The year 2016 seems to keep hitting us hard with death after death of beloved musicians and entertainers. The latest is house music legend, Colonel Abrams. He died on Thanksgiving 2016 at the age of 67.
The musician scored his biggest hit in 1985 with the club single, Trapped, which reached number three in the UK.
His death was announced on Facebook by DJ Tony “Tune” Herbert, who said: “Now he is at peace.”
Colonel Abrams, which happens to be his real name, was born in Detroit, the home of Motown, in 1949.
According to BBC News, Colonel said his music was a blend of those melodies and the hard street rhythms of New York, where he moved as a child.
“I studied all the people on Motown, and I studied the music and listened to the lyrics Smokey Robinson used to write, and just craved the opportunity to be on Motown,” he told the Associated Press news agency in the 1980s.
“But after my family moved to New York, I studied street music, and I sort of combined them both: The Detroit sound and the street sounds of New York.”
Abrams was in the group Conservative Manor with his brother Morris in the late 1960s, then sang lead vocals for 94 East in 1976. The group briefly featured superstar Prince on guitar, and recorded his song Just Another Sucker in 1977.
The band dissolved once Prince’s solo career took off, and Abrams joined Surprise Package, a New Jersey group.
He scored a small hit in 1984 with the ballad Leave the Message Behind the Door but it was the follow-up, a soulful house mantra called Music Is The Answer, which was his breakout hit and made him a star.
An international dance hit, it earned him a record deal with MCA – which led to the chart hits Trapped and I’m Not Going to Let You.
Abrams continued to feature on the US dance and R&B charts into the mid-1990s, and performed around the world into the new century.
However, he fell upon hard times in his final years, prompting Herbert and house DJ Marshall Jefferson to launch a crowdfunding campaign.
“The Colonel is very ill with no permanent place of his own to live at this time and limited financial resources,” they said at the time.
His music will forever be missed. Rest in peace, Colonel.
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