Tommy Ramone

Perhaps more than any other member of the first wave of punk rock revolutionaries, Thomas Erdelyi had an unusual route to CBGB. Born in Budapest, Hungary during its early days as a communist republic, Erdelyi immigrated with his parents to Forest Hills, Queens, New York at the age of seven. Smitten with rock and roll from an early age, he did the usual garage band scene as a teenager before migrating into an adult job as a recording engineer. In the early 1970s, his childhood friend John Cummings asked Erdelyi to manage his new band, but when it was decided that drummer Jeffrey Hyman was better suited to be the lead singer, Erdelyi was drafted to man the kit along with his behind the scenes duties. That band turned into the Ramones, the seminal New York City punk band whose self-titled debut album set the template for both the sound and the look of early punk. Although Erdelyi--also known as Tommy Ramone--only played drums on the Ramones' first three albums, those records are among the most beloved LPs in rock history, and an essential part of the punk rock canon. After leaving the Ramones, Erdelyi continued his career as a record producer and occasional musician, but he remained an integral part of Ramones history, becoming in effect the band's unofficial historian. Before Thomas Erdelyi died of bile duct cancer in his beloved Queens on July 11, 2014, he was the last surviving member of the band's original lineup.