Sadly, John Bassette passed away in 2006 after a series of strokes. He was a heckuva song writer. I only saw John play once, at (of all places) a Career Day at Rocky River High School, west of Cleveland, around 1973 or 1974. We were supposed to go to listen to different people talk about different careers throughout the day, and John was playing in the auditorium to give us somewhere to go to fill in between "interesting" career talks. Being a music geek I didn't manage to get out of that auditorium once I'd wandered into it. :-) Some of the songs he played were, shall we say, "inappropriate" for a bunch of high school kids - but I doubt he cared. He seemed to be having a good time, and nobody complained, so..? He did an a capella version of "The Dog's Party" which was hilarious and brought the house down. He did "Weed and Wine", the chorus of which has stuck with me ever since ("Weed and wine, to mellow out your mind..."). And he did a lot of other songs which I don't remember anymore, darn my lousy memory!

RIP John. This dumb ol' white kid still remembers a bit of your stuff.