https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/29/arts/music/scott-kempner-dead.html

Scott Kempner, Guitarist and Punk Rock Pioneer, Dies at 69

The Bronx-born musician played guitar for and co-founded the Dictators, an early punk band. He later founded the Del Lords.

By Rebecca Carballo
Published Nov. 29, 2023
Updated Nov. 30, 2023, 4:35 p.m. ET

Scott Kempner, a guitarist and songwriter and a co-founder of the Dictators, one of the first punk rock bands, died on Wednesday. He was 69.

His death, at a nursing home in Connecticut, resulted from complications related to early onset dementia, said Rich Nesin, who managed Mr. Kempner’s solo career.

Born and raised in the Bronx, Mr. Kempner started his music career not long after he had graduated from the Bronx High School of Science. He was born on Feb. 6, 1954, to Manny and Lynn Kempner.

In 1972, while visiting a friend who was in college in New Paltz, N.Y., Mr. Kempner started playing music with Andy Shernoff and Ross Friedman, who was known as the Boss, and together they created the Dictators.

That was when he earned the nickname, Top Ten. The band’s first album, “The Dictators Go Girl Crazy,” was released in 1975, a year before the Ramones made their debut. The All Music Guide called the band “one of the finest and most influential proto-punk bands to walk the earth,” but said that on the group’s debut album, its satire and “ahead-of-their-time enthusiasm for wrestling, White Castle hamburgers, and television confused more kids than it converted.”

The band was dropped by its label, Epic, after its first album. It recorded two more albums, on the Elektra label, that failed to find a big audience, and the band split up, though its members occasionally reunited over the years.

After the breakup, Mr. Kempner founded the roots rock band the Del Lords and took the lead as chief singer and songwriter.

“In the Dictators, he was a team player, the heart of the band,” said Eric Ambel, a member of the Del Lords.

Frank Funaro, the drummer for the Del Lords, said in an interview that Mr. Kempner “was like the older brother that I never had.”

“The older, cool brother,” he added, “that turns you on to an encyclopedia worth of rock ’n’ roll, country music, soul music.”

The Del Lords released seven albums, including, in 2013, “Elvis Club,” which featured the doo-wop star Dion DiMucci on one track. Mr. Kempner played and toured as a side man in several bands, including Little Kings, with Mr. DiMucci, and the Paradise Brothers.

Starting in 1992, Mr. Kempner released three solo albums: “Tenement Angels,” “Saving Grace” and “Live on Blueberry Hill.”

The Dictators re-formed in 2019 with Mr. Kempner on board, until he was diagnosed with dementia and had to leave the band in 2021.

He is survived by his wife, Sharon Ludtke; his sister, Robin Kempner; and his sister’s wife, Mary Noa-Kempner.

I saw The Del-Lords a few times in concert in the 80's and he was a helluva frontman.