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Boston Globe
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Gene Barge, R&B saxophonist who played on landmark hits, dies at 98
Galvanized by Mr. Barge's moaning tenor saxophone, 'C.C. Rider' reached No. 1 on the R&B chart in 1957 and stalled just outside the Top 10 on the pop chart. In 1963, Mr. Barge was featured on Jimmy Soul's calypso-derived 'If You Wanna Be Happy,' a No. 1 pop and R&B hit. Mr. Barge also played the wailing tenor part on Fontella Bass's 'Rescue Me' (1965) and supplied the rhythmic drive, with members of the Motown house band the Funk Brothers, for Jackie Wilson's 'Your Love Keeps Lifting Me (Higher and Higher)' (1967). Both records topped the R&B chart and crossed over to become Top 10 pop hits. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Enter Email Sign Up His greatest acclaim, though, came in 1961 with 'Quarter to Three,' a No. 1 pop single recorded with the R&B shouter Gary U.S. Bonds. Hoping to capitalize on the success of 'New Orleans,' his first big hit, Bonds created 'Quarter to Three' by adding lyrics to 'A Night With Daddy G,' a churning instrumental that Mr. Barge had recently written and recorded with his band the Church Street Five. Advertisement 'Oh, don't you know that I danced/ I danced 'til a quarter to 3/ With the help, last night, of Daddy G,' Bonds sings on the opening chorus. ('A Night With Daddy G' would prove to be doubly auspicious when Dion borrowed its melody for 'Runaround Sue,' a finger-snapping wonder that topped the pop chart in late 1961.) Despite having the benefit of Mr. Barge's snaking saxophone runs — and despite the record's affinity with the twist dance craze of the day — 'Quarter to Three' was an unlikely sensation. Muffled and lo-fi, it sounded as if it had been recorded in a bathroom or a stairwell. 'This record is fuzzy, muzzy and distorted,' British television producer Jack Good wrote in a 1961 issue of Disc, the popular weekly music magazine. 'According to present-day technical standards it is appalling. However, for my money, the disc is not just good, it's sensational and revolutionary.' Advertisement An exuberant fusion of doo-wop, Black gospel, and incipient frat rock, 'Quarter to Three' not only inspired the big-beat rock 'n' roll of the Beatles and the garage-rock of bands like the Kingsmen and the Sir Douglas Quintet. It also provided a blueprint for the sax-and-vocal exchanges between Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen, a rapturous call and response that came to define the E Street Band, which often performed 'Quarter to Three' in concert. Breaking into pop music when the saxophone was ascendant (and before it was supplanted by the electric guitar), Mr. Barge was as distinctive and versatile a stylist as King Curtis, if less well known. Over six decades, he played on or produced records by Muddy Waters, the Chi-Lites, and the incendiary Detroit funk band Black Merda. He also toured with Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, and the Rolling Stones. James Gene Barge Jr. was born on Aug. 9, 1926, in Norfolk, Va., the oldest of eight children of James and Thelma (Edwards) Barge. His father played banjo and worked as a welder in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. His mother managed the home. Mr. Barge played clarinet in high school and took up the saxophone only after his father brought home a waterlogged tenor that he had found on a torpedo-damaged ship. He was 20 at the time and had just completed two years in the Army Air Forces. After graduating from West Virginia State College in 1950 with a degree in music, he taught high school and pursued music as an avocation. Jazz was a formative influence, especially the effervescent phrasing of the great tenor saxophonist Lester Young. Advertisement The first recordings Mr. Barge made under his own name were a pair of instrumentals for Checker, a subsidiary of Chess Records, in 1956. 'Country,' his first single, was a hit along the Eastern Seaboard. 'When Chess heard it, they said, 'What the hell is that?' Mr. Barge said of the record in a 2007 interview with Virginia Living magazine. 