Don Grady has passed away

[rn57]

Don Grady, known to millions as Robbie Douglas on My Three Sons but known to '60s pop fans as a considerably BBs influenced songwriter/singer/musician in the Yellow Balloon and other bands, died today at the age of 68, of cancer. Rest in peace.

[Aum Bop Diddit]

Ah, another one of those passings that makes you feel old.  "My Three Sons" took me into puberty!  Indeed, rest in peace....

[grillo]

Dang! what was his Yellow Ballon name, ...something like Luke R.Cool? Really talented guy.
RIP

[KittyKat]

Aw, he was so talented, he wrote a ton of music for movies and TV shows including the Phil Donahue theme.  He always seemed like such a nice guy when they would do interviews with My Three Sons cast member for ET and other shows. I always liked watching reruns for the kid actors like him, the Livingstons, and Tim Considine.  Found a clip of Yellow Balloon singing at Anaheim Stadium in the '60s.  Don is wearing a floppy hat and dark glasses and Casey Kasem calls him Luke.  It's a nice sunshine pop song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO-8-DjwdNI

[Aegir]

I think it was "Luke R. Yoo". I love the Yellow Balloon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G13Ze1ndjfA

this is one of the songs Grady wrote.

[onkster]

When I was at Disney, Don did a lot of music work on "Sing Along Songs". He did a LOT of stuff!

Don't forget his Mouseketeer days also.

Bye, Don. (Agrate)

[Rocker]

He sang on the Jan Berry tribute version of "Fan Tan" I believe, originally from Carnival Of Sound. R.I.P.

[rn57]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/showtracker/la-et-st-don-grady-of-my-three-sons-an-appreciation-20120628,0,7887230.story

Robert Lloyd, TV critic of the LA Times and a very accomplished musician as well, discusses Don Grady's place in the American consciousness, and his own. This is the most thoughtful writing about Don I've come across the last two days. RL says that somehow he associates Dennis with Don, partly because he thinks they looked somewhat alike.

(About 25 years ago when I lived in LA, I had lunch with RL, and My Three Sons came up. I had seen a Bub-era episode the night before, where he said or did something annoying, and mentioned this. "But Bub's cool!" Robert replied. We then got into the perennial Bub-vs-Charley question for a few minutes; I argued Charley's case. These are the sort of debates central to American life, and maybe not that well understood by those in countries where the show was seen less often. But then again a lot of Sons episodes are on YouTube, so nowadays everyone has the chance to make up their mind.)

Besides his involvement in Jan & Dean's later projects, Don also had another significant thing in common with the Beach Boys: Daryl Dragon aka The Captain was his frequent collaborator in the 1960s. (But then again Daryl worked with just about everyone - in the early '60s he was in an R&B combo with Charles Wright of "Express Yourself" fame.)