Bobby Whitlock, the keyboard player and vocalist who co-founded Derek and the Dominos with Eric Clapton and played on classic albums like George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass,” died Sunday at age 77.

Bobby Whitlock, co-founder of Derek and the Dominos and a key contributor to George Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass,” has died at 77 after a brief battle with 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.