Percussionist Joe Cripps, who spent most of the 1990s playing with Brave Combo, is missing.

Police in Little Rock, Ark., on Tuesday asked for the public's help in finding the Grammy Award-nominated musician last seen nearly two weeks ago.

Cripps moved from Denton back to his hometown last year but regularly returns to North Texas.

Word quickly spread via Facebook, where musicians, friends and fans begged for help — and continued to hold out hope that something tragic hasn't happened to Cripps.

"It's got me tied in knots," said Slobberbone and Drams frontman Brent Best. Best said the two spoke every few days but that he hasn't heard from him since Oct. 19, the last day anyone saw or spoke to Cripps.

The two are close: Cripps played on the Drams' 2006 record Jubilee Dive and saw Best play in Little Rock earlier this year.

"He was at the White Water, nothing out of the ordinary," Best said. "He said he'd just gotten paid and was gonna see a girl — sounded like a set-up for a joke or something."

James Cripps, who lives in Little Rock, said his brother was scheduled to perform Oct. 21 but never showed. That isn't like the musician, who never missed a gig — even when he was drinking. James Cripps said he went to his brother's apartment, peered through the window and didn't see anything askew. Later, police conducted a welfare check but didn't find Joe Cripps — or any sign he was missing.

But friends and family say they have reason to believe something is wrong. His phone hasn't been on in days, he's been off social media — he's a regular Facebook poster — and he left his blood pressure medication in the apartment. Joe Cripps has done a few stints in rehab, Best and James Cripps said, for drinking. But every time, they said, he had his phone and stayed in touch.

Joe Cripps in a still from Do Something Different, Bart Weiss and Mark Birnbaum's documentary about the polka kings of Denton.

But now his drums are at home, and Joe Cripps isn't.

"It's unlike him to be off his telephone and his social networking stuff," James Cripps said. "That's what's concerned all of us. His friend said Joe's off the grid. Well, this isn't like him, even when he's on his death bed. And if he's down to his last dollar, he still uses his phone to communicate."

Bassist Bubba Hernandez, one of Cripps' former Brave Combo bandmates, said Cripps used to take off every October and go camping along the Buffalo River in northern Arkansas. But Cripps couldn't have taken off, his brother said, because his car's not running.

Hernandez said he fears the worst, though he's trying to remain hopeful.

"I hope it's not what I imagine," he said through tears.

James Cripps said that his brother walked everywhere and that it's possible the musician was mugged or slipped and hit his head and fell into a creek.

James Cripps also wondered if his brother had returned to Denton, where both brothers attended college and where Joe Cripps made his mark playing with Brave Combo, Ten Hands, Centro-matic, the Drams and others.

At least, that's what James Cripps hopes, because he fears the worst.

"Joe was working with his high school alma mater's band director to get them new drums," James Cripps said. "He was going to redo all their drums. The drum heads arrived a week ago, and he never showed up to work on them."

Which isn't like Joe, who, in the late 1990s, traveled to Cuba as part of a musical exchange program and shook the hand of Fidel Castro.

"I am getting desperate," James Cripps said.