The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (110 page)

Miki Zone
(US guitarist with New York ‘queercore’ rock/disco band The Fast and Man2Man, who hit with ‘Male Stripper’; AIDS - a decade before ‘brother’ Armand Zone suffered the same fate - 31/12)

1987

JANUARY

Tuesday 6

Peter Lucia

(Peter Paul Lucia Jr - Morristown, New Jersey, 2 February 1947)

Tommy James & The Shondells (Hog Heaven)

A keen drummer since his preschool years, Peter Lucia became, in December 1965, the third to hold down the position with Tommy James & The Shondells – a group set to sell 20 million records in the USA during the late sixties. Burgeoning heart-throb James and his band had already made a lot of progress, so Lucia didn’t have to wait long for success. Within six months of his joining the band – now a definitive line-up of Lucia, James (vocals), Eddie Gray (guitar), Mike Vale (bass) and Ronnie Rosman (organ) – New York’s Roulette Records issued the band’s first single, ‘Hanky Panky’ (1966). The record, which had been a local chart-topper when issued as a bootleg on Michigan’s Snap label, shot to number one across the nation, shifting a cool million copies in the process. This was just the first of a run of seventeen Top Forty hits for Tommy James & The Shondells, including ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ (1967), ‘Mony Mony’ (1968, a UK number one) and the biggest-seller of all, ‘Crimson and Clover’ (1969), a classic song co-written and performed exclusively by James and Lucia.

These good times soured somewhat thereafter: James’s health began to suffer during 1970, and he and The Shondells went their separate ways after the singer collapsed on stage in Alabama. Some months before, the band – or, at least, their management – had missed a huge trick, turning down the chance to play Woodstock. The booking agent had dismissed the festival as ‘a stupid gig on a pig farm’, which may or may not have had some bearing on Lucia and the remainder of The Shondells renaming themselves Hog Heaven in the wake of the split. In this guise, the group saw little success, while James also struggled to repeat The Shondells’ success as a solo performer.

Still playing as a session man, Peter Lucia had been dining with friends after a round of golf when he collapsed while attempting to pay the bill. Lucia – who had been born with a hereditary heart problem – died at the scene from a massive coronary. Later in 1987, two Shondells covers, Tiffany’s ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ and Billy Idol’s ‘Mony Mony’, became back-to-back US number-one singles.

Wednesday 7

Bobby Gene McNelly

(Columbus, Ohio, 21 May 1950)

McGuffey Lane

Sadly, McGuffey Lane are a band likely to be remembered more for their tragic history than their music. Although they put infectious numbers such as ‘Long Time Lovin’ You’ (1980) and ‘Start It All Over’ (1981) on to radiostation playlists, without much commercial success McGuffey Lane spent most of their time on the road. They did, however, pick up prestigious support slots with The Charlie Daniels Band and The Allman Brothers. A switch to more countrified sounds saw the band move to Atlantic American Records in 1983. Singer/guitarist Bobby Gene McNelly reacted badly to the shock death of the band’s keyboard- and harmonicaplayer, Stephen Douglass (
January 1984),
leaving the line-up to become a Nashville-based songwriter. McNelly’s writing came to an abrupt end, though, in a scenario straight out of a C & W melodrama. In January 1987, he argued ferociously with his fiancée, pulled a gun on her and shot her dead. McNelly then turned the gun on himself.

FEBRUARY

Saturda 14

Wendy Holcombe

(Alabaster, Alabama, 19 April 1963)

Wendy Holcombe’s is one of the more tragic stories in modern music. A talented singer and banjoplayer, she developed an early penchant for the bluegrass favoured by her father (who had given up his own attempts to master the requisite instrument). At the age of twelve, Holcombe was playing the Grand Ole Opry, so greatly had she impressed veteran musicians Roy Acuff and Jim Ed Brown. Within months this flaxen-haired prodigy was appearing in a variety of country/bluegrass shows and on local television specials. By then a multi-instrumentalist, her live performances took her across the world by the time she’d reached eighteen. Simultaneously, Holcombe, who had shown some talent as an actress, was courted by major networks for television drama work, appearing in a number of vehicles including the 1981 series
Lewis and Clark.

Later that year, it was all over. Wendy Holcombe collapsed during a performance in Indiana. The teenager was diagnosed with an enlarged heart: this meant enforced retirement for a girl who should have been looking forward to her greatest years as a performer. Little was heard from Holcombe thereafter, the musician/actress choosing to live quietly as a housewife. With no donor forthcoming, she died from heart failure at just twenty-three years of age.

Sunday 15

Jimmy Holiday

(Durant, Mississippi, 24 July 1934)

The following day, versatile soul/R & B vocalist Jimmy Holiday died in a similar manner. The singer had come to some prominence with his self-penned ‘How Can I Forget?’ (1963), a song widely played when covered by former Drifter Ben E King. Although he’d made some fine records for the Minit label, Holiday was far more successful as a writer than singer, and retired from live work in 1969. His material was then covered and recorded by a slew of big names, including Ray Charles, Jackie DeShannon, Cher and even Annie Lennox. Unfortunately, he didn’t live to see all of this success, yielding to heart failure in an Iowa hospital.

MARCH

Saturday 21

Norman Harris

(New York, 10 February 1938)

MFSB

His may be one of music’s more anonymous names, but Norman Harris was, during the seventies, a significant figure in the all-dominating sound of Philadelphia soul. For almost all of the previous decade, Harris had been a working session guitarist, forming an enduring partnership with bass-player Ronnie Baker. Along with drummer Earl Young, the pair founded Golden Fleece, their own publishing company – the trio was also set to become the core of MFSB (Mother, Father, Sister, Brother). As the house band for Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International label, MFSB scored 1974’s seventh-bestselling record in the US with ‘TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia)’. As a producer, Harris and his ‘magic touch’ created significant hits with First Choice, Gloria Gaynor, The Delfonics, Wilson Pickett and The Spinners – to name just a few.