Career
He was posthumously inducted to the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame in 2006. In 1970 he took part in Joe Cocker"s Mad Dogs and Englishmen tour. Radle was instrumental in facilitating Clapton"s return to recording and touring in 1974.
During Clapton"s three-year hiatus, Radle furnished him with a supply of tapes of musicians with whom he"d been working.
Dick Sims and Jamie Oldaker were musicians who became the core of Clapton"s band during the 1970s. Radle served as more than a sideman, acting also as arranger on several songs, notably "Motherless Children".
Radle was a session musician for many of the most famous blues rock and rock and roll artists in the 1970s. He can be seen in the film The Concert for Bangladesh.
Recordings from that concert were released as an album in 1972.
During just those two years, by the time the album The Concert for Bangladesh was released, Radle had recorded albums with Dave Mason, J. J. Cale, George Harrison, Joe Cocker, Leon Russell, and Buddy Guy, among others He can be seen in Martin Scorsese"s 1978 film The Last Waltz, which documented the final concert of the Band, held in 1976. Over the course of his career, Radle played on a number of gold and platinum singles and albums and garnered the respect of many musicians.
His bass lines were often simple and repetitive, but always with the purpose of supporting the song.
Radle was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and died in May 1980 from a kidney infection, exacerbated by the effects of alcohol and narcotics. He was 37.