Tony McPhee, founder of blues-rock band Groundhogs dies aged 79 after suffering a fall & a series of strokes

Tony McPhee, the singer and guitarist who led British blues and rock group the Groundhogs across six decades has died aged 79. A message posted to the group’s Facebook page confirmed his death.

The message said he died “peacefully at home” on Monday June 6 from complications after suffering a fall last year. During the latter years of his life, he unfortunately suffered a series of strokes.

He was the founder of the Groundhogs, a blues group. After largely just backing during the 1960s, they enjoyed their big break in the 1970s with three UK Top 10 hits in the UK Albums Chart in the early 1970s.

As well as his prominent role in the band, McPhee also released some solo albums, with The Two Sides of Tony (T.S.) McPhee released in 1973. The album features side A and side B.

Side A is blues rock and side B is a single psychedelic art rock electronic composition in four movements. As well as this project, McPhee released many other solo acoustic blues records, as well as duets with Jo Ann Kelly.

The band still enjoys relative success to this day, having just shy of 38,000 monthly listeners on the popular Spotify app. Their most played song on Spotify is Cherry Red - which has almost three million streams.