Country music superstar Keith Urban is mourning the loss of his good friend and production manager Randy “Baja” Fletcher, who passed away on Friday, August 27.
The passing of fletcher came shortly after he suffered a massive injury at Urban’s concert in Put in Bay, Ohio, on August 29. “Fletcher died from injuries suffered in a fall off the state at the Bash on the Bay music festival,” according to Production Lights and Staging News.
The 73-year-old manager was allegedly rushed by medevac to a nearby hospital in Toledo, where he later passed peacefully surrounded by family and loved ones. “Randy Baja Fletcher loved people,” shared Urban in a recent statement to Billboard.
“Some people ask, are you a ‘glass half full or a glass half empty kinda person?” shares the “The Fighter” singer. “Baja’s view was, ‘what a beautiful glass.’ I loved him. We all loved him, and I’m grateful he chose us as his road family for ten years.”
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Fletchers five decades of hard work did not go unnoticed in the music industry, as he received a Parnelli Lifetime Achievement award for his accomplishments in 2010. During his long career, he worked alongside ZZ Top, Randy Travis, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, George Jones, Willie Nelson, and has been with Brooks & Dunn for 18 years.
In fact, the dynamic duo presented him with the 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award back in the day. “We can’t imagine what we did to be blessed with the like of Randy Fletcher,” says the two on stage. “We hate to think about what our career might have been like without him, as so many have been won and lost on the road. The importance of a trail boss like Baja is impossible to put into words. Not a show goes by that someone doesn’t talk about the quality of our crew, and it all filters down from him,” says Brooks & Dunn.
To top off Fletcher’s state-of-the-art work out on the road, The Country Music Association honored his drive and talents by providing him with the first-ever CMA Touring Lifetime Achievement award in 2017. The following year, he has scored the title of “Production Manager of The Year” at the CMA Touring Awards.
We lost a friend today…. Adios Dusty Hill. -Ronnie & Kix pic.twitter.com/coLjzfI3XY
— Brooks & Dunn (@BrooksAndDunn) July 28, 2021
“If there was ever a problem out there he couldn’t solve, I never heard about it, and if he ever had a crossword to say about anybody, there’s a good chance they were no friend of mine. We ran the road for almost 20 years together, and when Ronnie and I took a break in 2010, Urban made the quick call. Baja was a guaranteed asset to any tour, but much more importantly, he was the comfort any tour must-have when the road gets long, when the crew gets tired, when the smiles began to fade at the end of a long day — he was the man! Rest in peace, my friend — you will be missed,” Brooks & Dunn shared with Billboard with a heavy heart.
