Bruce Langhorne obit

Bruce Langhorne, legendary folk musician and ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ inspiration, has died

“If you had Bruce playing with you, that’s all you would need to do just about anything.” – Bob Dylan 

He was not on the list.

Folk music legend Bruce Langhorne has passed away, according to acolyte Dylan Golden Aycock. Langhorne was a session guitarist and percussionist and a friend to Bob Dylan. He inspired the song ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’, contributed the spidering guitar solo on ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ and played on Dylan’s tracks ‘Maggie’s Farm’, ‘Love Minus Zero/No Limit,’ and ‘She Belongs To Me’ and on The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.

He contributed to many film scores, including Stay Hungry (for which Arnold Schwarzenegger won the Golden Globe for Best Acting Debut), Jonathan Demme’s Melvin and Howard and many Peter Fonda films including Idaho Transfer and Fighting Mad.

Langhorne notably scored Fonda’s The Hired Hand, which has recently been revisited in celebration of Langhorne’s guitar-playing via a tribute album called The Hired Hands put together by Aycock, Loren Connors and Suzanne Langille. It includes contributions from Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and Steve Gunn, as well as an archival recording from guitar icon John Fahey.

In 2015, Langhorne went into hospice care after suffering a debilitating stroke. The tribute album and release shows in London and Brooklyn were intended to raise money for help with his bills.

He began accompanying folk singer Brother John Sellers at clubs in Greenwich Village, soon starting to work with other musicians. Langhorne worked with many of the major performers in the folk revival of the 1950s and 1960s, including The Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem, Joan Baez, Richie Havens, Carolyn Hester, Judy Collins, Peter LaFarge, Gordon Lightfoot, Hugh Masekela, Odetta, Babatunde Olatunji, Peter, Paul and Mary, Richard and Mimi Fariña, Tom Rush, Steve Gillette, and Buffy Sainte-Marie. He first recorded in 1961, with Carolyn Hester, which is when he met Bob Dylan. He later said of Dylan: "I thought he was a terrible singer and a complete fake, and I thought he didn't play harmonica that well.... I didn't really start to appreciate Bobby as something unique until he started writing."