Clem Burke, whose versatile battery has propelled the emblematic blonde rock group during its decades by performing everything, from the punk of the new wave to the infused tunes, died. He was 70 years old.
The group said in a statement on his website on Monday that he had died of cancer, but no additional detail had been provided.
“Clem was not only a drummer; he was Blondie’s heart rate,” the group said in a statement. “His talent, her energy and his passion for music have been unrivaled, and his contributions to our sound and our success are immeasurable.”
The self -proclaimed “Rock & Roll Survivalist” started playing battery at the age of 14 in its school orchestra, but was expelled for playing too hard, according to the Blondie website. In the 1970s, he responded to an announcement of a group in the voice of the village in search of a rock drummer “Freak Energy”, launching his career for several decades with the main singer Debbie Harry and the rest of her blonde comrades.
The group recorded its first album in 1976 and the following year toured icons such as Iggy Pop and David Bowie. He became known as the most successful commercial group to emerge from a fertile rock scene from New York which also produced speaking heads and raones.
In 2006, Burke and the other original Blondie members were inducted at Rock & Roll Hall of Fame after having sold more than 42 million records, according to the Blondie website.
At the end of the 1970s and early 1980s, the group made eight best shots, including four n ° 1: “Heart of Glass”, “Call Me”, “The Tide is high” and “Rapure”, which was considered the first hit n ° 1 to present a rap. There is also a 1975 album demonstration of 1975 which includes “Platinum Blonde”, a kind of group mission statement. But the Burke brand was particularly solidified with its fast and powerful battery at the start of “Dreaming” in 1979.
In 2022, after having managed a new treasure treasure of bands, cassettes and coil discs with coil, the group created the box “Blondie: against the chances, 1974-1982”, “ With 124 titles and 36 recordings, demos, outings and versions previously remixed from the six Blondie initial studio albums.
Burke has thought about the discovery in an article by the Associated Press: “We would never have thought that we would always be here today. Looking back our archives, it’s quite surprising.”
The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame described Burke in a post Monday on the social platform X as “a versatile and distinctive drummer who played exactly what each song needed – and, when it is called, let go with punk rock crash”.
