Joe Sample, a soft-spoken keyboard player and composer whose blending of funk, blues, jazz, gospel and the Zydeco music of his childhood lent a distinctive sound to his well-known group, the Crusaders, has died. He was 75.
Sample died Friday at a Houston hospital of lung cancer, his manager, Patrick Rains, told The Associated Press.
The musician had struggled with serious health problems over the years, suffering two heart attacks and a lengthy bout with Epstein-Barr virus, a condition that results in crippling fatigue.
Even so, he took his recently formed Creole Joe Band on tour last year and was planning a musical based on the life of Henriette DeLille, founder of an African-American nuns’ order that started orphanages and schools, including one attended by Sample in Houston’s Fifth Ward.
Sample also was an advocate for her canonization.