Dan McCafferty performing with Nazareth in Liverpool in 2012
Photo: Redferns via Getty Images, Ray Kilpatrick. All rights reserved.
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Dan McCafferty, founding member and ex-singer of Scottish hard rock band Nazareth, has died at the age of 76. This was announced by guitarist Pete Agnew on Instagram. “Dan passed away at 12:40 p.m. today,” Agnew wrote. “This is the saddest announcement I’ve ever had to make.”
“Maryann and the family have lost a wonderful, loving husband and father, I have lost my best friend, and the world has lost one of the greatest singers that ever lived,” he added. “I’m too agitated to say more now.”
Nazareth emerged from the cover band The Shadettes, formed in 1961 by Pete Agnew in the town of Dumfermline. McCafferty joined The Shadettes in 1965. After the band began to increasingly write their own songs, they renamed themselves Nazareth in 1970. The debut album “Nazareth” was released in 1971, and the band made their breakthrough with their third and fourth albums “Razamanaz” (1973) and “Hair of the Dog” (1975). Nazareth have released 25 studio albums so far.
MacCafferty left the band in 2013 for health reasons. He had previously collapsed on stage at a concert in Canada because of a ruptured stomach ulcer, and he was also suffering from the lung disease COPD. He can still be heard on the last album “Rock ‘n’ Roll Telephone” (2014), but live he was first replaced by Linton Osborn and since 2015 by Carl Sentance.
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