David Yorko, 73, a Rossford resident and guitarist for the internationally popular 1950s and ’60s rock group Johnny & the Hurricanes, died Friday at Heartland of Waterville.
He’d been in declining health and had emphysema, friend Mark Mazur said.
Known for instrumental hits such as “Red River Rock” and “Beatnik Fly,” the Rossford-based Johnny & the Hurricanes — fronted by saxophone player Johnny Paris — gained international fans.
“It was a big deal, the local group out of a small town to make it nationally and internationally, especially in the early days of rock and roll,” said Mr. Mazur, who grew up a half-block from Mr. Yorko.
Mr. Yorko left school to join the Hurricanes at age 17. They toured the Midwest, around the United States and internationally, and appeared on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand several times.
“Rossford stopped the first time they appeared on Dick Clark’s show,” Mr. Mazur said. “Everything stopped, and everyone was glued to their TV.”
“Red River Rock” sold more than a million copies and reached No. 5 on charts in the United States and No. 3 in Britain.
Mr. Yorko first learned the guitar from Elmer Sanders at Durdel’s Music in Toledo. Over the years he had some 300 guitars, Mr. Mazur said.
Early in the group’s touring days, they discovered a very segregated United States, Mr. Mazur said. Mr. Yorko and bandmates Paul Tesluk and Lionel “Butch” Mattice would sneak onto black artists’ tour buses “because they had more fun,” Mr. Tesluk said.
“Fun” described a lot of their travels, Mr. Tesluk said, which included tours to Australia and Hawaii. The first time Mr. Yorko left to tour with the band, he skipped school and didn’t tell his family, Mr. Tesluk recalled, which required a “little smoothing over” with his mother.
Mr. Yorko was among the first to leave the Hurricanes, and he later played with several northwest Ohio bands, including the BG Ramblers, Kay Yeager and the Dominoes, Dave and the Orbits, and the Fascinators, which also featured Mr. Mattice and Mr. Tesluk.
After leaving music, Mr. Yorko began a three-decades career at Libbey-Owens-Ford Co. and retired in 1997.
“He got tired of being on the road and wanted a normal life, so he walked away from it,” Mr. Mazur said. “He was not the typical musician; none of it went to his head. He played because he liked to play, and when he was done, he was done.”
That didn’t stop decades of fan appreciation.
Mr. Mazur said Mr. Yorko received letters throughout the years thanking him for his work or asking for autographs. A letter from California just last week thanked the guitarist for influencing the writer’s own artistry, Mr. Mazur said.
Matthew Donahue, professor in the department of popular culture at Bowling Green State University, listed Johnny & the Hurricanes with jazz great Art Tatum as some of the area’s top musical exports.
“They were doing something different, working in the organ riffs and the saxophone riffs,” he said of the band. “Their sound was different from the other instrumental rock and roll. It was something they brought to the table that was unique to them.”
And though the group is credited for its novel use of the organ in rock and roll, Mr. Donahue said, Mr. Yorko’s guitar was just as notable.
Mr. Yorko played twice in public after leaving music, Mr. Mazur said, both in the early 2000s: a Johnny & the Hurricanes reunion and an event to celebrate the renovation of the Maumee Indoor Theatre.
More recently, he was happy to eat lunch at the Rossford Senior Center, go boating, and take a drive, listening to blues on the radio, Mr. Mazur said.
He was born June 15, 1943, to Josephine Bucko Johnson in Toledo and was raised in Rossford, the city he called home for the rest of his life.
Mr. Yorko is survived by no immediate relatives.
Visitation will be 2-8 p.m. today at Sujkowski Funeral Home of Rossford, 830 Lime City Rd. Funeral services will begin at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the funeral home.
Contact Lauren Lindstrom at llindstrom@theblade.com, 419-724-6154, or on Twitter @lelindstrom.
First Published February 20, 2017, 5:00 a.m.
