Jack Russell, the founding singer of ’80s hair metal band Great White has died at the age of 63. The news was confirmed in an Instagram post on the official Jack Russell’s Great White account. Last month, Russell revealed in an Instagram post that he was battling dementia and Multiple System Atrophy, and announced his retirement from the road.
“With tremendous sadness, we announce the loss of our beloved Jack Patrick Russell — father, husband, cousin, uncle, and friend,” the statement said. Jack passed peacefully in the presence of his wife Heather Ann Russell, son Matthew Hucko, cousin Naomi Breshears Barbor, and dear friends Billy and Cheryl Pawelcik.”
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The statement said that the details of a public memorial will be announced at a later date.
Russell formed Jack Russell’s Great White after leaving Great White in 2001. In a statement posted on the Great White Instagram account, the band offered their “deepest condolences to the family of Jack Russell. We hope they take comfort in knowing Jack’s incredible voice will live on forever.”
“Jack really put his life in my hands,” his biographer, K. L. Doty, said in a statement. “We started out as acquaintances, but the nature of my role as the author of his life story made us fast friends. He had to be very candid with me about his past and that took a lot of trust on his part. I am honored to have had his trust on that level and I couldn’t have done it without him. He had to do the living, and I had to do the writing. Will love him forever as my friend.”
Born in California in 1960, Russell formed Great White in 1977 with guitarist Mark Kendell. The band went on to have several hits during the 1980s, with “Once Bitten Twice Shy” which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1989.
The band broke up in 2001, but would reform as Jack Russell’s Great White a few years later. In 2003, the band headlined a club show at the Station in Rhode Island that ended in tragedy when a pyrotechnics accident killed over 100 people, including bandmate Ty Longley, and injured 230 people.
Russell left the band in 2009 and toured under the Jack Russell’s Great White name from 2011 until last month.
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