'They had never heard a saxophone sound like that before. They even gave it a word: funk. That was the reputation I got — that Gene Barge could play funky.' Around 1960 Mr. Barge began his brief but fruitful association with producer Frank Guida, whose Legrand label released 'A Night With Daddy G' and Bonds's early singles. Mr. Barge and Bonds had a second major hit together with 'School Is Out,' which reached the Top 10 in 1961. In 1964, as independent record labels with national distribution increasingly dominated regional markets, Mr. Barge abandoned teaching — and Norfolk's small Legrand imprint — and moved to Chicago to work for Chess Records. He played on R&B hits including Little Milton's 'Grits Ain't Groceries' and Koko Taylor's 'Wang Dang Doodle' and produced albums, including Buddy Guy's acclaimed 1967 effort, 'Left My Blues in San Francisco.' In the late 1960s, he also directed the musical ensemble of the Chicago chapter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Operation Breadbasket, an organization headed locally by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Mr. Barge later ran the gospel division of Stax Records and, over the ensuing decades, worked as a freelance musician, producer, and arranger, most notably on Natalie Cole's Grammy-winning single 'Sophisticated Lady (She's a Different Lady).' In the late 1970s he took a detour into acting, eventually landing roles in Hollywood action thrillers 'Under Siege' (1992) and 'The Fugitive' (1993). Advertisement Mr. Barge remained active into the 2000s, serving as a consultant for Martin Scorsese's 2003 PBS documentary series 'The Blues' and playing on records including Public Enemy's 'Superman's Black in the Building' and with avant-garde jazz trumpeter Malachi Thompson. 'Gene Barge is the flyest octogenarian I know,' Chuck D of Public Enemy told Virginia Living in 2007. 'To go from Muddy Waters to Public Enemy is a good trick.' In addition to his daughter Gina, Mr. Barge leaves another daughter, Gail Florence; three siblings, Celestine Bailey, Kim Williamson, and Milton Barge; two grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren. His wife, Sarah Barge, died in 2008. His first marriage ended in divorce. Mr. Barge's career might not have gotten off to the start it did with Chuck Willis's 'C.C. Rider' were it not for his patience and good humor. After playing the grinding riff on the demo that persuaded Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records to record it as a single, he was flown to New York for the session, only to find that another saxophonist had been hired instead. 'Ertegun and Wexler told me they were going to pay me, but they didn't want me to play,' Mr. Barge told Virginia Living. 'I went down to the liquor store, man, got me a pint and sat down on the floor to listen to them. They did 27 takes and weren't satisfied. So Chuck said, 'Look, why don't you let Gene run down one to get the feel?' So I ran down one and they said, 'Hold it, that's it, you got it. Let's cut it.'' Advertisement This article originally appeared in
Chicago Tribune
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Gene Barge, renowned sax man and producer known as ‘Daddy G,' dies at 98
NEW YORK — Gene 'Daddy G' Barge, an admired and durable saxophone player, songwriter and producer who worked on hits by Natalie Cole, oversaw recordings by Muddy Waters, performed with the Rolling Stones and helped inspire the dance classic 'Quarter to Three,' has died. He was 98. He died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Chicago, according to daughter Gina Barge. Barge's career spanned much of the post-World War II era. He was in college jazz combos in the 1940s, backed Little Richard and James Brown when they were starting out, played a long, sweet solo on the '50s standard 'C.C. Rider' and collaborated with Gary 'U.S.' Bonds on 'Quarter to Three' and other '60s party favorites. He later recorded with such blues greats as Waters, Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon, co-produced Cole's Grammy Award-winning single 'Sophisticated Lady,' toured with the Stones in the early 1980s and even played on Public Enemy's 'New Whirl Odor' album, for which he was credited as 'the legendary Mr. Gene Barge.' Often cited as a precursor to the E Street Band's Clarence Clemons, he held rare status among saxophonists — so well known for a time that he was called out by name on two hits of the early '60s — 'Quarter to Three' and the uptempo doo-wop number 'Bristol Stomp,' in which the Dovells sing: 'It started in Bristol at a dee jay hop/They hollered and whistled never wanted to stop/We pony and twisted and we rocked with Daddy G.' In the 1970s and after, he had success as a character actor in thrillers and crime stories, his films including 'Above the Law,' 'The Package' and 'The Fugitive.' Barge was also a consultant for Martin Scorsese's documentary 'The Blues.' When the musician was in his 80s, Public Enemy's Chuck D called him 'the flyest octogenarian I know.' The eldest of eight children, James Gene Barge was born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, and dreamed of professional football before playing clarinet with his high school marching band inspired him to try music. He took up the tenor saxophone shortly after ending a two-year stint in the Air Force and right before enrolling in West Virginia State College: His father, a welder in the Norfolk Navy Yard, had been given one by a visiting British World War II soldier. 