The Wheelman’s gotten away.

Gordon Spaeth died in New York City on a blizzardy evening, the elements outside his apartment window likely mirroring the storm inside him. He had, at 53, settled into a comfortable routine. He was living at the Prince George Hotel near his beloved Tin Pan Alley, avoiding drugs and alcohol, lifting weights, writing short stories and reading them at the Y, and occasionally giving harmonica lessons and sitting in on saxophone with The Fleshtones and The Waldos.

Although Gordon hadn't been a member of The Fleshtones since 1988, his impression as the fifth man, as Mr. Excitement, is indelible to the thousands around the world who had the pleasure of watching him onstage. Gordon was a true character, an hilarious social misfit who dressed and acted the part of the sincere aging JD with a heart of gold. We might remember his surliness edged with mayhem when he'd been drinking too much. The combination of drug- and alcohol-abuse and depression surely forced him off of the stage nearly two decades ago, but memories of Gordon's dark side are always complemented by memories of his wicked sense of humor, his razor-sharp asides, his personal generosity, and, above all, his love for retro fashion, R&B and rock & roll.

Gordon discovered his first harmonica embedded in dirt when he was eight years old. He brought it home, washed it in the kitchen sink, and started blowing. Thus began a lifelong love affair with music. Few know that Gordon's first professional stint was with the long-forgotten Clayton and The Mighty Cravens, the house band at Paul's Stadium Bar in Flushing, Queens. One night in the early 1970s, Gordon strolled in and ordered a beer. Being the only white kid in the joint, he was served reluctantly. After the set, Gordon struck up a conversation with Clayton who invited him onstage to play harmonica. For the next year and a half, every Friday night at 12 and 2, Gordon would play three or four songs with Clayton and the Mighty Cravens. His apprenticeship taught him both the thrills and the rigors of stage-life at an early age, and Gordon felt good in Paul's place, away from the vacuum of his domestic life, even as the racial lines he trespassed in the club further clarified his feelings as an outsider.

Along with his older brother Brian (with whom he played in Action Combo), Gordon infused The Fleshtones with fun, ballsy R&B from the earliest incarnation of the band, mostly in the form of scratchy 45s and LPs. The influence would forever shape Peter and Keith and The Fleshtones' sound and attitude. Gordon began making walk-on appearances with The Fleshtones in the summer of 1978, his debut coming at the legendary Max's Kansas City. The guys, always smart about stage presence, orchestrated his appearance with precision and mock-heroic grandeur. Gordon arrived at the club dressed head-to-toe in black, with pointed suede shoes and a "Detroit Haircut" that no one had seen in years. He knew only a handful of songs, but the guys didn't care; they knew that Mr. Excitement was the missing ingredient. The Fleshtones started a drums-and-bass setup riff to "Crossfire" by Johnny and The Hurricanes. Resplendent in his suit and sharp shoes, Gordon sat patiently in the audience at a table and, at a prearranged moment, stood up and came slowly through the audience with his saxophone in hand. Looking intense, staring straight ahead at the floor, he inched his way up on stage, launched into "Crossfire" and started blowing hard sax.

"Everyone was like, Who is that guy?? Where did ya dig him up??" Keith remembers. "His stage presence was phenomenal."

Gordon officially joined The Fleshtones in 1982. He wrote the original riffs to both "Roman Gods" and "Hexbreaker," took the spotlight on his signature tune "Legend of a Wheelman," and delighted crowds with his onstage demeanor: an after-hours, mock-scowling, second-banana noir to Peter's manic energy. He played sax, harmonica, organ, and shook a tambourine all around the world with the guys, until his body and mind demanded a rest in 1988. Gordon found that he would never be able to tour for any length of time again, and he endured a restless lifestyle throughout much of the 1990s, wrestling demons both emotional and pharmaceutical. He played on the occasional Fleshtones record, most recently on "Blow Job" from 1998's More Than Skin Deep.

But perhaps the greatest tribute to Gordon was the fact that by the time he'd left The Fleshtones, he'd become irreplaceable. The Fleshtones wouldn't—really, they couldn't—hire another permanent sax player. His playing, humor, and style could never be duplicated.

As Peter recently said, Gordon always placed himself just out of reach of the kind of help that might've saved him. But such is the nature of a loner. Gordon brought many, many smiles to his bandmates and to fans who came to see him play. We laughed with him and we laughed at him, and we grooved to his playing on a beat-up saxophone on and off beat-up stages.

When I began writing a book about The Fleshtones in 2000, I had some difficulty tracking Gordon down. He'd become something of a ghost to his friends and family. When I finally did, I found a quiet man generous and eager to talk about his personal life and his years playing in The Fleshtones, the band that he still loved. One of my fondest memories is having happily tagged along with Gordon on a recent visit to NYC as he strolled through his neighborhood and pointed out various architecture, and monuments to Tin Pan Alley, that meant so much to him. He loved music and its rich heritage to the end.

I'll let Gordon have the last word, from remarks he made to me in 2001: "The Fleshtones developed such a sense of camaraderie. No matter what anyone says, when you go through things like what I went through with Bill, Peter, Keith, and Marek, you form a bond. It's almost like going through a war. I used to call it 'campaigning.' I consider myself very lucky, because it was like running with a bunch of outlaws. We were outside of society, we didn't have to take any crap from anybody, we could write any songs we wanted, we invented our own reality, we dressed the way we wanted, we didn't have to take orders from anybody, we didn't work regular jobs, and we were very good at what we did and at what we were supposed to do.