Former Doobie Brothers Saxophone Player, Cornelius Bumpus, Dies

02/04/2004 3:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
LAUNCH Radio Networks

Saxophonist Cornelius Bumpus, a former member of the Doobie Brothers, died Tuesday (February 3) on his way to a series of performances in California. He was 58. Bumpus had a heart attack during a flight from New York, said his friend, Rod Harris, an organizer of the Columbia College Jazz Concert Series, where Bumpus was scheduled to perform this week.

"I was expecting to hear from him today (February 3), then his wife called," Harris told the Associated Press. "She told me that they landed in Kansas City. We spoke for maybe about three or four minutes about the shock of it all." Bumpus' wife told Harris that her husband was dead when the plane made an emergency landing.

Bumpus performed with the Doobie Brothers in the early 1980s. His relations with his former bandmates soured in the late '90s, when they sued him and several other musicians over their use of the Doobies name. A federal judge in 1999 ruled against Bumpus and the other musicians, ordering them not to use the name.

Since 1993 Bumpus has played with Steely Dan.

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