'The saxophone was the instrument, coming up, that had the sound closest to the human voice,' Barge told Virginia Living in 2007. 'It was the one with the impact. It was the featured instrument in the band, so that was the one you wanted to play.' By the 1950s, Barge was jamming with local jazz and rhythm and blues groups and leading the Gene Barge Band. The release of his instrumental 'Country,' a minor hit in 1955, helped bring on a bigger commercial breakthrough. Rhythm and blues singer Chuck Willis invited him to join his touring band and brought him to a recording session for Atlantic Records in New York. Willis was recording the sinuous 'C.C. Rider,' which topped the R&B charts in 1957 and was covered by Elvis Presley, the Grateful Dead and many others. The studio saxophone player wasn't working out, so Barge stepped in. 'They did 27 takes and weren't satisfied. So Chuck said, 'Look, why don't you just let Gene run down one to get the feel,'' he told Virginia Living. 'So I ran down one and they said, 'Hold on, that's it, you got it. Let's cut it.' … And two or three takes later, man, we had cut the song.' Barge had even greater success a few years later. He had returned to Norfolk, working with a Legrand label owner Frank Guida and forming the Church Street Five, named for a major city roadway. The Church Street musicians would cut an instrumental, 'A Night With Daddy G,' that was the basis of 'Quarter to Three' and led to Barge's professional nickname. 'Daddy G' originally referred to a local preacher, Bishop 'Daddy' Grace, one of whose churches was near Legrand and the site for local shows that included members of the Church Street Five. 'A Night With Daddy G' was a driving dance track led by Barge's hot tenor sax and influenced by New Orleans rhythm and blues. Bonds, a fellow Legrand artist and childhood friend of Barge's, loved the song. But he thought it needed lyrics, writing in his memoir 'By U.S. Bonds' that it lacked a 'catchy phrase that makes you anticipate the entire melody.' 'The players were setting up and they started playing 'A Night With Daddy G,'' Bonds wrote of the studio session, 'and I started singing some nonsense and it occurred to me that maybe I could add some words.' 'Quarter to Three,' a No. 1 hit in 1961, became a rock standard and a featured part of Bruce Springsteen's concerts. Now known to many as 'Daddy G,' Barge would collaborate on other hits with Bonds, including 'School Is Out' and 'Dear Lady Twist,' and work with a wide range of artists over the following decades. With Chicago's Chess Records, he played on such hits as Fontella Bass' 'Rescue Me' and produced albums by Waters and Little Milton among others. With Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, he arranged the gospel favorites 'Lord Don't Move the Mountain,' by Inez Andrews, and the Beautiful Zion Baptist Church's 'I'll Make It Alright.' Barge's Chicago connection helped lead to his work with Natalie Cole, daughter of Nat 'King' Cole. He befriended the writing-producing team of Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancey and helped produce and arrange the 1970s albums 'Natalie' and 'Unpredictable' among others. In a 2023 podcast with his daughter Gina, Barge remembered the late singer as 'one of the most talented' performers he worked with and most intelligent, 'very knowledgeable' about the music business in part because of her father. Barge's own album, 'Dance With Daddy G,' came out in 1965. More recently, he self-released 'Olio,' which included cameos from bluesman Buddy Guy and soul star Otis Clay, and he was on stage often as a member of the Chicago Rhythm and Blues Kings. 'I'm sitting here looking at my horn now, feeling guilty because I didn't get enough practice time in today — I'm mad because I didn't write a song, or the intro to a song. I got things to do. I'm not looking back,' Barge told Virginia Living. 'My philosophy is that you've got to move forward, stay contemporary, read, keep up with the young people. Because that's the future.'
