Larry Bales has died.............

[Jerry Hayes]

I got a call from one of my old SoCal buds informing me that our old friend Larry Bales had passed away. To anyone who didn't know him, he was a total kick in the rear and one of the nicest and talented of the pickers of old. He was mostly known in SoCal as a bass player, vocalist, song writer and comedian. Larry had some good lines that he'd say on the bandstand such as " See ol' Judy there, she's the waitress with the BIG TIPS"....... or one time he introduced me as being so dumb that I thought POONTANG was the capitol of Viet Nam ..... We did quite a few gigs together and I'll miss him a bunch. He'd bought a house in Las Vegas a few years ago and the wife and I had a good visit with him and his the last time we were there. Some of you might have met him in St. Louis at Scotty's as Gene Fields would hire Larry to hang around the GFI booth to play bass at some of the jams in that room.......... RIP Larry, you were a good 'un...........JH in Va.

[Rick Jackson]

Sorry to hear about Larry, he was a funny man...rj

[Larry Bressington]

Sorry to hear Jerry, he sounds like a true showman with lots of style, sense of humour and personality. May he rest peacefully.

[Jerry Hayes]

I'm lucky that I have a VCR tape we made at the Golden West at a benefit for our deceased sax/fiddle man Hank Cochram in the eighties. Larry was on bass and got to sing a couple and be his own funny self. I'm going to get it transfered to a CD at some point as my VCR is about to bite the big one.........JH in Va.

[Joe Naylor]

R I P Larry, one of my memories was he came to the Phoenix Steel Guitar show a few years ago. I was emceeing and he was playing bass for a couple guys. We got to cutting up and about forgot to start the next steel player - finally the steel player ( Blackie Taylor) - said Joe ya gonna me pick and flashed me that half a grin - that put us behind schedule but just loved to cut up with him

[Jerry Malvern]

He did a couple of gigs for me when the Starlight Wranglers were working. I had a good conversion with him at Blackies memorial. Sad news.