Bluesman Topper Price Remembered
May 18th, 2007by Glynn Wilson
Blues harp player and singer Topper Price, one of Alabama’s more interesting musicians and characters, died Wednesday night at his apartment on the Southside of Birmingham. He was 54 and was about to release his third solo album.
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| Photo by Glynn Wilson |
| Topper Price, R.I.P. |
The official cause of his death has not been released by the Jefferson County Coroner, but sources close to Mr. Price say he had a seizure after eating dinner Wednesday night with his fiancée, Kelly Casey. The seizure could have been caused by a drug overdose. Paramedics tried and failed to revive him.
No funeral or official memorial service is planned for the next week, Ms. Casey said in an interview. But Topper, whose real name was Terry O’Neil Price, wanted to be cremated, she said, so the plans for that were in the works Friday.
“He didn’t really want a funeral, just for some friends to get together,” Ms. Casey said, so plans for a memorial service will be announced sometime next week.
“I’m supposed to be planning a wedding, not a funeral,” Ms. Casey told a reporter for the Birmingham News and the Locust Fork News and Journal. “He was an incredible guy. He had one of the kindest hearts I’ve ever met in my life.”
Paul “Sleepy Gumbo Bailey” Walters said the Magic City Blues Society was dedicating a blues jam to Topper Friday night at Burly Earl and taking donations to help pay his burial expenses.
“He was one of the premier harmonica players in Alabama,” Mr. Walters said as he announced the untimely death to the Blue Mail list Thursday with “a heavy heart.”
Mr. Price was born in the Plateau community near Mobile and had no close relatives in Birmingham, according to Ms. Casey, although he did have a father and a daughter living in the Mobile area.
I first saw Topper play myself in Mobile back in the 1980s, then got to know him in Birmingham while operating the NewsBreak newsstand, bookstore and coffee bar from 1986 to 1989.
Topper performed all over the Southeast over the past 30 years and played with some of the music greats in blues and Southern Rock, including Dickie Betts of the Allman Brothers Band, Scott Boyer and Cowboy, The Convertables, The Band and The Radiators, along with Albert Collins, Johnny Shines, Wayne Perkins and Brother Cane.
“Topper gave a lot of joy to people in this town,” Walters said. “There was something magnetic about him. He was the top harmonica player in the state, with a unique and powerful style. When you’re talking about blues in Birmingham, you’re talking about Topper Price.”
Mr. Price recorded two CDs during his career, according to the News, including “Long Way From Home” and “Nature (Part 1).” Casey said he had recently completed his third CD, tentatively called “Nature (Part 2),” in a home studio and was looking forward to its release.
He played me a cut from the CD a few weeks ago outside The Nick, and we talked about plans to promote it.
“It was an extremely long time in the making,” Casey confirmed. “But it was the most important thing he had going on. He was very, very proud of it.”
Topper had a lot of loyal fans across the state, not just in Birmingham. He played regularly in Tuscaloosa and Montgomery as well.
“I loved this guy,” said Cheryl Sabel, a fan from Montgomery. “I went to hear him every time he was in town.”
Mr. Price wasn’t a music teacher, but he did have an influence on other musicians, including soul singer, harmonica player and “American Idol” finalist Taylor Hicks, according to the News.
Hicks said he would sneak into nightclubs as a teenager to hear Mr. Price perform, and was influenced by his showmanship. Mr. Price would drop to his knees during solos and moved on stage with flamboyant passion.
“He was not only a harmonica player, he was an entertainer,” Hicks said. “He taught me the difference. I remember when he was playing at The Mill; there was a banister on stage and he used to wrap his leg around it. That really struck me. He was one of the finest harmonica players that I’ve heard. He had a great voice. He was the real deal - a bluesman.”
Guitar player Jeff Adkins, who has played with Topper Price and the Upsetters on and off for the past 10 years, said Topper was “the single greatest, well-rounded musician I’ve ever played with, and by far the best band director, conductor.”
I asked Topper one day outside the old Highland Music store at 30th and Highland where he learned to sing and play the blues. He told me an elaborate story about once going looking for the “Blues School” on a certain street corner on the Southside of Chicago. I think they made a movie about that.
As Tuscaloosa News columnist Tommy Stevenson said about Topper, “Like Rhett Maddox, he was a mess. A talented mess, but a mess nonetheless.”
Another blues harp player, Jock Webb, said in addition to being a great player and a funny character, Topper was an incredibly generous guy who didn’t hesitate to help other people, either by covering a gig when someone else couldn’t make it or helping inspire kids in the Blues in Schools program.
