Bobby Whitlock, a rock music legend best known as a co-founding member of Derek and the Dominos, has died. He was 77.

Whitlock died Sunday morning Aug. 10 at 1:20 a.m. after a short battle with cancer, his manager, Carol Kaye, told Variety .

Whitlock’s wife, Coco Carmel Whitlock, wrote in a statement to CBS News , “How do you express in but a few words the grandness of one man who came from abject poverty in the south to heights unimagined in such a short time?”

“As he would always say: ‘Life is what you make it, so take it and make it beautiful.’ And he did,” she wrote. “Farewell my Love, I’ll see you in my dreams.”

Eric Clapton, with whom Whitlock founded Derek and the Dominos, shared the musician’s death on his Facebook page.

“Our dear friend Bobby Whitlock, has passed away at

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