Bobby Whitlock, founding member of Derek and the Dominos whose soulful keyboard and vocals shaped the band’s only album, "Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs," and whose session work is heard on records by George Harrison,

A co-founder of the 70s band Derek and the Dominos has died. Bobby Whitlock was 77 years old. His manager confirmed his death, saying that Whitlock died on Aug. 10 at 1:20 a.m. at home in Texas after a brief illness, surrounded by his family, TMZ reported. Variety reported the illness was cancer.

How do you express in but a few words the grandness of one man who came from abject poverty in the south to heights unimagined in such a short time?” Whitlock’s wife, Coco Carmel Whitlock, said in a statement to CBS News.