Hiram Bullock, jazz and rock guitarist, was born on September 11, 1955. He died on July 25, 2008, aged 52

To jazz fans around the world, Hiram Bullock was the high-energy guitarist who played with the fusion band of David Sanborn, toured with the charismatic pianist Carla Bley and brought searing electric guitar sounds to the latterday Gil Evans Orchestra. To rock record producers, and notably his mentor, Phil Ramone, Bullock was the man to call when you needed some distinctive guitar solos to add to the musical depth of albums by Steely Dan, Paul Simon, Sting and Barbra Streisand. To millions of American television viewers, Bullock was the cool guitarist on the Late Show with David Letterman house band who liked to play in bare feet when he could be bothered to turn up.

In Sanborn’s band Bullock would hurl himself around the stage, lie on the floor while playing and play with one hand, as well as developing a lifelong habit of rushing into the audience as he delivered his most exciting solos. He led an equally exhausting lifestyle and was no stranger to New York’s underground world of narcotics. Yet he continued to work at the highest professional level, and as well as performing with Sanborn, and the Brecker Brothers, he formed the 24th Street Band, which was particularly popular in his native Japan (he was born in Osaka), before going on to play with the keyboard player Paul Schaffer in the “World’s Most Dangerous Band”, that became Letterman’s studio group in 1982. Throughout the 1980s he released his own discs, starting in 1982 with First Class Vagabond and continuing with several albums for Atlantic Records. He succumbed to throat cancer and a hectic lifestyle.

Raymond Lefèvre, arranger, composer and conductor, was born on November 20, 1929. He died on June 27, 2008, aged 78

Raymond Lefèvre was a practitioner of the lushly orchestrated instrumental pop music that became popular in the 1960s and is best remembered for the hauntingly romantic strains of Soul Coaxin’ (Âme Câline), which became a big international hit in 1968. In 1956 he became staff arranger and conductor with the Paris-based Barclay Records and his first hit for the label under his own name came in 1958 with an instrumental version of Gilbert Bécaud’s The Day the Rains Came. He became a regular on French television with his orchestra, backing many of the biggest singers of the day including Dalida, Claude François and Richard Anthony.

Lefèvre took the baton for Monaco’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest on three consecutive occasions between 1961-63 and also conducted Luxembourg’s entry in 1970. But the peak of his popularity came in 1967-68 when he enjoyed success with easylistening instrumental versions of pop hits such as Puppet on a String, A Whiter Shade of Pale, La La La (He Gives Me Love), Soul Coaxin’ (Âme Câline) and La Reine de Saba (the Queen of Sheba). He enjoyed an equally successful career as a film composer, working most notably with the director Jean Girault on a number of movies starring Louis de Funès, including the Le Gendarme de Saint Tropez series.

Earl Nelson, singer, was born on September 8, 1928. He died on July 12, 2008, aged 79

Earl Nelson enjoyed chart hits under a variety of different names and guises. As the lead singer of the 1950s doo-wop group the Hollywood Flames he made the American Top 20 with Buzz Buzz Buzz. As one half of the soul duo Bob & Earl he found fame with Harlem Shuffle. And as Jackie Lee, he had a solo hit in the mid-1960s with the novelty dance number The Duck. He also had an unexpected influence on Bob Dylan and the Beatles. A 1958 tape of Dylan as a would-be high school rock’n’roller finds him singing Buzz Buzz Buzz, while George Harrison once declared that Harlem Shuffle was his favourite record of all time.

The “Bob” of Bob & Earl was Bobby Byrd, who also sang with the Hollywood Flames and had another band called Bobby Day and the Satellites. The personnel between the three acts was interchangeable, a useful ruse for live package shows. By changing names and clothes, Nelson and Byrd could appear on the bill three times in a night and pick up three performance fees.

When Byrd moved on to a solo career, Nelson reconstituted Bob & Earl with another “Bob”, Bobby Relf (obituary, Dec 14, 2007), and it was this duo which in 1963 recorded the soul classic Harlem Shuffle, which reflected the early Sixties vogue for dance instructions: “You move it to the left, then you go for yourself,/ You move it to the right if it takes all night,/ Now baby kinda slow with a whole lot of soul”. At the time it was only a minor hit but, assisted by a ringing endorsement from George Harrison, on its reissue in 1969 it made the British Top Ten. It has since been covered by everyone from the Righteous Brothers to the Rolling Stones.

Nelson was three times married. He is survived by his wife and nine children.