“He was always there, man,” Webb said. “I could call him up from Boston or Atlanta, and he would answer the call to help, no matter what.”
John McClusky, a Tuscaloosa lawyer who was handling Mr. Price’s affairs, said the one thing just about everyone who knew him says about Topper, “He was a true gentleman.”
Matt Kimbrell, a percussionist from a talented musical family from Birmingham who knew Topper for many years, upon learning the news of Topper’s death, said what a lot of people feel.
“It just breaks my heart, man.”
Monday Update
On Tuesday, May 29, The Nick will host a Topper Price open mic memorial with no cover charge, although donations are welcome. Then on Wednesday, June 27, The Nick will also host a Topper Price fundraiser to help cover cremation expenses, according to the Magic City Blues Society.
Also, the Jefferson County Coroner’s office is saying it will be next week at least before a final cause of death will be determined and released.
Tags: Obituaries
May 18th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Topper will surely be missed. My favorite song he did was “You Can’t Judge A Book”(by looking at the cover). He wasn’t exactly a handsome man but he sure made great music. He never worried about showing his emotions onstage but he he always seemed to have a good time.
This is truly a sad time for the Birmingham music scene.
I’ll never forget, “I look Like a Farmer, But I’m a lover, You can’t judge a book by looking at the cover.”
So Long Topper. God Bless You.
May 19th, 2007 at 7:57 am
O, Topper Topper Topper…
He was the greatest harmonica player I’ve known.
My husband, Frank Pigott, had him in his studio on many occasions and I remember them playing intimately together. Frank on his guitar and Topper making a harmonica sound like he was playing guitar riffs. They’d play for hours after the session he was hired to play on.
Topper led a rich full life and even though I’ve only seen him a couple times since Frank died, each time, he would shake my hand and say I miss him too.
He made such a funny impact at my husband’s funeral; it’s still talked about today. He was being Topper, and I remember Jim Gillis laughing and having to stand behind Topper while he was performing “Amazing Grace” - holding him up so he wouldn’t tip over - and this was at 10 a.m.!
Topper knew Frank well and he made that funeral funny. Frank would have not wanted it any other way! While the older people were gazing at his “wild and crazy” style of playing the blues, the musicians there honoring Frank’s memory still to this day laugh out loud about that funeral, because without Topper there to really send Frank home in his spirited wild and crazy way, I don’t think people would remember the funeral. But because of Topper, when I reflect back on that day, I chuckle to myself every time, with the warmest of thoughts. “Jim Gilllis holding Topper upright so he could play.” Can’t get any funnier than that. It’s the only thing I and our friends remember about that day
I just know Topper, Frank and all the other musicians with them, in their music heaven, are having the best jam sessions.
JJ and I will miss you Topper!
May 19th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I just got word of Topper’s passing from one of his old bandmates from the early 70’s, singer, drummer, guitarist Shon Scott from Brewton.
It’s been years since I’ve been able to hear him in person since I live in Maryland but I remember many lazy afternoons, clouded in smoke, surrounded by bottles, playing the blues and laughing (could you do anything else around Topper?) in my living room in Mobile.
In the last two years I’d started following his career again and was thrilled at what he had accomplished. I remember him as one of an exceptional triumverate of Mobile blues harp players and singers from the early ’70’s, along with (of course) Jimmy Hall and the unknown but equally talented Randy Brown.
Although it’s a day late and a dollar short I’m going to do my best to get my audiences in Maryland to learn about his great talent and music.
God bless you Topper, and may all of those who love you be comforted by knowing how you touched us all.
Rob Hughes
Rob Hughes and The Heaters
May 21st, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Yeah, Topper was a hilarious guy, to be sure. And everyone keeps saying how he was the best harp player in the state - hell, Topper was one of the best in the country! My favorite, this side of Alan Wilson.
What a drag that he’s gone.
Does anyone know if Nature (pt 2) will be released? I want it, bad.
Thanks,
Merci
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:27 am
Top and I met when he was 32 and I was all of 20.
Whatever happened, we just clicked. I have always been into music, and I had just moved back to B’ham. My uncle took me out to hear him and that was it!
Twenty two years later we were still best friends. We talked no less than 3 times a day ! I could go on forever, but bottom line, he loved people. Though often a lonely soul, he loved Blues and his friends.
I never heard him talk bad about anyone, unless they deserved it. Even then, he always gave them the benefit of the doubt.
If you knew him, you had to love him. If you heard him, he got your full attention.
