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Budgie's (John) Burke Shelley has passed away

#4
Awful news. Budgie is one of those bands a lot of people discovered late in the game. I only learned of them ten years ago, but since then I've been a big fan of Burke Shelley.

Burke Shelley, vocalist and bassist of Budgie, has died at the age of 71 | Guitar.com | All Things Guitar

In 2020, Shelley revealed that he was suffering from an aortic aneurysm, as well as the underlying genetic condition Stickler Syndrome. He told Wales Online at the time that he had turned down surgery for his aortic aneurysm, as it carried the risk of irreparable spinal damage. “I want to live what life I have left and not be crippled,” he said. “I’ve got faith in God and have no worries about where I’m going. So I’ll just go when He decides to take me and, in the meantime, I’ll carry on doing what I want to do. Simple as that.”
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#5
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#7
Spectrum said:
Awful news. Budgie is one of those bands a lot of people discovered late in the game. I only learned of them ten years ago, but since then I've been a big fan of Burke Shelley.

Burke Shelley, vocalist and bassist of Budgie, has died at the age of 71 | Guitar.com | All Things Guitar
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thx for the cool posts! he/they were definitely worth discovering at any point, I really admire the guy for living his rock n roll dream to the end. they were incredibly consistent despite being bare bones their entire career like UK counterparts Black Sabbath at the start, Burke always had a great sound and kept that same P bass from day 1.
my Budgie story; I got on board with In For The Kill and never looked back except to find the little nuggets I'd missed. by the time they hit the US I was long gone but flew into LA for the Starwood show only to be thwarted every which way beyond possible and get there just as they walked off the stage... to make it worse I blew catching them outside afterwards plus the other few shows they did in the area (THE GOLDEN BEAR fer crisakes!!) cos who knew? worse, that was Tony's exit from the band, at least I was lucky to hear about the one gig then get a ticket and have a shot at getting from Oahu to LA. that mega whif was almost as tragic as losing Burke, but incredibly, those shows came out on CD decades later and we get to hear them kick ass forever.
 
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