The Independent
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Gene Barge, renowned sax man and producer known as 'Daddy G,' dies at 98
Gene 'Daddy G' Barge, an admired and durable saxophone player, songwriter and producer who worked on hits by Natalie Cole, oversaw recordings by Muddy Waters, performed with the Rolling Stones and helped inspire the dance classic 'Quarter to Three,' has died. He was 98. He died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Chicago, according to daughter Gina Barge. Barge's career spanned much of the post-World War II era. He was in college jazz combos in the 1940s, backed Little Richard and James Brown when they were starting out, played a long, sweet solo on the '50s standard 'C.C. Rider' and collaborated with Gary 'U.S.' Bonds on 'Quarter to Three' and other '60s party favorites. He later recorded with such blues greats as Waters, Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon, co-produced Cole's Grammy Award-winning single 'Sophisticated Lady,' toured with the Stones in the early 1980s and even played on Public Enemy's 'New Whirl Odor' album, for which he was credited as 'the legendary Mr. Gene Barge.' Often cited as a precursor to the E Street Band's Clarence Clemons, he held rare status among saxophonists — so well known for a time that he was called out by name on two hits of the early '60s — 'Quarter to Three' and the uptempo doo-wop number 'Bristol Stomp,' in which the Dovells sing: 'It started in Bristol at a dee jay hop/They hollered and whistled never wanted to stop/We pony and twisted and we rocked with Daddy G.' In the 1970s and after, he had success as a character actor in thrillers and crime stories, his films including 'Above the Law,' 'The Package' and 'The Fugitive.' Barge was also a consultant for Martin Scorsese's documentary 'The Blues.' When the musician was in his 80s, Public Enemy's Chuck D called him 'the flyest octogenarian I know.' The eldest of eight children, James Gene Barge was born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, and dreamed of professional football before playing clarinet with his high school marching band inspired him to try music. He took up the tenor saxophone shortly after ending a two-year stint in the Air Force and right before enrolling in West Virginia State College: His father, a welder in the Norfolk Navy Yard, had been given one by a visiting British World War II soldier. 'The saxophone was the instrument, coming up, that had the sound closest to the human voice,' Barge told Virginia Living in 2007. 'It was the one with the impact. It was the featured instrument in the band, so that was the one you wanted to play.' By the 1950s, Barge was jamming with local jazz and rhythm and blues groups and leading the Gene Barge Band. The release of his instrumental 'Country,' a minor hit in 1955, helped bring on a bigger commercial breakthrough. Rhythm and blues singer Chuck Willis invited him to join his touring band and brought him to a recording session for Atlantic Records in New York. Willis was recording the sinuous 'C.C. Rider,' which topped the R&B charts in 1957 and was covered by Elvis Presley, the Grateful Dead and many others. The studio saxophone player wasn't working out, so Barge stepped in. 'They did 27 takes and weren't satisfied. So Chuck said, 'Look, why don't you just let Gene run down one to get the feel,'' he told Virginia Living. 'So I ran down one and they said, 'Hold on, that's it, you got it. Let's cut it.' ... And two or three takes later, man, we had cut the song.' Barge had even greater success a few years later. He had returned to Norfolk, working with a Legrand label owner Frank Guida and forming the Church Street Five, named for a major city roadway. The Church Street musicians would cut an instrumental, 'A Night With Daddy G,' that was the basis of 'Quarter to Three' and led to Barge's professional nickname. 'Daddy G' originally referred to a local preacher, Bishop 'Daddy' Grace, one of whose churches was near Legrand and the site for local shows that included members of the Church Street Five. "A Night With Daddy G' was a driving dance track led by Barge's hot tenor sax and influenced by New Orleans rhythm and blues. Bonds, a fellow Legrand artist and childhood friend of Barge's, loved the song. But he thought it needed lyrics, writing in his memoir 'By U.S. Bonds' that it lacked a 'catchy phrase that makes you anticipate the entire melody.' 