Andy Rourke Dies: The Smiths Bassist Was 59

Andy Rourke, the bass player for the Smiths, died today of pancreatic cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. He was 59.

His death was announced by his former bandmate, the Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, who said in a statment on social media, “Andy will be remembered as a kind and beautiful soul and as a supremely gifted musician.”

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The moody band from Manchester, England, whose jangly guitar sound, steady post-punk rhythms and mordantly humorous lyrics sung in a dark-of-night baritone by frontman Morrissey, was one of the most influential rock bands of the 1980s, scoring multiple hit records in the UK and becoming a mainstay in the U.S. of what was then the fledgling college radio circuit.

Rourke was a member of the band throughout its relatively short run of 1983-87, and added his melodic bass playing to all four of the band’s studio albums: The Smiths (1984), Meat Is Murder (1985), The Queen Is Dead (1986) and Strangeways, Here We Come (1987).

After the Smiths came to an acrimonious end — reportedly caused, at least in part, by Rourke’s drug use — years of lawsuits followed. But music did too: Rourke played bass, sometimes with Smiths drummer Mike Joyce, for such artists as Sinéad O’Connor, Pretenders and Badly Drawn Boy, among others.

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“Not only the most talented bass player I’ve ever had the privilege to play with,” tweeted Joyce, “but the sweetest, funniest lad I’ve ever met. Andy’s left the building, but his musical legacy is perpetual.”

Information of survivors was not immediately known.

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