David Turner of Bass-Cauthen Funeral Home in Rock Hill, South Carolina says the 'Disco Inferno' hitmaker, who reportedly was suffering from Alzheimer's, passed away at a nursing home.
- March 9, 2012
AceShowbiz -
Another sad news has come from the music world. Jimmy Ellis, the frontman of 70s' disco band The Trammps, has passed away at the age of 74 on Thursday, March 8. David Turner of Bass-Cauthen Funeral Home in Rock Hill, South Carolina told The Associated Press that he died at a nursing home in the city.
According to Turner, a memorial service for Ellis will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina on Friday, March 9. It is still unclear what might have caused his passing, but the Rock Hill Herald reported that the singer, who sang the refrain "Burn, baby burn!" in "Disco Inferno", had been suffering from Alzheimer's.
In memory of Ellis, fellow musician Johnnie "Boggie" King told the Rock Hill Herald, "To lose Ellis is to lose a legend." He went on to add, "['Disco Inferno'] and our Ellis - we call him Ellis, not Jimmy - is around somewhere. The cat just went to the mountaintop with that one song - and he never come back down."
Ellis and the Trammps released "Disco Inferno" in 1976. It wasn't until the song was added to the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, which won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978, in 1977 that they enjoyed chart success. In 1978, the song soared up to #11 on Billboard's Hot 100.