'The players were setting up and they started playing 'A Night With Daddy G,'' Bonds wrote of the studio session, 'and I started singing some nonsense and it occurred to me that maybe I could add some words.' 'Quarter to Three,' a No. 1 hit in 1961, became a rock standard and a featured part of Bruce Springsteen's concerts. Now known to many as 'Daddy G,' Barge would collaborate on other hits with Bonds, including 'School Is Out' and 'Dear Lady Twist,' and work with a wide range of artists over the following decades. With Chicago's Chess Records, he played on such hits as Fontella Bass' 'Rescue Me' and produced albums by Waters and Little Milton among others. With Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, he arranged the gospel favorites 'Lord Don't Move the Mountain,' by Inez Andrews, and the Beautiful Zion Baptist Church's 'I'll Make It Alright.' Barge's Chicago connection helped lead to his work with Natalie Cole, daughter of Nat 'King' Cole. He befriended the writing-producing team of Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancey and helped produce and arrange the 1970s albums 'Natalie' and 'Unpredictable' among others. In a 2023 podcast with his daughter Gina, Barge remembered the late singer as 'one of the most talented' performers he worked with and most intelligent, 'very knowledgeable' about the music business in part because of her father. Barge's own album, 'Dance With Daddy G,' came out in 1965. More recently, he self-released 'Olio,' which included cameos from bluesman Buddy Guy and soul star Otis Clay, and he was on stage often as a member of the Chicago Rhythm and Blues Kings. 'I'm sitting here looking at my horn now, feeling guilty because I didn't get enough practice time in today — I'm mad because I didn't write a song, or the intro to a song. I got things to do. I'm not looking back,' Barge told Virginia Living. 'My philosophy is that you've got to move forward, stay contemporary, read, keep up with the young people. Because that's the future.'
Associated Press
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Associated Press
Gene Barge, renowned sax man and producer known as ‘Daddy G,' dies at 98
NEW YORK (AP) — Gene 'Daddy G' Barge, an admired and durable saxophone player, songwriter and producer who worked on hits by Natalie Cole, oversaw recordings by Muddy Waters, performed with the Rolling Stones and helped inspire the dance classic 'Quarter to Three,' has died. He was 98. He died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Chicago, according to daughter Gina Barge. He was 98. Barge's career spanned much of the post-World War II era. He was in college jazz combos in the 1940s, backed Little Richard and James Brown when they were starting out, played a long, sweet solo on the '50s standard 'C.C. Rider' and collaborated with Gary 'U.S.' Bonds on 'Quarter to Three' and other '60s party favorites. He later recorded with such blues greats as Waters, Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon, co-produced Cole's Grammy Award-winning single 'Sophisticated Lady,' toured with the Stones in the early 1980s and even played on Public Enemy's 'New Whirl Odor' album, for which he was credited as 'the legendary Mr. Gene Barge.' Often cited as a precursor to the E Street Band's Clarence Clemons, he held rare status among saxophonists — so well known for a time that he was called out by name on two hits of the early '60s — 'Quarter to Three' and the uptempo doo-wop number 'Bristol Stomp,' in which the Dovells sing: 'It started in Bristol at a dee jay hop/They hollered and whistled never wanted to stop/We pony and twisted and we rocked with Daddy G.' In the 1970s and after, he had success as a character actor in thrillers and crime stories, his films including 'Above the Law,' 'The Package' and 'The Fugitive.' Barge was also a consultant for Martin Scorsese's documentary 'The Blues.' When the musician was in his 80s, Public Enemy's Chuck D called him 'the flyest octogenarian I know.' The eldest of eight children, James Gene Barge was born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, and dreamed of professional football before playing clarinet with his high school marching band inspired him to try music. He took up the tenor saxophone shortly after ending a two-year stint in the Air Force and right before enrolling in West Virginia State College: His father, a welder in the Norfolk Navy Yard, had been given one by a visiting British World War II soldier. 