Singer-songwriter and instrumentalist Bobby Whitlock, best known as the keyboardist for Eric Clapton's blues-rock band Derek and the Dominos, has died. He was 77.

Whitlock died early Sunday morning, Aug. 10, following a battle with cancer, Whitlock's representative Carol Kaye confirmed to USA TODAY. The rock musician was "surrounded by his family" at the time of his death.

Clapton paid tribute to Whitlock in a Facebook post, which featured a photo of Whitlock posing beside a keyboard.

"Our dear friend Bobby Whitlock has passed away at 77," Clapton wrote. "Our sincere condolences to Bobby's wife CoCo and his family on this sad day…. RIP Bobby xxx"

Whitlock, who was born in Memphis, Tennessee, had a rich musical upbringing that would later inform his soulful sound as a recording artist. As a child growing up in poverty, Whitlock was exposed to soul music while working in the fields.

"They’d be singing, calling for me, 'Hey, little water boy, bring me a drink of water,'" Whitlock reflected in a March 2012 interview with journalist Stephen K. Peeples. "And my dad, he always chose some fallen-down church out in the middle of the cotton or bean field somewhere, and gospel singing was always in the house, and it was always around."

In his teen years, Whitlock became friends with several acts signed to the hometown label Stax Records, a record company that became pivotal in the Southern soul genre.

During this time, the budding musician befriended the likes of Albert King, Sam & Dave, The Staple Singers and Booker T. & the M.G.'s. He later became the first white artist signed to the racially integrated label, which was an outlier amid racial tensions in the southern United States.

"Herman's Hermits and the British Invasion was the big thing that was taking place," Whitlock told Riveting Riffs Magazine in a September 2012 interview. "Stax wanted to cash in on that with their view of what was white pop stuff, which certainly was not what I was doing. It turned out to be bubblegum garbage music that they recorded with me."

Bobby Whitlock honed songwriting skills with Eric Clapton, George Harrison

Whitlock formed a musical kinship with soul-rock singer-songwriters Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett, who comprised the husband-and-wife duo Delaney & Bonnie. The Bramletts discovered Whitlock at a club performance and subsequently invited him to join their soul-revue band.

"That was a really beautiful, creative era," Whitlock reflected in his interview with Stephen K. Peeples. "All that music was so organic. No one had to try to do anything, to try to make anything happen, because it was just happening without any effort. All you had to do was just kind of fit yourself in that slot where you belonged, and listen up, pretty much."

Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett formed the ensemble Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, which gave Whitlock a master class thanks to an all-star rotating lineup that included Clapton, Beatles guitarist George Harrison, Rita Coolidge and Allman Brothers Band members Duane and Gregg Allman.

"I'm probably the only person in the world that actually had hands-on guitar instructions from Eric Clapton and Duane Allman and Delaney Bramlett and George Harrison, that's for sure. Where they’d say, 'No, Bobby, put your hands here, it goes like this,' " he recalled to Peeples.

He added: "When Eric and I started writing songs together, that's when I was just really just beginning to start playing guitar effectively, as a tool to write songs, rather than something that I expressed how I was feeling. I didn't know but like three chords, and there I was, sitting with Eric Clapton, and my first song we wrote was 'I Looked Away.' "

"I Looked Away" would later become the opening track to Derek and the Dominos' first (and only) studio album, 1970's "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs." The gold-certified album spawned the hard rock classic "Layla," which peaked at No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song's lyrics were inspired, in part, by Clapton's secret attraction to Harrison's then-wife Pattie Boyd.

Bobby Whitlock launches solo career after Derek and the Dominos

Despite plans for a second album, Derek and the Dominos broke up in 1971. Duane Allman, who played guitar with the band, died in October of that year in a motorcycle crash, while Clapton struggled with mental health and drug addiction issues.

"We were a make-believe band. We were all hiding inside it," Clapton said in 1985, per Far Out Magazine. "So, it couldn't last. I had to come out and admit that I was being me. I mean, being Derek was a cover for the fact that I was trying to steal someone else's wife. That was one of the reasons for doing it, so that I could write the song, and even use another name for Pattie. So, Derek and Layla — it wasn't real at all."

Whitlock released his self-titled debut album in March 1972. The album featured contributions from Whitlock's former bandmate Clapton, as well as Harrison and Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett.

Whitlock quickly followed up his solo debut with his sophomore album, "Raw Velvet," in November 1972. Similar to his first album, the record featured appearances from Clapton and Harrison.

The soulful rocker released two more albums, 1975's "One of a Kind" and 1976's "Rock Your Sox Off," before taking a yearslong hiatus from the music industry. Whitlock moved to a farm in Mississippi and did the occasional studio session work while raising his two children, Ashley Faye and Beau Elijah.

"It wasn't hard to stop because there was nothing going on in music," Whitlock told The Austin Chronicle in December 2006. He jokingly added: "You know I'm indirectly responsible for disco? (Clapton's manger) Robert Stigwood took the Dominos' money, used it to create RSO Records and record the Bee Gees. My deepest apologies to the entire music world."

Whitlock returned in 1999 with the album "It's About Time." In December 2005, the rock veteran married musician CoCo Carmel. The two collaborated on several albums throughout the 2000s and early 2010s, including 2008's "Lovers."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Bobby Whitlock, rock singer and Derek and the Dominos keyboardist, dies at 77

Reporting by Edward Segarra, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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