Bobby Whitlock, the musician who co-founded Derek and the Dominos with Eric Clapton​, has died, according to his manager. He was 77.

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.

Stax Records signed Whitlock as the first white artist to join singers like Otis Redding and Sam & Dave at the label.