'The saxophone was the instrument, coming up, that had the sound closest to the human voice,' Barge told Virginia Living in 2007. 'It was the one with the impact. It was the featured instrument in the band, so that was the one you wanted to play.' By the 1950s, Barge was jamming with local jazz and rhythm and blues groups and leading the Gene Barge Band. The release of his instrumental 'Country,' a minor hit in 1955, helped bring on a bigger commercial breakthrough. Rhythm and blues singer Chuck Willis invited him to join his touring band and brought him to a recording session for Atlantic Records in New York. Willis was recording the sinuous 'C.C. Rider,' which topped the R&B charts in 1957 and was covered by Elvis Presley, the Grateful Dead and many others. The studio saxophone player wasn't working out, so Barge stepped in. 'They did 27 takes and weren't satisfied. So Chuck said, 'Look, why don't you just let Gene run down one to get the feel,'' he told Virginia Living. 'So I ran down one and they said, 'Hold on, that's it, you got it. Let's cut it.' ... And two or three takes later, man, we had cut the song.' Barge had even greater success a few years later. He had returned to Norfolk, working with a Legrand label owner Frank Guida and forming the Church Street Five, named for a major city roadway. The Church Street musicians would cut an instrumental, 'A Night With Daddy G,' that was the basis of 'Quarter to Three' and led to Barge's professional nickname. 'Daddy G' originally referred to a local preacher, Bishop 'Daddy' Grace, one of whose churches was near Legrand and the site for local shows that included members of the Church Street Five. 'A Night With Daddy G' was a driving dance track led by Barge's hot tenor sax and influenced by New Orleans rhythm and blues. Bonds, a fellow Legrand artist and childhood friend of Barge's, loved the song. But he thought it needed lyrics, writing in his memoir 'By U.S. Bonds' that it lacked a 'catchy phrase that makes you anticipate the entire melody.' 'The players were setting up and they started playing 'A Night With Daddy G,'' Bonds wrote of the studio session, 'and I started singing some nonsense and it occurred to me that maybe I could add some words.' 'Quarter to Three,' a No. 1 hit in 1961, became a rock standard and a featured part of Bruce Springsteen's concerts. Now known to many as 'Daddy G,' Barge would collaborate on other hits with Bonds, including 'School Is Out' and 'Dear Lady Twist,' and work with a wide range of artists over the following decades. With Chicago's Chess Records, he played on such hits as Fontella Bass' 'Rescue Me' and produced albums by Waters and Little Milton among others. With Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, he arranged the gospel favorites 'Lord Don't Move the Mountain,' by Inez Andrews, and the Beautiful Zion Baptist Church's 'I'll Make It Alright.' Barge's Chicago connection helped lead to his work with Natalie Cole, daughter of Nat 'King' Cole. He befriended the writing-producing team of Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancey and helped produce and arrange the 1970s albums 'Natalie' and 'Unpredictable' among others. In a 2023 podcast with his daughter Gina, Barge remembered the late singer as 'one of the most talented' performers he worked with and most intelligent, 'very knowledgeable' about the music business in part because of her father. Barge's own album, 'Dance With Daddy G,' came out in 1965. More recently, he self-released 'Olio,' which included cameos from bluesman Buddy Guy and soul star Otis Clay, and he was on stage often as a member of the Chicago Rhythm and Blues Kings. 'I'm sitting here looking at my horn now, feeling guilty because I didn't get enough practice time in today — I'm mad because I didn't write a song, or the intro to a song. I got things to do. I'm not looking back,' Barge told Virginia Living. 'My philosophy is that you've got to move forward, stay contemporary, read, keep up with the young people. Because that's the future.'
