Rock Legend’s Band Member Shot Dead

The bass player in rock and roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis’ band was killed in a shootout last weekend.

The shooting took place at an apartment complex in Memphis on Sunday. Lewis’ bass player, 70-year-old music veteran BB Cunningham Jr., and a teenager were killed. Cunningham was working at the complex as a security guard.

The Washington Post reports that the shootout began between a 16-year-old boy and a 22-year-old man, according to police. Cunningham responded to the shots by chasing the teen and the man into another apartment complex nearby where another round of gunfire erupted and a co-worker found Cunningham and the teen, identified as Henry White, in the courtyard suffering from gunshot wounds. Police pronounced both dead on the scene.

Police arrested and charged 22-year-old Dock Britt with the first-degree murder of Cunningham and the Post reports that investigators are still trying to determine who shot White.

Cunningham had been a member of Jerry Lee Lewis’ band since 1997 and had scored a No. 12 Billboard hit in 1967 with a song he co-wrote, “Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out),” as a member of the Hombres.

He had also been the chief engineer at Independent Recorders in Los Angeles and worked with artists such as Billy Joel, Elton John, and Lou Rawls before he returned to Memphis to start his own studio, according to the Washington Post. One of his first recording experiences was with a young Elvis Presley in 1954.

He was also a former Air Force military police officer. “He loved protecting people and standing up for people’s rights and watching their back,” his son Joseph Cunningham told the Post.