Steve Ferguson, a founder of the rock ‘n’ roll band NRBQ, died on Oct. 7 at his home in Louisville, Ky. He was 60. His death was announced on the band’s web site. The cause was cancer, according to an announcement on his MySpace page.
Ferguson, a guitarist, singer and songwriter, was born in Louisville on Nov. 22, 1948, and formed the original version of NRBQ there in 1967 with a high school friend, the keyboardist, singer and songwriter Terry Adams.
The group did not last long, but a year later Ferguson and Adams joined forces with three other musicians to form a new group with the same name. That one has stayed together, with only a few personnel changes.
The first change was the departure of Ferguson, who left in 1970 after the group had recorded two albums for Columbia. But NRBQ’s distinctive mix of styles, which remained its signature – its repertory ranged from the rockabilly of Eddie Cochran to the avant-garde jazz of Sun Ra – was largely a legacy of his tenure.
While NRBQ had no Top 40 hits and never graduated from midsize nightclubs to theaters or arenas, it garnered enthusiastic reviews and a legion of fans, among them Paul McCartney, Jimi Hendrix and Elvis Costello.
Steve Ferguson spent most of his post-NRBQ career in Louisville, where he performed and recorded with his own groups. He briefly reunited with the band in 1974. In 2004, he joined current and former members at a 35th anniversary concert in Northampton, Mass. In 2006, he and Terry Adams teamed up again to record the album “Louisville Sluggers.”
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