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Martin’s death stuns his friends
Tucson musicians are reeling from the loss of one of their own.
Wade Martin, singer/guitarist with the band Damn Straight, died Friday of a brain aneurysm. He would have turned 43 this past Monday.
”We’re all just pretty shocked by this thing,” said Kevin Pakulis of the band Rancho Deluxe.
”He was everybody’s friend,” said musician and longtime friend Deacon. ”You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who didn’t like Wade.
”He was a pillar in the music community,” said Dennis Dorman of the band Rodeo. ”I can’t say enough about him as a person and as a musician.”
”Wade was a very well-respected musician,” said Chuck Maultsby of Combo Chameleon. ”He was a fine entertainer, a fine musician and a fine singer.”
Damn Straight often played at Durango Saloon and Dance Hall. In the ’70s, Martin was lead singer in the Tucson rock group Isaiah.
”Wade was always a singer,” said Pakulis. ”Twenty years ago, he sounded more like Robert Plant than Robert Plant. Then he discovered country, and it was like bam! Let’s start a country band, man!”
Maultsby recalled the first time he saw Mr. Martin perform, in a lounge of a bowling alley that became The Wild Wild West nightclub (now the New West). ”Wade was singing ‘Can’t You See’ by the Marshall Tucker Band and it was fantastic,” Maultsby said. ”He nailed it.”
”And that was my first impression of Wade – how well he did that song. I guess it was his flagship song at the time.”
Not only did Mr. Martin share his talent with the music community, but his heart as well.
”He knew all the bluegrass players,” said Deacon, ”all country boys, a lot of the rock ‘n’ rollers and most of the bluesers. I’ll bet he sold a guitar to just about every other guitar player in town.”
”Vocally,” said Pakulis, ”I always thought that he could go the distance, but he just chose not to. He had tremendous enthusiasm for the business at the local level. Maybe that’s why he had so much enthusiasm, because he wasn’t always thinking of the next level.” Last year, Mr. Martin opened a music store, West Side Music.
”He felt happy about settin’ into a pawn shop and catchin’ a few rare finds,” Deacon said. ”He had a huge guitar collection, some righteous guitars, some vintage guitars, much coveted guitars.”
George Lugo, a drummer and friend of Mr. Martin, spoke of a special Fender Stratocaster guitar that Mr. Martin was fond of but had to sell. It was sold to several others before Mr. Martin recently was able to buy it back.
”There’s some kind of religion,” Lugo continued, ”that says, when you have something that you really, really love and you sell it but it comes back to you, it’s called going full circle. You’re done.”
Yesterday, Mr. Martin was buried with that Stratocaster.
(Dated Jul 23, 1997)
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Bluesman Bobby Taylor put his heart into music
Local singer Bobby Taylor, leader of the Real Deal Band and son of renowned bluesman Sam Taylor, died Monday of a heart attack while playing basketball.
Mr. Taylor was 35 and left four children, all of Tucson.
”The Taylor family was born and raised on music,” said wellknown blues personality Terry O’.
Sam Taylor, 63, came to Tucson in 1987 and almost instantly became a patriarch in the local scene.
”Bobby was a little more rhythm and blues, a little soul, a little country. A lot of people around town knew Bobby’s music. He was more on variety than his dad. He tried real hard.”
Bobby Taylor’s grandfather, Sam ”The Man” Taylor, was a noted New York City saxophonist who played on many classic blues recordings.
”Bobby and his band had a very, very large and loyal following,” said Lynnette Bennett of the Tucson Blues Society.
”One of the things Bobby was able to do was make his music available every night of the week,” she added. ”And that’s something not every band can do or will do. It sounds sort of corny, but it is reaching people.”
Bennett said Mr. Taylor was very outgoing and friendly.
”He was very upfront in his dealings with the clubs, the club owners and his fans,” she said. ”By upfront I mean honest. Music isn’t particularly an honest business, but he was an honest person and he gave his heart to it.
The Tucson Blues Society, local musicians, and friends and fans of Bobby and Sam Taylor are collecting donations to help the family with funeral arrangements.
According Kathy Warner, coowner of Boondocks, Sam Taylor wishes to bury his son in New York City. It was there, at the Apollo Theater, that Mr. Taylor won a singing contest before moving to Tucson in the late 1980s.
Contributions and donations may be taken to Boondocks, 3306 N. First Ave. For more information, call 690-0991.
In addition, all Arizona Bank locations will accept donations for the Taylor Family Fund.
Various local bands will pass the hat this week for the Taylor family, and benefits may be planned.
Bobby Taylor’s death will have an impact on the local music scene, said Terry O’.
”Bobby was a well-respected musician, as well as his father, Sam, and they’ve done a lot for this community as far as music and smiles and blues.
”It’s a loss to the community not only with Bobby passing away but with Sam in New York.”
