{"id":7217,"date":"2025-12-06T21:57:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T21:57:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/phil-upchurch-death-guitarist-michael-jackson-dead-obituary-1236130053\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T21:57:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T21:57:40","slug":"phil-upchurch-death-guitarist-michael-jackson-dead-obituary-1236130053","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/phil-upchurch-death-guitarist-michael-jackson-dead-obituary-1236130053\/","title":{"rendered":"Phil Upchurch, Legendary Guitarist Who Worked With Michael Jackson & Donny Hathaway, Dies at\u00a084"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\tPhil Upchurch, an iconic guitarist and session musician who collaborated with Donny Hathaway<\/a>, Michael Jackson<\/a> and countless other music legends, has died. He was 84.<\/p>\n

\n\tUpchurch passed away on Nov. 23 in Los Angeles, according to his wife, Sonya Maddox-Upchurch. A cause of death was not revealed.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\u201cPhil Upchurch was my personal gift from God, he was my best friend, my music partner, my life, and my hero,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cOur love was supernatural, endless, timeless and as true as his favorite color blue. He was a master of chords and emotions. Anything that he placed his mind to complete \u2014 he did it. Well done my love. I love you more than words can say and the heart can hold.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOver a remarkable career, Upchurch recorded nearly 30 albums and appeared on more than 1,000 recordings. Notable contributions include Chaka Khan<\/a>\u2019s 1978 hit \u201cI\u2019m Every Woman,\u201d which topped Billboard<\/em>\u2019s Hot R&B\/Hip-Hop Songs chart for three weeks, and Jackson\u2019s \u201cWorkin\u2019 Day and Night,\u201d from his 1979 solo album, Off the Wall<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\tUpchurch was also featured on all of Hathaway\u2019s solo studio and live albums, as well as Curtis Mayfield<\/a>\u2019s soundtracks for the films Superfly<\/em>, Claudine<\/em>, Let\u2019s Do It Again <\/em>and Sparkle<\/em>, the latter featuring Aretha Franklin.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe also performed or recorded with other music legends, including George Benson, Bob Dylan, Quincy Jones, Luther Vandross, B.B. King, Dizzy Gillespie, John Lee Hooker and Stan Getz.<\/p>\n

\n\tBorn on July 19, 1941, in Chicago, Upchurch began making music at a young age, starting with the ukulele at 13 before quickly mastering guitar, bass and drums. Influenced by jazz greats Oscar Peterson and Jimmy Smith, he began his professional career touring with the singing group the Spaniels after graduating high school in 1958. In 1961, he scored a hit under his own name with \u201cYou Can\u2019t Sit Down.\u201d Two years later, he was part of a studio band that backed Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay) on the spoken-word\/comedy album I Am the Greatest!<\/em><\/p>\n

\n\tIn the mid-1960s, Upchurch served two years in the U.S. Army in Germany. Upon returning, he became a regular session musician at Chicago\u2019s Chess Records, collaborating with legends such as Ramsey Lewis, John Klemmer, Muddy Waters, Howlin\u2019 Wolf, the Dells and Etta James.<\/p>\n

\n\tBeyond performing, Upchurch authored two instructional music books and completed an autobiography, which is set to be released posthumously.<\/p>\n


\n \"Billboard
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Phil Upchurch, an iconic guitarist and session musician who collaborated with Donny Hathaway, Michael Jackson and countless other music legends, has died. He was 84. Upchurch passed away on Nov.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1174,108,96,94,95,392],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-death","category-genre-rb","category-music","category-music-news","category-nsfs","category-obituary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}