The musician Kenny Craddock, who has died in a car accident aged 52, had an astonishing technique on the Hammond organ. A fine pianist, guitarist and singer-songwriter, he recently completed, after more than three decades in the music business, his first solo album, Mad As The Mist And Snow. He worked with Ginger Baker's Airforce, Ringo Star, and Alan Hull, of Lindisfarne. He recorded with Van Morrison, Mary Black, Billy Bragg, Gerry Rafferty and many others.
Born in Gateshead, where his father was employed in an engineering works, Kenny was educated at Springwell grammar school, where he started playing the guitar. While working in a Newcastle record shop, he was inspired - at the local Club-a-Gogo - by that British Hammond pioneer Graham Bond.
He starting playing the Hammond himself, and moved to London in 1968, joining Happy Magazine - which featured Peter Kirtley and drummer Alan White. Then Kenny and Kirtley briefly formed Griffin, which I joined as bassist. It was the beginning of a friendship, and songwriting partnership with Kenny, who in 1970 joined Ginger Baker's Airforce, and got me enlisted too. In 1971 Kenny played piano on Ringo Starr's hit, It Don't Come Easy, and married Sue Sweeney. They lived in Leiston, Suffolk, and he was a member of the seven-piece Simpson's Pure Oxygen, which also included White, Kirtley and myself, and toured the United States in 1972. From Suffolk, Kenny forayed into London as a session musician.
He played on Alan Hull's Pipedream and his subsequent solo outings, as well as on Lindisfarne's Roll On Ruby, Elvis Lives On The Moon, and Hull's last solo album, Back To Basics. The latter three contained songs co-written by Kenny, and Van Morrison's Too Long In Exile (1993) featured WB Yeats's Before The World, set to music by Kenny. From 1984, we composed and recorded TV and film soundtracks.
He and Sue divorced in 1988, after which he had a happy relationship with Julia Robinson, which lasted until his death in Portugal, where they had embarked on a new life together. Julia survives him, as does his son from his first marriage.
· Kenneth Craddock, musician, born April 18 1950; died May 30 2002