (band), Yazoo (known as Yaz in Nor ...

, Sade, Paul Rutherford,

Indigo Girls Indigo Girls are an American folk rock music duet (music), duo from Atlanta, Georgia, United States, consisting of Amy Ray and Emily Saliers. The two met in Primary school, elementary school and began performing together as Secondary school, hig ...

Roxy Music Roxy Music are an English rock music, rock band formed in 1970 by Bryan Ferry (lead vocals/keyboards/principal songwriter) and Graham Simpson (musician), Graham Simpson (bass). By the time the band recorded their Roxy Music (album), first albu ...

Tina Turner Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939 – May 24, 2023) was a singer, songwriter, actress, and author. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Queen of Rock 'n' Roll", her vocal prowess, raspy voice, and electrifyin ...

Lionel Richie Lionel Brockman Richie Jr. (born June 20, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and television personality. He rose to fame in the 1970s as a songwriter and the co-lead singer of the Motown group Commodores; writing and recor ...

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, Ray Davis, Andy Taylor, Marius Müller-Westernhagen, Kevin Rowland and the Big Dish. He played drums at a one-off gig by

Sharks Sharks are a group of elasmobranch cartilaginous fish characterized by a ribless endoskeleton, dermal denticles, five to seven gill slits on each side, and pectoral fins that are not fused to the head. Modern sharks are classified within the ...

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

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

's album ''

Mange Tout Mange tout (French for "eat all") or mangetout may refer to: *Sugar pea or edible-pod pea including: ** Snap pea with rounded pods and thick pod walls ** Snow pea The snow pea is an edible-pod pea with flat pods and thin pod walls, in contras ...

''. 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 Stax can refer to: * StAX, (Computer Programming) Streaming API for reading and writing XML in Java * Stax Ltd, a Japanese brand of electrostatic headphones * Stax Records Stax Records is an American record company, originally based in Memphis, ...

group the

Bar-Kays The Bar-Kays is 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 regarded as 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, when Blair was 10 years old.

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 Drummers from Tennessee {{US-drummer-stub