The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (105 page)

Saturday 25

Albert Grossman

(Chicago, Illinois, 21 May 1926)

The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Albert Grossman graduated with an economics degree, which only hinted at the powerful position he was to hold in popular music in the decades that followed. Grossman was fired from his first notable position, in charge of a housing authority (he had led them to believe he possessed a business qualification). No matter: his next move, into music, proved to be key. Grossman and a colleague opened The Gate of Horn – a Chicago blues/folk club that booked acts like Big Bill Broonzy – while also inaugurating the Newport Folk Festival. Moving to New York, Grossman then assembled popular vocal trio, Peter, Paul & Mary in 1961, securing them a huge hit with ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, by Bob Dylan, whom Grossman then went on to manage. His later acquisitions included The Band, Janis Joplin and Paul Butterfield, as he became one of the most powerful men in the industry. It was to be shortlived, though: his sharp practices became widely recognized; and his and Dylan’s partnership had to be dissolved in court. During the seventies, Grossman nonetheless launched his own Bearsville label, home to Todd Rundgren and Foghat among others.

Albert Grossman was travelling to London from New York when he suffered a heart attack in his sleep. Even death couldn’t keep Grossman out of the courts: without a will, the vast web of his empire took years to disentangle.

MARCH

Tuesday 4

Richard Manuel

(Stratford, Ontario, 3 April 1943)

The Band

(The Hawks)

Just over a month after the death of his former manager, pianist and singer Richard Manuel took his life in mysterious circumstances in Florida – perhaps as a result of his failure to kick a mounting drug and alcohol problem.

Manuel made the familiar leap from gospel to secular music as a boy, starting his own high-octane rock ‘n’ roll combo just as the genre was settling in around the US. A meeting with fellow performer Ronnie Hawkins (leader of The Hawks) proved a break, and Manuel joined this popular touring band until a falling-out saw the majority of the unit – Manuel (piano/drums/vocals), Robbie Robertson (guitar/vocals), Rick Danko (bass/vocals), Garth Hudson (organ) and Levon Helm (drums) – defect to become Bob Dylan’s touring band in 1964. Contributing much to Dylan’s transition from acoustic to electric folk by 1966, The Band (as they were generically rechristened) had to put up with a great deal of flack from audiences countrywide. Manuel and The Band were also present on Dylan’s
Basement Tapes
(unreleased until 1975), on which Manuel’s soulful voice could be heard properly for the first time. This series of songs was recorded at Dylan’s esoteric Woodstock retreat, where The Band honed their own style – and the name of which prompted the title of a well-received debut album of their own,
Music from Big Pink
(1968). (Manuel’s is the first voice to be heard on this set.) The highlight was ‘The Weight’, the most distinctive number from an album whose purism and reverence cut through rock’s then obsession with psychedelia. For many, this was surpassed by the second album,
The Band
(1969), which showed the group of white gospel-inspired musicians at their very best. (Manuel, along with other members of The Band, continued to play on several of Dylan’s releases throughout the seventies.) Manuel was perhaps best appreciated in a live environment, illustrated by his haunting solo vocal performances on
Rock of Ages
(1972). The Band’s most notable concert was, however, the group’s last of the period: supported by cameos from Dylan, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Neil Young and Paul Butterfield,
The Last Waltz
(1976, released 1978) was to prove a fitting epitaph to this chapter of The Band’s career as the group went their separate ways.

‘[In 1975,] we both had the same problems -I felt insecure and he was
clearly
insecure. But he was incredibly gifted. Richard was the true light of The Band.’

Eric Clapton

Manuel found work backing artists like Bonnie Raitt, but, having entered a rehabilitation programme in 1979, little was heard of him until The Band came together again (without Robbie Robertson, who was now enjoying the highest solo profile) for a series of ill-advised reunions in the mid eighties. It was during one of these tours that tragedy struck: having imbibed a post-show cocktail of alcohol and cocaine in his room at the Quality Inn in Winter Park, Florida, Richard Manuel hanged himself with his belt in the bathroom – just feet away from where his partner slept, unaware of any problem. No suicide note was left.

See also
Stan Szelest (
January 1991); Rick Danko (
December 1999); Richard Bell (
June 2007)

Saturday 22

Mark Dinning

(Max E Dinning - Drury, Oklahoma, 17 August 1933)

If he’s remembered for nothing else, Mark Dinning will surely be recalled for presenting the world with one of the original death-ditty classics. Dinning was born into a musical family and grew up near Nashville; his father was an evangelical singer, his siblings, Lou, Ginger and Jeannie, found notoriety as The Dinning Sisters during the forties. It was his older brother, Ace, however, who gave Dinning his first break as a performer, encouraging the young guitarist to join him for live performances at his club. Dinning subsequently signed with MGM, soldiering on as a would-be country star until 1960, when he scored remarkable (and brief) pop fame with the controversial ‘Teen Angel’, a morbid classic, co-written with one of his sisters, involving a young girl killed in her car on the railroad track (
The Death Toll
#1). This record sent the singer to number one in the US, shifting 3 million copies.

With no significant follow-up hit, Mark Dinning saw his career relapse into obscurity, and concentrated on the live circuit during the seventies and into the eighties. It was on his way home from such an engagement in Jefferson City, Missouri, that Dinning suffered a fatal heart attack – perhaps appropriately while at the wheel of his car.

Jeannie Dinning died in 2011.

Monday 31

O’Kelly Isley

(Cincinnati, Ohio, 25 December 1937)

The Isley Brothers