PHOTO: Photo courtesy Randy Lowery
Local singer Bobby Taylor died Monday of a heart attack.
(Dated Jul 23, 1997)
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Arizona arachnid expert a mentor to many
Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he lived to see the birth of his twin sons in May.
Vincent D. Roth, a well-known Arizona spider expert who wrote a guide to the arachnids of North America and inspired scores of students and researchers, will be remembered in a memorial service Aug. 16.
Mr. Roth died Sunday of cancer at his Portal home. He was 73, but ”never felt it except in his last week,” said his wife, Barbara Roth.
The service will be from 2 to 4 p.m. at Southwestern Research Station near Portal.
Mr. Roth, who had enjoyed good health, learned he had pancreatic cancer in November – as his wife was completing her first trimester of pregnancy.
She is grateful he saw the birth of their twin sons, Taran (as in tarantula) and Daniel, May 13.
”Vince was with me when they were born. They just came at the right time,” she said.
”There were really some good times” in the last months, she said.
Before retiring in 1986, Mr. Roth headed the American Museum of Natural History’s Portal research station, 150 miles southeast of Tucson, for 23 years.
Hundreds of research scientists and student volunteers from around the world go to the station each summer to pursue their work. Mr. Roth served as mentor to many.
Barbara Reger, a science teacher from Greenfield, Ind., and good friend to Mr. Roth, met him years ago at a meeting of the American Arachnology Society. She visited him shortly before he died Sunday.
Reger, in Tucson this week for the Invertebrates in Captivity Conference sponsored by the Sonoran Arthropod Studies Institute, said Mr. Roth remembered everyone he met and their areas of study.
From his files, he sent them articles and objects related to their interests.
”He strongly encouraged me in my tarantula research,” she said. ”He just took the time to explain things and give me advice.”
Steven Prchal, director of the Sonoran Arthropod Studies Institute, said, ”I first met him in 1970, and he was very generous in showing me what the station was all about.”
Mr. Roth was amazing at inspiring and motivating visiting scientists, Prchal said. He would take a research idea a scientist had, expand upon it and explain how to best pull it off, Prchal said.
Mr. Roth wrote countless research papers.
But Mr. Roth also was humble, Prchal said, quick to correct people who referred to him as ”doctor.” He had a master’s degree.
His wife said, ”We met people, and they never forgot him.”
He was dynamic and enthusiastic, she said.
The couple met in the 1970s when Mr. Roth placed a newspaper ad for a translator in Costa Rica. They married in 1977.
Barbara Roth, who had been afraid of spiders, was his assistant.
He is also survived by three adult daughters from an earlier marriage, Susan of Sierra Vista, Kristin of Tucson, and Kim Franklin of San Francisco; the twin infant boys; two grandchildren; and a sister, Wilma of Portland, Ore.
(Dated Aug 01, 1997)
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Cardiologist Douglas Schaber, 47
Services are today for Tucson General’s director of medical education.
Services are planned today for Dr. Douglas C. Schaber, a Tucson osteopathic cardiologist who died last week in a motorcycle accident. He was 47.
When he opened his heart practice in Tucson in 1985, Dr. Schaber was associated with Tucson General Hospital, the city’s osteopathic hospital, where he continued to serve as director of medical education until his death.
But last year he became part of a national trend that is seeing osteopathic and medical physicians work more closely. He joined one of Tucson’s largest medical cardiology groups, Pima Heart Associates, as the only osteopath on the 17-physician staff.
Active locally and nationally in osteopathic medical education, he was this spring elected president of the National Association of Osteopathic Directors and Medical Educators, was also a fellow of that group, and had served on the board of the Tucson Osteopathic Medical Foundation for nearly two years.
Dr. Schaber was born in Wheeling, W.Va. He graduated in 1978 from the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, where he finished his residency in internal medicine. After completing his cardiology fellowship training at the Cleveland Clinic in 1985, he moved with his family to Tucson to open his practice.
Described as ”intense” by the head of the osteopathic foundation, Lew Riggs, Dr. Schaber had been a pilot for 21 years, was an avid astronomy and amateur radio buff, and could appreciate a good cigar.
But he was pursuing another hobby, motorcycling, with a group of friends when he was struck head-on by an oncoming vehicle that swerved into his lane on state Route 77 just south of Globe on Thursday. He apparently died instantly of massive head injuries, Riggs said.
Dr. Schaber is survived by his wife, Gretchen; a son, Dustin, 11; and a daughter, Megan, 10; parents Henry and Dorothy Schaber of Wheeling, W.VA.; and a sister, Patricia, of Port Charlotte, Fla.
Today’s services are scheduled for 2 p.m. at Grace St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 2331 E. Adams St. Donations may be made to the Tucson Osteopathic Medical Foundation, 4780 N. Campbell Ave. 85718.
(Dated Aug 05, 1997)
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