73-year-old soul legend and former frontman of the Civil-Rights-era band The Chambers Brothers, Lester Chambers, dedicated his cover of Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" to Trayvon Martin over the weekend and was assaulted on stage for doing so. The alleged attacker, 43-year-old Dinalynn Andrews Potter, was arrested after the incident and charged on suspicion of battery but has since been released. Chambers' family is attempting to have police charge her wit ha hate crime.
Lester's son, Dylan, posted the following message on Facebook to inform fans of the situation:
"Lester was just assaulted on stage at The Russell City Hayward Blues Festival by a crazed woman after dad dedicated People Get Ready to Trayvon Martin. He is on the way to the hospital now."
Good friend and fellow musician, Kurt Crowbar Kangas, commented on the above post with an update and summary of the assault:
"Lester is fine, just a bit sore and he will feel it tomorrow, the woman who attacked him was white and yelled something like "it's all your fault" before she hit him, he went down hard but was halfway caught by Barren, thank God, she was subdued by Police and taken away while the para-medics came and took him to a local Hospital where he went thru a series of cat scans, no broken bones, the only injury for now is a 8″ scratch in the kidney area of his back and it's starting to swell. Thank you for all your well wishes, he will be up and running soon."
Dylan Chambers also posted this picture of his father resting after the hospital visit, saying that Lester suffered a bruised rib and nerve damage" and was reportedly "sore all over."
According to Lester's wife, Lola, the soul musician told the audience that Mayfield would have changed his lyric "there's a train a comin" to "there's a change a comin" if he were alive today.
Here is a video of Lester and his band performing Curtis Mayfield's "People Get Ready" earlier this year:
