Founding member of The Masters Apprentices Gavin Webb dies aged 77 after cancer battle
Adelaide’s music scene is in mourning following the death of one of the founding members of legendary band The Masters Apprentices.
Entertainment
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The Masters Apprentices founding member Gavin Webb has been remembered for his “incredible musical legacy” following his death on Tuesday.
The rock pioneer died in Royal Adelaide Hospital on Tuesday after a six-year battle with cancer aged 77.
The band’s remaining members, Mick Bower, Brian Vaughton and Rick Morrison, released a statement paying tribute to Webb as a “softly spoken” man whose musical talents will live on forever.
“Gavin entered our lives 60 years ago. He joined our band as a bassist and from that moment became a member of our family; our brother. We will greatly miss our Gavin and treasure the life-long bond we will share forever,” the statement said.
“Even though Gavin was softly spoken, what few words he did say, he would always make count. Gavin’s band dossier from 1966 says his personal ambition is to ‘be a good musician’, a humble dream he would go on to transcend.
“Gavin leaves behind an incredible musical legacy which will live forever in Australia’s music history.”
Born in Adelaide on June 22, 1946, Webb joined instrumental band The Mustangs, alongside fellow musicians Bower, Vaughton and Rick Morrison in 1965.
The group would add lead singer Jim Keays in January, 1966, transforming into one of Australia’s most influential bands of all time, The Masters Apprentices.
The Adelaide-based rockers would move to Melbourne in 1967 and take Australia by storm, soaring to the top of the charts with classics such as Turn Up Your Radio and Because I Love You.
Webb’s distinctive bass lines feature in some of their seminal hits including Undecided, Wars or Hands of Time, Buried and Dead, Hot Gully Wind, Elevator Driver and 1967 national song of the year Living in A Child’s Dream.
Psychedelic gem Because I Love You, recorded at Abbey Road studios in London, proved to be The Masters Apprentices’ most enduring song, and was also used in a number of television ads.
In March 1968, Webb married Suzette Belle, previously president of the Beatles Australian Fan Club, and they welcomed son Benjamin in November.
Webb left the band because of stomach ulcers in April 1968, and was replaced by Glenn Wheatley until the Apprentices split in 1972.
Webb rejoined the group in 1986 for a series of 20th anniversary reunion tours.
In 2014, the original lineup reunited for their induction into the South Australian Music Hall of Fame, just weeks after the death of Keays, who died aged 67 from pneumonia following complications from cancer.
The remaining original members of The Masters Apprentices would perform in tribute to Keays with Mark Holden’s brother Craig Holden out front.
They were also inducted into the ARIA Music Awards Hall of Fame in 1998.
Webb is survived by his son Benjamin and partner Sharon, Gavin’s grandchildren Lucy, Noah and Matthew, nephews Darren and Jarrad, his brother Darrel’s wife Jeanette Webb. Darrel died in 2021.
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