John Bassette
| John Bassette | |
|---|---|
John Bassette (photo by Todd Wieder)
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| Background information | |
| Born |
December 28, 1941 Hampton, Virginia |
| Died | November 9, 2006 (aged 64) Cleveland, Ohio |
| Genres | Folk music |
| Occupation(s) | Singer/songwriter, poet and cable television personality |
| Instruments | Guitar |
John Bassette (December 28, 1941 – November 9, 2006) was a folk singer/songwriter, poet and cable television personality in the Greater Cleveland, Ohio, United States, area. He was born in Hampton, Virginia, USA.
Bassette first attracted national notice at the 1967 Newport Folk Festival, where critic Bradford F. Swan singled out his performance of his composition "Brown Boy" as "an immensely moving song, beautifully sung" and "the high point of the evening". Later that same year, he performed at Carnegie Hall at a "Sing Out" hootenanny sponsored by the magazine of the same name. He also performed that August at the legendary Bitter End on Bleecker Street, of which the New York Times music critic Dan Sullivan wrote, "Mr. Bassette, who knows what he is doing at all times, obviously enjoys it and ought to be able to make a good living at it in years to come."
Returning to Cleveland, Bassette produced three full-length albums, two mini-albums, and a self-illustrated book of stories, songs, essays and poetry entitled Losing Face in America. Bassette was a pioneer in the area of producing his own recordings and releasing them on his own label, something few musicians in the Cleveland area had done before. His first mini-album, Weed and Wine, produced by TinkerToo Music & Records, featured a cover by underground comic artist Dave Sheridan, and both the cover song and the song Hello, Cleveland were local hits. He appeared at many street fairs and events in the Northeast Ohio area, and favored benefits for charitable causes including the Cleveland Free Clinic. He also appeared as a regular guest on the seminal folk-music segment, Coffeebreak Concerts, on the major Cleveland Rock radio station WMMS. Bassette also appeared alongside Sammy Davis Jr. in the London company of Golden Boy. He hosted a cable TV show through Viacom in the mid-eighties under the name Jon Bon, and produced two music videos and a documentary on how to create videos on a tight budget.
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