Clarence Reid, the genius known both by his given name and as Blowfly, the Master of Class, passed peacefully today, January 17th, in his hospice room.
His sister Virginia and I thank you for all the love you have shown this week. We also thank you for supporting Clarence's 50 + year music career - especially these last few years. We love you and will keep you informed on services and tribute performances in Clarence's honor.
Nothing But Love,
Tom Bowker
Clarence Henry Reid (born February 14, 1939,Cochran, Georgia) is an American musician, songwriter andproducer, also known by the stage name and alternate persona Blowfly.
During the 1960s and 1970s Reid wrote for and produced artists including Betty Wright, Sam & Dave, Gwen McCrae,Jimmy "Bo" Horne, Bobby Byrd, and KC & the Sunshine Band. During this period he was also a recording artist, cutting many of his own songs, including "Nobody But You Babe".
Reid wrote sexually explicit versions of hit songs for fun but only performed them for his friends at parties or in thestudio. In 1971, he along with a band of studio musicians recorded a whole album of dirty songs under the name Blowfly. The album, The Weird World of Blowfly, features Reid dressed as a low-rent supervillain on its cover. He created this alter ego to protect his career as a songwriter,[clarification needed] and continued to perform in bizarre costumes as his Blowfly character and continued to record sexually explicit albums throughout the 1970s/80s. The albums were widely popular as "party records". The explicit version of his song "Rapp Dirty" (a.k.a. "Blowfly's Rapp [sic]") helped the album Blowfly's Party reach #26 on Billboard magazine's Black Albums chart and #82 on the Billboard Top 200 in 1980.
Reid's daughter is former WNBA player Tracy Reid.
On January 12, 2016, Blowfly drummer "Uncle" Tom Bowker announced in a statement on the Blowfly Facebook page that Reid was suffering from terminal liver cancer and had been admitted to a hospice facility in Florida. According to Bowker, the singer will release his final LP - entitled 77 Trombones - in February of 2016
