This is from a broadcast email from 3 Balls of Fire guitarist Mike Vernon:
Our dear friend, Jerry Cole died Wednessday night at his home in Corona, California. Jerry's wife, Gale, was with him when he suffered a massive heart attack. Jerry was 68 years old and is survived by Gale and their daughters, Monique and Katrina, and son, Cane. Jerry's other son, Keith, died just a year earlier at the age of 28. Funeral services are still pending but a public memorial is also being planned for the near future.
Jerry Coletta was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 1939. After moving to Chicago with his mother, he started cutting his musical chops in the gritty Chicago blues scene of the fifties. It wasn't long after that he found himself in the Champs and had his first hit, "Tequila". He and Glen Cambell shared guitar duties with the group and eventually both landed in Los Angeles where they began to get studio work. It wasn't too long before they were in the thick of it and with a loosley knit group of steller musicians became known as the Wrecking Crew. Jerry was probably one of the most recorded guitarist in history and appeared on an impressive and diverse list of who's who in American popular music including virtually all of the Phil Spector groups, many of the Beach Boys records including "Pet Sounds", Gene Vincent, B.B. King, The Byrds, Roger MsGuinne, Frank and Nancy Sinatra, Lee Hazlewood, Ricky Nelson, Paul Revere and the Raiders and Roger Miller. And as Jerry liker to say, "and that was just the first day!" He also did a stint as band leader on Shindig where he performed with the likes of The Rolling Stones and Jerry Lee Lewis. He also led the band on The Sonny and Cher Show and was even in Elvis Presley's back-up band in "King Creole".
He had a steller solo carreer with his glorious guitar-driven instrumental projects of the Sixties, churning out numerous hot rod, surf, go-go, r&b and psychedelic lps for several labels including Capitol, Liberty, Crown, Custom and Alshire. He had a top ten vocal hit with "Meet me at Midnight Mary" and started Happy Tiger Records with Ray Ruff and was lead guitarist for a post-Van Morrison "Them" on the label.
As recently as last year Jerry recorded a beautiful, Jeff Beck-like surf guitar CD, "Back to the Boards" and in recent years got to see some of his back catolouge re-issued by Sundazed and Ace Records. In fact, on the day of his death, Jerry signed off on the Sundazed "Jerry Cole Psychedelics" re-issue series for the esteemed label. The first CD, "The Animated Egg" from 1968 is a freaked-out, fuzz exercise of pure psychedelic guitar abandon. It's to be followed by sought-after lp re-issues of "Astro Sounds from Beyond the Year 2000", "The Inner Sounds of the Id" on RCA and Jerry's Custom label recordings. In what may be a truly fittiing final tribute, Jerry and some of the original Wrecking Crew have been recording with Brian Wilson, for the first time since "Pet Sounds".
It was a great honor for me and the guys to perform with Jerry and play his unique brand of original material. He played every note like it was his last and was a real gentlman on and off the stage. It has also been an honor for me to work with Jerry on his re-issue material and we had a lot of fun with it. I found that on both sides of the Atlantic Jerry was immensley respected and revered. He was old school in every way and his life was one that only most of us can dream about. He was a real good friend and will really be missed by all who knew him.
That's about it for now, I will keep you posted on the memorial tribute in L.A. when I know something.
thanks,
Mike V.
