Willie “Popsy” Dixon, the drummer, singer and “brother-in-spirt” in the Holmes Brothers, died on Friday after recently being diagnosed with stage four bladder cancer. He was 72.
Dixon was born in Virginia Beach, VA in 1942 and started playing drums at age 7. He first met Sherman and Wendell Holmes in 1967 and the brothers clicked with Dixon right away. The three became close while playing in a variety of top 40 bar bands, together and individually, until 1979 when the officially formed their own group, the Holmes Brothers.
For a decade, the Holmes Brothers played in clubs, especially Dan Lynch’s in New York. In 1989, they signed with Rounder Records and, the following year, released their debut, In the Spirit. Over the next seven years, they would record three more albums for Rounder along with the 1992 album, Jubilation, which was the first set by an American artist to be released on Peter Gabriel’s Real World imprint.
In 1996, Wendell Holmes moved into the world of film, starring in the movie Lotto Land, and the band appeared in the film and recorded the soundtrack for Stony Plain Records. Since 2001, they have been with Alligator Records and have released five albums including 2014’s Brotherhood. Four of the albums have made the Billboard Blues chart:
Simple Truths (2004 / #5)
State of Grace (2007 / #3)
Feed My Soul (2010 / #1)
Brotherhood (2014 / #15)
Last September, Dixon and the Holmes Brothers were honored by the National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Foundation, the highest honor presented to folk and traditional artists.
Dixon is survived by his longtime partner, Isobel Prideaux and his daughter Desiree Berry.
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