‘The Cowbell King’: Memorial service today to celebrate the life of Lloyd Pinchback, who played with Chuck Brown

On April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, then-19-year-old Southeast DC musician Lloyd Ashley Pinchback played onstage with singer/guitarist Chuck Brown for the first time. Brown, who died in 2012, is now widely known as the “Godfather of Go-Go,” but in 1968 he was just a member of a band called Los Latinos. Pinchback, who played flute, saxophone and cowbell, subsequently joined Brown in a new band called the Soul Searchers, played on their first two albums, and performed numerous gigs with the band.

Pinchback, who had albinism and was legally blind, died at age 71 on Feb. 9. After a show Feb. 8 at the Highland Community Entertainment Hall in Southeast with the go-go band Proper Utensils, with whom he had been playing since 2008, Pinchback returned to his home in Mitchellville, Maryland, and fell in the shower, hitting his head and dying immediately.

Pinchback — acclaimed by go-go fans as “The Cowbell King,” known to hip-hop connoisseurs for his frequently sampled composition “Ashley’s Roachclip” and appreciated by others for his work as a musical specialist at the Library of Congress on the archival collections of classical composer Franz Liszt and jazz pianist Billy Taylor — will be honored at a memorial service on Saturday, Feb. 22, at 11 a.m. at the Gold Room, a municipal event space in Glenarden, Maryland.

Pinchback, a published author, was one of five siblings in a musical family who grew up in the Parklands, which his younger brother Ron described as an “up-and-coming housing complex for young black families.” An older brother, the late Sid Pinchback, played guitar, and one sister, Helena, was a singer. Their father played sax in high school and their mother had been involved in music as well.

“My dad as a musician knew what that was like and encouraged my brothers to do their thing,” Ron said. “He never discouraged them and told them to go get a job. Both of them had successful careers in music.” 

Pinchback went to Ballou High School in Congress Heights where he played in the Ballou Cadets band. 

“They didn’t play any hip tunes, just John Philip Sousa-type stuff. He had this tacky uniform. It was nothing like the Ballou band of today,” Ron said. The band teacher, Mr. Smith, “had them doing fundamentals very well. I think Lloyd got some of his discipline for his instrument out of that.”

After high school Pinchback attended the DC Teachers College. There, as he describes in his 2013 book, The Soul Searchers, 1968-1978, A Decade of Memories, he met a conga player who encouraged the then-shy Pinchback to join him in musician jam sessions at clubs such as Dengani’s Den in Adams Morgan and Chase’s Lounge in Congress Heights. In March 1968, Pinchback’s father encouraged him to see a band at Chase’s. The band turned out to be Los Latinos, featuring timbales and conga percussionists, a bass player, and guitarist Chuck Brown. During a break, Pinchback’s dad told Brown how impressed he was with the band and mentioned that his son played flute and would like to sit in with the band.

A week later, on that grievous night when parts of DC went up in flames after King’s assassination earlier in the day, Pinchback sat in with Los Latinos and noted there was an eerie feel in the crowd that evening. As explained in the book, Pinchback joined the band a few weeks later, and by June was receiving phone calls from Brown, who encouraged Pinchback to join him and bass player John Euell in a new Motown-influenced band that Brown had formed. After he played briefly with both Los Latinos (which had a new guitarist and bassist) and Brown’s band, the Soul Searchers, Pinchback left Los Latinos and joined the Soul Searchers.

Pinchback also quit DC Teachers College and, per his brother Ron, turned down a scholarship to Oberlin College, which had a renowned music program. Pinchback made the decision to be a professional musician and not go to college without discussing it first with his family. Ron, referring to Pinchback joining Brown, said: “So you could say he went to the NFL straight out of high school. Lloyd was a natural musician. He blazed his own path.”

From 1968 to 1978, the Soul Searchers performed locally on a regular basis and nationally on occasion. They released the 1972 album We the People and 1974’s Salt of the Earth, both funky but not yet polyrhythmically go-go, the sound the band would adopt a few years later. In the DC area, the band would play weekly gigs at places including Northwest Gardens, the Panorama Room in Southeast, the Burgundy Room in Landover, Maryland, and the Masonic Temple on U Street. 

In 1978, Pinchback sensed that Brown was trying to force him out of the group and replace him with the flashier Leroy Fleming, who had been in the popular DC band Young Senators. Pinchback — happy with the day job he had started in 1976 at the Library of Congress and concerned that the atmosphere at gigs was worsening due to an incident at one performance in which one patron shot at another — decided to leave the band. 

He was replaced by Fleming, who played on the third album of the renamed group, Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers. The title track, Bustin’ Loose, became a hit and brought the band national attention. While the band originally recorded the song with Pinchback in 1976, the earlier version was never released.

Pinchback rejoined Chuck Brown & the Soul Searchers in 1980, apparently less worried about his earlier qualms and willing to play alongside Fleming. But he left again in 1982 at a point when the band had gone through further membership changes and Pinchback no longer found it as satisfying. At this point he was focused on his day job, local freelance gigs and his family, which included three children. From 1982 until he joined Proper Utensils in 2008, he played intermittently in several bands with former Soul Searchers drummer Ken Scoggins; the two of them also backed up several doo-wop groups. Pinchback also played briefly with former Wilson Pickett hornman Curtis Pope’s band the Midnight Movers.

Multi-instrumentalist John “J.B.” Buchanan — who played with Pinchback in the Soul Searchers, Proper Utensils and Mother’s Band — said he was always “steady and focused. Serene, very cool. I can’t remember him getting angry or raising his voice.” Pinchback “had an absolute perfect sense of rhythm … and was a pioneer with the cowbell,” Buchanan added. “Lloyd syncopated that rhythm on the cowbell, and it became an integral part of the go-go crank sound. With Proper Utensils we have a full-time percussionist but when Pinchback played his cowbell, that guy put his down. He would get the crowd going. He was called ‘The Cowbell King.’”

James Funk, a vocalist with Proper Utensils and Rare Essence, said Pinchback stood out as a master on the cowbell. “Everyone emulated his cowbell playing,” Funk said. “I even took Rare Essence to see him perform in their very early stages.” Funk was also impressed with Pinchback’s horn sound: “That resonance in his sax and flute playing. Most horn players didn’t have that.” Funk noted that Pinchback was always peaceful and had a subtle but effective sense of humor. 

Pinchback’s Library of Congress colleagues Kate Rivers, Alicia Patterson and Raymond White wrote in a co-signed email that they were impressed with his musical “versatility,” stating that he worked with the manuscripts of Aaron Copland, opera scores and jazz music. They, too, appreciated his dry wit. 

His brother Ron said Pinchback “did not have a degree in music but understood intellectually what it was about. He had a very keen intellect on a variety of things. He added something to the [Library of Congress]. Lloyd had always been curious about music. He listened to Henry Mancini and Miklos Rozsa, the guy who wrote the score for Ben-Hur,” an indication of his broad tastes.

“My brother had tenacity and talent, and those two ingredients helped him forge his path musically. But he also had that side of him that was relaxed and confident and allowed him to interact with people very easily,” Ron added. “He succeeded despite the odds: My brother was legally blind, an albino, and there was something extremely unique and strong about him. I guess the Lord needs a horn player who can play cowbell. Glad he didn’t have to suffer.”

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The memorial service for Lloyd Ashley Pinchback will be held on Saturday, Feb. 22, at 11 a.m. at The Gold Room in the James R. Cousins Jr. Municipal Center, 8600 Glenarden Parkway, Glenarden, Maryland.

This post has been updated to provide more details in the photo captions.