Michael Knust, Founder and Lead Guitarist of Fever Tree is Dead

I don't expect a lot of people to know who this guy was, but he gave me and a lot of others some nice music back in the '60's.


The write up from the Houston Chronicle:

HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Local & State

Sept. 20, 2003, 12:55AM


Guitarist Knust, founded Fever Tree
By TONY FREEMANTLE
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle

Michael Knust, the founder and lead guitarist of the 1960s-era Houston psychedelic rock band Fever Tree, died in his sleep at his Spring Branch home Monday. He was 54.

The cause of Knust's death has not yet been determined, said his brother, Gary Knust.

A talented guitarist who took to the instrument while a student at Spring Branch High School, Knust was an influential fixture of the Houston music scene for three decades. But he is best known for his work with Fever Tree, a band he formed in Houston in 1966 and which produced four albums before disbanding in 1970.

A single from their first album, San Francisco Girls, made it to the Top 100 on the national music charts.

Knust was born March 11, 1949, in Bellaire to Bernhard and Florine Knust. His father, a Luftwaffe pilot who fled Germany in 1938 before World War II, was a concert pianist.

Michael Knust told an interviewer in 2000 that it was his father's music that interested him in learning the guitar, which he did in a matter of months toward the end of eighth grade.

"When I was a child, I would remember him playing the piano," Knust told Scott Beckwith, the owner of a Wimberley music shop who finds and interviews unheralded guitarists from rock's psychedelic era. "I always dug the way the music made me feel good, put me in a better frame of mind."

Gary Knust said his brother fought a constant battle with drug addiction, exacerbated by pain medication he took for injuries suffered in two major automobile accidents.

"I think his heart just gave out," Gary Knust said. "It was a life-long battle. `Drugs aren't complicated,' he said. His message was, `If you take hard drugs, you won't be able to conquer it.' He said it was the one mistake he made in his life."

Some of Knust's early influences included the seminal West Coast psychedelic rock group Jefferson Airplane, for whom Fever Tree opened at the now-defunct Coliseum in Houston, Duane Eddy and Austin's 13th Floor Elevators.

In 1966, he formed a group called the Bostwick Vines, which morphed into Fever Tree and included Rob Landes (keyboards), Dennis Keller (vocals), E.E. Wolfe (bass) and John Tuttle (drums).

Landes, who is still a professional musician in Houston, said Fever Tree disbanded in 1970 largely because of the drug use, and members went their separate ways. Knust periodically re-formed Fever Tree over the years with varying lineups, but the band never again achieved the recognition it had in its halcyon days.

During his career in Houston and Wimberley, where he lived for a time, Knust played with a virtual who's who of Houston rock musicians, including Rock Romano, Jerry Lightfoot and Little Screamin' Kenny.

Lightfoot, now living in Florida and playing in a group with Caroline Wonderland and Vince Welnick called Band Of Wonder, said Knust had an "addictive personality," but he could play a mean guitar.

"I can say this. He had as much natural talent on the guitar as anyone I ever met," Lightfoot said. "I didn't hang around with Eric Clapton or anything, but among those I did hang out with, Michael was up there. To me, he was the best guitar player ever to come out of the city."

 

Bless you, B-Bob.

Really, they were just another group from what was a surprisingly active and early psychedelic scene in Houston back in the '60's... one I used to see in clubs and enjoy.

Fever Tree wasn't in the same league as the 13th Floor Elevators, for example. I saw a poster, part of a collage on the cover of Look or Life magazine back then that proclaimed, "Live at the Avalon Ballroom- The 13th Floor Elevators!"... and underneath, "also appearing- The Grateful Dead". That gives you an idea of the influence Houston area bands had back then.

 

I saw a concert that opened with Buffalo Springfield, followed by Strawberry Alarm Clock and topped off by the Jefferson Airplane. I saw Donovan at least twice. He was a trip! I don't know how he made his voice vibrate like that, but he managed it.

I loved Blue Cheer. Their first two albums were great (they did a better version of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" than the Who, imo). Just amazing live. I saw Lightning Hopkins, but I can't remember where. I think it was at a club.

Anyone else you can think of? That's what I did back then... go to every concert at the Catacombs, the Love Street Light Circus, Liberty Hall, the Music Hall (best acoustics!) and the old Sam Houston Coliseum.
That, and go to parties and drive up to Austin and Pale Face Park on Lake Travis. Mucho fun!

 

Yeah, Bob*, that was their big hit. Have you listened to "Easter Everywhere" by the Elevators? Unbelieveable. It was their second album.

Their first LP, "The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators, was raw and rocked... great songs were "Your Gonna Miss Me", "Reverberation", and "Tried to Hide".

"Easter Everywhere" had much better production (cleaner sound) and almost every song is great. "Slip Inside This House" was a hit nationwide... "Slide Machine", 'She Lives (In a Time of Her Own)", "Earthquake" and another great hit, "Levitation", is killer.

I saw them at the Love Street Light Circus at Allen's Landing in Houston and at the Vulcan Gas Company in Austin at least a dozen times. The older sister of a chick I knew was the girlfriend of the drummer, Danny Thomas, for awhile and I got to hang out a little with him. They had a big two story house on Old Galveston Road that was well known at the time.

 

Bob*, another song from Easter Everywhere I really like isn't to everyone's taste, but it's their cover of Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". Roky Erickson is a hell of a singer with a style all his own.