New York Times
05-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Gene Barge, R&B Saxophonist Who Played on Landmark Hits, Dies at 98
Gene Barge, one of the last surviving saxophonists of the golden age of R&B, whose career ran the gamut of 20th-century Black popular music, died on Sunday at his home in Chicago. He was 98. His death was confirmed by his daughter Gina Barge. Known by the nickname Daddy G, Mr. Barge played on landmark hits of the rock and soul era, beginning with Chuck Willis's swinging remake of the blues standard 'C.C. Rider.' Galvanized by Mr. Barge's moaning tenor saxophone, 'C.C. Rider' reached No. 1 on the R&B chart in 1957 and stalled just outside the Top 10 on the pop chart. In 1963, Mr. Barge was featured on Jimmy Soul's calypso-derived 'If You Wanna Be Happy,' a No. 1 pop and R&B hit. Mr. Barge also played the wailing tenor part on Fontella Bass's 'Rescue Me' (1965) and supplied the rhythmic drive, with members of the Motown house band the Funk Brothers, for Jackie Wilson's 'Your Love Keeps Lifting Me (Higher and Higher)' (1967). Both records topped the R&B chart and crossed over to become Top 10 pop hits. His greatest acclaim, though, came in 1961 with 'Quarter to Three,' a No. 1 pop single recorded with the R&B shouter Gary U.S. Bonds. Hoping to capitalize on the success of 'New Orleans,' his first big hit, Mr. Bonds created 'Quarter to Three' by adding lyrics to 'A Night With Daddy G,' a churning instrumental that Mr. Barge had recently written and recorded with his band the Church Street Five. 'Oh, don't you know that I danced/I danced 'til a quarter to 3/With the help, last night, of Daddy G,' Mr. Bonds sings on the opening chorus. ('A Night With Daddy G' would prove doubly auspicious when Dion borrowed its melody for 'Runaround Sue,' a finger-snapping wonder that topped the pop chart in late 1961.) Despite having the benefit of Mr. Barge's snaking saxophone runs — and despite the record's affinity with the twist dance craze of the day — 'Quarter to Three' was an unlikely sensation. Muffled and lo-fi, it sounded as if it had been recorded in a bathroom or a stairwell. 'This record is fuzzy, muzzy and distorted,' the British television producer Jack Good wrote in a 1961 issue of Disc, the popular weekly music magazine later absorbed into Record Mirror. 'According to present-day technical standards it is appalling. However, for my money, the disc is not just good, it's sensational and revolutionary.' Mr. Good's assessment of the record proved prescient. An exuberant fusion of doo-wop, Black gospel and incipient frat rock, 'Quarter to Three' not only inspired the big-beat rock 'n' roll of the Beatles and the garage-rock of bands like the Kingsmen and the Sir Douglas Quintet. It also provided a blueprint for the sax-and-vocal exchanges between Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen, a rapturous call and response that came to define the E Street Band, which often performed 'Quarter to Three' in concert. Breaking into pop music when the saxophone was ascendant (and before it was supplanted by the electric guitar), Mr. Barge was as distinctive and versatile a stylist as King Curtis, if less well known. Over six decades, he played on or produced records by Muddy Waters, the Chi-Lites and the incendiary Detroit funk band Black Merda. He also toured with Ray Charles, Bo Diddley and the Rolling Stones. Sources differ as to how Mr. Barge came to be known as Daddy G. The sobriquet, though, was already gaining traction before the release of 'Quarter to Three,' when the Philadelphia disc jockey Hy Lit adopted 'A Night With Daddy G' as the theme song for his radio show. Shortly afterward, the doo-wop group the Dovells paid homage to Mr. Barge on their 1961 hit 'Bristol Stomp,' singing, 'We ponied and twisted and we rocked with Daddy G.' James Gene Barge Jr. was born on Aug. 9, 1926, in Norfolk, Va., the oldest of eight children of James and Thelma (Edwards) Barge. His father played banjo and worked as a welder in the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. His