Gus backus biography meaning

GUS BACKUS

Born Donald Edgar Backus, 12 September 1937, Southampton, Long Island, New York. Died 21 February 2019, Germering, Germany.

Unless you live in one of the German-speaking countries, there is a chance that you have never even heard of Gus Backus.

He is one of those odd American musicians who found their stardom far from home.

Born in the village of Southampton on Long Island, Donald Backus was called Gus by his father (also named Donald), a foreman on a potatoe plantation.

At 14, Gus ran away from home when his parents divorced.

Gus backus death

Among his earliest musical favourites were Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Little Richard and under their influence he began to write and play his own music.

Then he got drafted and was stationed in Pittsburgh, where he joined a vocal group, the Del(l)-Vikings, around March 1957.

They were racially mixed, a rarity in those days, and were jumping up the charts with "Come Go With Me" when Gus joined as a replacement for Don Jackson. The story of the