Sky Saxon is Dead

Saxon died on June 25, 2009, in an Austin, Texas hospital. He had been hospitalized with what doctors suspected was an infection of the internal organs, but the cause of death has not yet been released. He was reported to be 63 years old.

Saxon was born Richard Elvern Marsh in Salt Lake City, Utah. Different sources suggest a birth year of 1937, 1945or 1946. His widow has said that his birthday was August 20, but would not confirm the year because he believed age was irrelevant.
He began his career performing doo-wop pop tunes in the early 1960s under the name Little Richie Marsh. After changing his name to Sky Saxon, he formed the Electra-Fires in 1962 and then Sky Saxon & the Soul Rockers.

In 1965, Saxon founded the psychedelic flower power band The Seeds with Jan Savage (guitar), Rick Andridge (keyboards) and Darryl Hooper (drums).Hit songs for Saxon and the Seeds included "Can't Seem to Make You Mine" and "(You're) Pushin' Too Hard", which became a top 40 song in 1967. Saxon's singing performance has been dismissed by critics like Lester Bangs of Rolling Stone Magazine as an American imitation of Mick Jagger,while others considered it a more complicated synthesis of Jagger, Eddie Cochran and Buddy Holly.

The music on the Seeds 1966 albums The Seeds and A Web of Sound has been described as "weird psychotic blues highlighting Sky's demented vocal sermonizing."