Duhe (pronounced “DO-wee”) was an original member of the group Maze, featuring silky-voiced soul singer Frankie Beverly. Starting in 1974, Duhe played bass guitar in the band, appearing on nearly all their albums and sharing in a string of gold records. His unforgettable bass licks open the classic “Joy and Pain,” and he played on “Happy Feelin’s,” “Golden Time of Day,” and many more.

It was heady stuff for a working-class kid who grew up in Berkeley, and paid his dues as a member of small combos in hole-in-the-wall joints around the Bay Area.

“I have no regrets,” Duhe, 55, says of his years with Maze. “I’ve seen a lot of things. I’ve been all over the world. I’ve been in the presence of a lot of prominent people – athletes, politicians – there’s nothing but good I can say about that. “I have no regrets,” Duhe, 55, says of his years with Maze. “I’ve seen a lot of things. I’ve been all over the world. I’ve been in the presence of a lot of prominent people – athletes, politicians – there’s nothing but good I can say about that.”

But after three decades of traveling, groupies and hangers-on, the routine got stale and Duhe longed for more creative satisfaction.

“From an artist’s standpoint, it’s a great thing to have hits because when you’ve got a show of hits every song is going to get reaction, every song is somebody’s (special) song. But it is exciting when you have something new to play, it creates a new challenge for you.”

So, after putting on what he says was a killer performance in Detroit in 2004, he quit Maze. He couldn’t imagine how tough it’d be on his own.

Suddenly faced with business responsibilities he’d never had to deal with before, his life began to veer off course. Bills weren’t getting paid on time, creative projects were languishing and the party lifestyle of the Maze years wasn’t completely out of his system.

He managed to put out a CD, “Do It Duhe,” but his solo career wasn’t taking off. Then, cancer struck. Ironically, the disease hit as he was working on his latest CD’s title song, “Life (Gets in the Way).”

Duhe, who has lived in El Sobrante for several years, had always been athletic, playing basketball and working out at the gym several times a week. So when he felt a lump in his armpit in 2007, he thought he’d just pulled a muscle. Medical tests, including a bone biopsy, came back clean.

But then night sweats and constant fatigue set in. Once, his temperature soared to 104. He went to the hospital, but a CAT scan didn’t reveal anything urgent. Several days later, however, he got the hiccups so bad that he couldn’t catch his breath. He was hospitalized for two weeks. This time a biopsy on the lymph node in his armpit revealed bad news: non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at an aggressive stage 3.

His body was full of cancer. Duhe says he was “a sinking ship.”

His oncologist prescribed a “cocktail” of four chemo medications. He got so ill that he couldn’t eat – even water was nauseating. Duhe’s muscular, 6-foot-tall frame shrank by 40 pounds in mere weeks. Whenever he ran his hand over his thick, black, wavy hair, it came out in fistfuls. Heavy doses of morphine left him sitting on his couch staring into space for hours, stupefied, “like a zombie,” he says.

Remarkably, despite the suffering he endured, Duhe says he never felt as though he were going to die.

After several weeks of treatments, the chemotherapy worked. And thanks to what he says was a great medical team and a strong support system that included his wife, Monique, and son, Gibran, Duhe pulled through and today is cancer-free.

“People would come by, offer me food, money or just to sit with me. It was a very humbling experience. It’s just changed me as a human being.”

And with a friend’s help, he discovered religion, began Bible study, got baptized and has been “reborn.”

“Now that I look back on it, I can actually say I’m happy I went through that (illness) because I was on the wrong track heading in the wrong direction. It straightened my life up.”

Today, like the title of an old Maze tune, Duhe is “back in stride.” He has a new seven-piece band that’s been sharpening its chops around the Bay Area; his own record label – Blaise Two; and a new CD out. And he and his bass are taking center stage, much like his contemporaries Stanley Clarke and the late Jaco Pastorius. Most important, he’s playing his music – a freer, funky, melodic fusion of jazz and what Duhe calls “progressive R&B” – his way.

“I’m a happier soul, and since my illness I’m a changed person,” he says. “I just feel a lot better about myself, I’m in control of what I’m doing now.”