I hope someone will read this and give me a call to let me know what’s going on in B’ham as far as memorials, benefits, or just to call and talk about the guy who told me last Wednesday Afternoon,”you know you are my greatest friend.”
I’ll always love him, good and bad.
Stacey
256-874-5679
May 26th, 2007 at 2:23 am
Oh Topper…What can I say?
I met Topper when he was only 11 years old. I was one year older. He used to dance (yes,I said dance!) in a local talent show in our hometown as a kid. His favorite piece of music to dance to was “Topsy-part 2″ by Cozy Cole.
He was always loaded with talent, and the nerve to display it. He thrived on attention, and always got it. We remained friends ’till the sad day he left us. We dated off and on for years. It had, sadly, been a few years since I last spoke to him, we kind of lost touch. Everytime we did see one another, he always said: “How’s your mother doing?” and always left me with a kiss and a “You know I’ll always love you.”
He was that kind of man, and more.
There was no one else in the world like Topper, NO ONE.
He was enigmatic,big hearted, frustrating, maddening, tortured, loving, impulsive, charismatic, larger than life, generous, sexy as hell, unique, talented, unforgettable, self destructive,unpredictable, I could go on and on…
He filled up a room with his presence when he entered it.S omeone once stated that anyone who ever knew Topper had at least one “Topper story” to tell. I have several, not all are fit to repeat, LOL.
This world has lost one of the jewels of humanity.
I still cannot believe he is gone. I have been numb with grief since I heard about his untimely death. I have cried often, and woken up repeatedly at night, praying for his soul, and for his fiance. He shouldn’t be dead! He was one of the most alive people I ever knew. He wrung every drop out of his too short life. My heart goes out to his fiance,Kelly. If you read this, know that you were very blessed to have been loved by this man. If he chose you to marry, you must be one special lady.
I would love to get in contact with anyone who knew and loved Topper, and keep his memory vividly alive. “Vividly alive” that was a fitting description of Topper himself. R
Friends and fans can contact me at:
newheaven_7@yahoo.com.
May 26th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
I went to see another group I had heard about a decade or so ago. I fell in love with Topper and his talents. I arrived home and told one of my best friends about this guy, “You hear his voice, Val and you just want to lie down and die happy.”
Apparently Val felt the same way. She married him.
Unfortunately it didn’t work out, but when you loved Topper you never stopped. There was nothing in the world I would rather do than hear Topper.
My life will not be the same without him and I am most sorry for the people who didn’t hear him or never knew how intelligent and caring he was.
May 31st, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Topper was as tasteful as any musician I’ve ever known. He brought out the best in anyone who was blessed to play with him. He was the most dedicated musician I’ve ever known. Rest in peace Topper and trouble no more.
Shon Scott
June 3rd, 2007 at 4:26 pm
I’ve known Topper since he was 12. I kept up with him as best as I could over the years even though we last spoke in person quite a few years ago. It feels like yesterday that I saw him playing and laughing. He loved his music so much…….
June 6th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
I last saw Topper when we both sang on the Kids One cd together…around Christmas 2005 I believe?? What a guy! I always said “Topper, you have a radio voice”…and he said “I know” (smile). What a voice…both the talking voice and the singing (such a rich tambre!) Whenever we saw each other, how ever briefly, we could barely get away from each other. It was always so interesting hearing what he was into. Lord, we’ll miss you buddy….singing the blues in heaven…
June 26th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Topper,
we knew it all together, Even Magic 8 Ball. Mit freundlichen grussen. I love you
July 4th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
The first time I saw the guy play at Louie Louie’s when the band was “Topper Price and the Convertibles”, I flipped! They were awesome, and I was just in awe that a local band could be so incredible. So, years later when I decided I needed somebody to teach me how to play the harmonica, I approached Topper after a show at 22nd Street Jazz cafe, and he was happy to oblige. The funny thing is, we never went to some class room or formal setting, it always started at the Garage, and we’d end up driving all over town, or walking for blocks at a time. I remember thinking that these were the craziest “lessons” I’d ever imagined, but he had his way of getting his point across - blues aint about blowing out notes on a harmoncia, it’s way more than that. I’ll miss him very much.
July 12th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Hi All,
Topper’s passage resonated with me in that rare way that happens several times in your life. I’ve known Topper since 1969 and our paths intersected on many an interesting occasion. Does anyone have contact info for the woman that was to marry Topper, Kelly Casey? I’d appreciate the chance to speak to her and lend my aid in one of the endeavors to honor Topper.
Best wishes to all,
Mike Hiers
828.251.1985
cyclingaddict@gmail.com