mother managed the home. Mr. Barge played clarinet in high school and took up the saxophone only after his father brought home a waterlogged tenor that he had found on a torpedo-damaged ship. He was 20 at the time and had just completed two years in the Army Air Forces. After graduating from West Virginia State College in 1950 with a degree in music, he taught high school and pursued music as an avocation. Jazz was a formative influence, especially the effervescent phrasing of the great tenor saxophonist Lester Young. The first recordings Mr. Barge made under his own name were a pair of instrumentals for Checker, a subsidiary of Chess Records, in 1956. 'Country,' his first single, was a hit along the Eastern Seaboard. 'When Chess heard it, they said, 'What the hell is that?' Mr. Barge said of the record in a 2007 interview with Virginia Living magazine. 'They had never heard a saxophone sound like that before. They even gave it a word: funk. That was the reputation I got — that Gene Barge could play funky.' Around 1960 Mr. Barge began his brief but fruitful association with the producer Frank Guida, whose Legrand label released 'A Night With Daddy G' and Mr. Bonds's early singles. Mr. Barge and Mr. Bonds had a second major hit together with 'School Is Out,' which reached the Top 10 in 1961, but enjoyed only modest success after that. In 1964, as independent record labels with national distribution increasingly dominated regional markets, Mr. Barge abandoned teaching — and Norfolk's small Legrand imprint — and moved to Chicago to work for Chess Records. While there he played on R&B hits like Little Milton's 'Grits Ain't Groceries' and Koko Taylor's 'Wang Dang Doodle' and produced albums, including Buddy Guy's acclaimed 1967 effort, 'Left My Blues in San Francisco.' In the late 1960s, he also directed the musical ensemble of the Chicago chapter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Operation Breadbasket, an organization headed locally by the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Mr. Barge later ran the gospel division of Stax Records and, over the ensuing decades, worked as a freelance musician, producer and arranger, most notably on Natalie Cole's Grammy-winning single 'Sophisticated Lady (She's a Different Lady).' In the late 1970s he took a detour into acting, working locally in Chicago (he made his screen debut in the independent 1978 film 'Stony Island') before eventually landing roles in Hollywood action thrillers like 'Under Siege' (1992) and 'The Fugitive' (1993). Mr. Barge remained active into the 2000s, serving as a consultant for Martin Scorsese's 2003 PBS documentary series 'The Blues' and playing on records like Public Enemy's 'Superman's Black in the Building' and with the avant-garde jazz trumpeter Malachi Thompson. 'Gene Barge is the flyest octogenarian I know,' Chuck D of Public Enemy told Virginia Living in 2007. 'To go from Muddy Waters to Public Enemy is a good trick.' In addition to his daughter Gina, Mr. Barge is survived by another daughter, Gail Florence; three siblings, Celestine Bailey, Kim Williamson and Milton Barge; two grandchildren; and several great-grandchildren. His wife, Sarah Barge, died in 2008. His first marriage ended in divorce. Mr. Barge's career might not have gotten off to the start it did with Chuck Willis's 'C.C. Rider' were it not for his patience and good humor. After playing the grinding riff on the demo that persuaded Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler of Atlantic Records to record it as a single, he was flown to New York for the session, only to find that another saxophonist had been hired instead. 'Ertegun and Wexler told me they were going to pay me, but they didn't want me to play,' Mr. Barge told Virginia Living. 'I went down to the liquor store, man, got me a pint and sat down on the floor to listen to them. They did 27 takes and weren't satisfied. So Chuck said, 'Look, why don't you let Gene run down one to get the feel?' So I ran down one and they said, 'Hold it, that's it, you got it. Let's cut it.''
