Gene Barge, renowned sax man and producer known as 'Daddy G,' dies at 98

Chicago Chess Records producer Gene Barge attends a screening of the film "Cadillac Records," about Chess, at AMC River East theatre, Nov. 24, 2008, in Chicago. (Keith Hale/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

NEW YORK — Gene “Daddy G” Barge, an admired and durable saxophone player, songwriter and producer who worked on hits by Natalie Cole, oversaw recordings by Muddy Waters, performed with the Rolling Stones and helped inspire the dance classic “Quarter to Three,” has died. He was 98.

He died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Chicago, according to daughter Gina Barge.

Barge’s career spanned much of the post-World War II era. He was in college jazz combos in the 1940s, backed Little Richard and James Brown when they were starting out, played a long, sweet solo on the ’50s standard “C.C. Rider” and collaborated with Gary “U.S.” Bonds on “Quarter to Three” and other ’60s party favorites. He later recorded with such blues greats as Waters, Buddy Guy and Willie Dixon, co-produced Cole’s Grammy Award-winning single “Sophisticated Lady,” toured with the Stones in the early 1980s and even played on Public Enemy’s “New Whirl Odor” album, for which he was credited as “the legendary Mr. Gene Barge.”

Often cited as a precursor to the E Street Band’s Clarence Clemons, he held rare status among saxophonists — so well known for a time that he was called out by name on two hits of the early ’60s — “Quarter to Three” and the uptempo doo-wop number “Bristol Stomp,” in which the Dovells sing: “It started in Bristol at a dee jay hop/They hollered and whistled never wanted to stop/We pony and twisted and we rocked with Daddy G.”

In the 1970s and after, he had success as a character actor in thrillers and crime stories, his films including “Above the Law,” “The Package” and “The Fugitive.” Barge was also a consultant for Martin Scorsese’s documentary “The Blues.”

When the musician was in his 80s, Public Enemy’s Chuck D called him “the flyest octogenarian I know.”

The eldest of eight children, James Gene Barge was born and raised in Norfolk, Virginia, and dreamed of professional football before playing clarinet with his high school marching band inspired him to try music. He took up the tenor saxophone shortly after ending a two-year stint in the Air Force and right before enrolling in West Virginia State College: His father, a welder in the Norfolk Navy Yard, had been given one by a visiting British World War II soldier.

“The saxophone was the instrument, coming up, that had the sound closest to the human voice,” Barge told Virginia Living in 2007. “It was the one with the impact. It was the featured instrument in the band, so that was the one you wanted to play.”

By the 1950s, Barge was jamming with local jazz and rhythm and blues groups and leading the Gene Barge Band. The release of his instrumental “Country,” a minor hit in 1955, helped bring on a bigger commercial breakthrough.

Rhythm and blues singer Chuck Willis invited him to join his touring band and brought him to a recording session for Atlantic Records in New York. Willis was recording the sinuous “C.C. Rider,” which topped the R&B charts in 1957 and was covered by Elvis Presley, the Grateful Dead and many others. The studio saxophone player wasn’t working out, so Barge stepped in.

“They did 27 takes and weren’t satisfied. So Chuck said, ‘Look, why don’t you just let Gene run down one to get the feel,’” he told Virginia Living. “So I ran down one and they said, ‘Hold on, that’s it, you got it. Let’s cut it.’ ... And two or three takes later, man, we had cut the song.”

Barge had even greater success a few years later. He had returned to Norfolk, working with a Legrand label owner Frank Guida and forming the Church Street Five, named for a major city roadway. The Church Street musicians would cut an instrumental, “A Night With Daddy G,” that was the basis of “Quarter to Three” and led to Barge’s professional nickname.

“Daddy G” originally referred to a local preacher, Bishop “Daddy” Grace, one of whose churches was near Legrand and the site for local shows that included members of the Church Street Five. “A Night With Daddy G” was a driving dance track led by Barge’s hot tenor sax and influenced by New Orleans rhythm and blues. Bonds, a fellow Legrand artist and childhood friend of Barge’s, loved the song. But he thought it needed lyrics, writing in his memoir “By U.S. Bonds” that it lacked a “catchy phrase that makes you anticipate the entire melody.”

“The players were setting up and they started playing ‘A Night With Daddy G,’” Bonds wrote of the studio session, “and I started singing some nonsense and it occurred to me that maybe I could add some words.”

“Quarter to Three,” a No. 1 hit in 1961, became a rock standard and a featured part of Bruce Springsteen’s concerts. Now known to many as “Daddy G,” Barge would collaborate on other hits with Bonds, including “School Is Out” and “Dear Lady Twist,” and work with a wide range of artists over the following decades.

With Chicago’s Chess Records, he played on such hits as Fontella Bass’ “Rescue Me” and produced albums by Waters and Little Milton among others. With Stax Records in Memphis, Tennessee, he arranged the gospel favorites “Lord Don’t Move the Mountain,” by Inez Andrews, and the Beautiful Zion Baptist Church’s “I’ll Make It Alright.”

Barge’s Chicago connection helped lead to his work with Natalie Cole, daughter of Nat “King” Cole. He befriended the writing-producing team of Chuck Jackson and Marvin Yancey and helped produce and arrange the 1970s albums “Natalie” and “Unpredictable” among others. In a 2023 podcast with his daughter Gina, Barge remembered the late singer as “one of the most talented” performers he worked with and most intelligent, “very knowledgeable” about the music business in part because of her father.

Barge’s own album, “Dance With Daddy G,” came out in 1965. More recently, he self-released “Olio,” which included cameos from bluesman Buddy Guy and soul star Otis Clay, and he was on stage often as a member of the Chicago Rhythm and Blues Kings.

“I’m sitting here looking at my horn now, feeling guilty because I didn’t get enough practice time in today — I’m mad because I didn’t write a song, or the intro to a song. I got things to do. I’m not looking back,” Barge told Virginia Living. “My philosophy is that you’ve got to move forward, stay contemporary, read, keep up with the young people. Because that’s the future.”

Hillel Italie, The Associated Press