Joe B Mauldin

American bass player, songwriter, and audio engineer who was best known as the bassist for the early rock and roll group The Crickets. He was one of the founding members of The Crickets, the others being Buddy Holly, drummer Jerry Allison, and guitarist Niki Sullivan. Mauldin initially played a double (standup) bass, then switched to a Fender Precision Bass guitar. After Holly's death in 1959, Mauldin played on and off as an original Cricket with J.I. Allison, Sonny Curtis, Glen D. Hardin, and occasionally Niki Sullivan. After several years with The Crickets, he became a recording engineer at Gold Star Studios, the Los Angeles studio which became the "hit factory" for Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, and other major 1960s rock performers. Mauldin was inducted into the West Texas Walk of Fame in Lubbock and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, as an original Cricket. In 2012, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the Crickets by a special committee which corrected the mistake of not including the Crickets with Buddy Holly when he was first inducted in 1986. Mauldin died of cancer on 7 February 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee at the age of 74. Link to Wikipedia biography