Fleetwood Mac and David Lee Roth Band Keyboardist Brett Tuggle Has Died At the Age of 70

Another iconic musician has recently passed away. Brett Tuggle was the journeyman keyboardist for Fleetwood Mac for 20 years, in addition to serving as a founding member of the David Lee Roth Band in the Eighties. He died on June 19 from complications related to cancer at the age of 70. “He was loved by his family so much,” Tuggle’s son Matt told Rolling Stone. “His family was with him throughout the entire time of his illness. He was a lovely father. He gave me music in my life.”

Tuggle started with Fleetwood Mac in 1992 after he worked with Mick Fleetwood on a side project. From 1997 to 2007, he played keyboards for every single Fleetwood Mac tour. He also landed gigs with Stevie Nicks, Buckingham, and Buckingham McVie.

During his career, Tuggle played alongside many other famous artists, including Jimmy Page, Rick Springfield, David Coverdale, John Kay and Steppenwolf, Styx’s Tommy Shaw, and Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Many of them paid tribute to him on social media.

“Our sweet Brett Tuggle made it home tonight,” Rick Springfield wrote on Twitter. “God bless his beautiful spirit.”

Others he worked with had spoken highly of Tuggle throughout the years. “This guy is just a master,” Buckingham said of Tuggle in 2021. “He is a superb keyboardist, bassist, guitarist, singer. And he also brings so much clarity and integrity. There’s no way in the world we could do this [show] without him. We’ve never been able to do it without him, nor could we in the future. We love him to death.”

Tuggle had always known he wanted to be in the rock center business, especially in his younger life. “Like everyone else in the country, we got sucked in by the surf scene,” he told Rolling Stone in 2020. “The Beach Boys were a huge influence in junior high. I got sucked into the harmony thing with them. And like everybody else, pretty much, I saw the Beatles on TV and things were never the same.”

In 2021, Tuggle toured with Buckingham, but wasn’t able to attend when the tour started back up in April. “I do want to mention the gentleman who is noticeably absent from the stage tonight,” Buckingham told the crowd at the tour opener in San Francisco. “Mr. Brett Tuggle is having a little bit of a health problem. Hopefully he’ll be back for the next show, whatever it takes. We missed him tonight.”

Our thoughts and prayers are with Tuggle’s friends and family.

[Image credit: YouTube]

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