I just heard via an IM from a friend at WERU that a friend of mine, Tom Salisbury or as I knew him DJ Tommy Dean (or Cowboy Tommy Dean) passed away suddenly today at an event at the American Legion in Ellsworth, ME. He was 50. I don’t know any more details but.. this is horrible. He was one of those people who was just overly enthusiastic about EVERYTHING he did. He organized a number of big country music concerts up here each year, all benefits for others. He was really into ‘Indepedent Country’ music, not the big artists but the smaller artists scraping to get by. On that end we had lots to talk about since really at that level country/folk isn’t that different. He would often ask me to dedicate Sally Roger’s ‘Lovely Agnes’ song to his wife Agnes. Last I saw him late last month he had a special guest in studio for his show and we couldn’t talk long but I had suggested that maybe we work on getting him a whole stage at the WERU Full Circle Fair. He was interested but wanted to see his big April 6 benefit event through before he could talk about it more. I was hoping to catch him at my next show at WERU later this month, which would have been the last time I’d see him until next fall since he didn’t do his show in the summer when he had to work at his bakery in Bar Harbor.
I suspect there will be some big benefit concerts coming up soon for Agnes & his son Tom (aka TD) and daughters. I’ll do all I can to help with these.
I’m pretty shocked by this. Totally unexpected. Totally weird. Totally sad. Huge loss.
He was a really good guy, and a real genuine person. Humble to a fault, I was always arguing with him that he wasn’t just ‘an old cowboy’ and that he could probably do concert & even organization full time if he wanted to. He was really an amazing guy, the more I think about his passing the more I’m realizing how special he was. I feel honored to have known him.
See this article in the Ellsworth American for more information about him.
He also worked at a bakery in Bar Harbor, The Cottage Street Bakery
He did lots of benefits for Christmas For Families.
I’m sure the latter two sites will have lots of information about him soon. In searching around for info on him on the web I found the following photos.
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Update – I found a copy of Tommy’s theme song performed by the Moore Brothers on their website:
Theme song for DJ Tommy Dean’s “Independent Country” show in Bangor, Maine.
Performed by The Moore Brothers
Written by John Moore
WMA or MP3
UPDATE 4/26 – I just found this at WERU, it’s Tommy’s closing theme song ‘Cowboy Tommy Dean’ by Brian Gelina, Everard Dodge & Rosanna Rogers
