The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (130 page)

In the aftermath, big Coasters fans Sammy Davis Jr and Bill Cosby met funeral expenses. Gunter was laid to rest in Inglewood, California.

See also
Bobby Nunn (
November 1986); Bob B Soxx (
November 2000). Carl Gardner (
Golden Oldies #137). Will ‘Dub’ Jones (2000) and Billy Guy (2002) have also passed away, as have offshoot members Randy Jones and Darrell Reynolds (both 2002), sometime drummer Gerald Baxter (2003) and other Platters.

MARCH

Saturday 17

Ric Grech

(Bordeaux, France, 1 November 1946)

Family (The Farinas) Blind Faith

Ginger Baker’s Airforce

Traffic

(Various acts)

A quiet but notable bassist, Ric Grech, who had been living in England since childhood, was just twenty when the Leicester-based soul/pop act The Farinas began to gain local notoriety. With the acquisition of ‘distinctive’ vocalist Roger Chapman in 1967, they became Family, earning a residency in London and a contract with Reprise. The line-up – Grech, Chapman, Charlie Whitney (guitar), Jim King (saxophone) and Rob Townsend (drums) – proved a popular draw across Britain and went on to enjoy significant album and singles chart success, although much of this was after Grech had left. He had, however, contributed several compositions to the albums
Music in a Doll’s House
(1968) and
Family Entertainment
(1969). Grech then played the lesser star alongside Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood and Ginger Baker in that most notable of supergroups Blind Faith, to whose one album he also contributed violin. This, and his subsequent stints with Ginger Baker’s Airforce and then Traffic, were not to last more than a year, the restless bass guitarist then also serving with The Bee Gees, Graham Bond, John Mayall, Gram Parsons and Rod Stewart throughout the seventies. Grech even played with a touring line-up of The Crickets in 1973.

Despite this constant work, Grech had a quiet eighties and was believed near-destitute by the time he was hospitalized in Leicester. He died from combined liver and kidney failure.

See also
Reebop Kwaku-Baah (
January 1983); Chris Wood (
July 1983); Jim Capaldi (
January 2005)

Monday 19

Andrew Wood

(Columbus, Mississippi, 8 January 1966)

Mother Love Bone (Lords of the Wasteland) (Malfunkshun)

Probably regarded as the first notable grunge death, Andrew Wood actually began his brief career as a punk/glam crossbreed. Aged just fourteen, Wood was camping it up in a silver suit and slack-heeled motorbike boots as ‘Landrew the Love Child’, very much the focal point of Malfunkshun. With no real success, Wood somehow managed to keep this out-of-time unit a going concern for eight years – while acquiring the requisite drug habit. His time with his next band was much briefer, but of far greater importance in terms of rock’s immediate development. As singer and occasional bassist with Lords of the Wasteland (soon to reemerge as Mother Love Bone), Wood – with ex-Green River members Stone Gossard (guitar), Bruce Fairweather (guitar), Jeff Ament (bass) and Greg Gilmour (drums) – set about creating a blueprint for Seattle grunge. In 1989, MLB issued the acclaimed
Shine
EP for Polydor; an album,
Apple,
followed early in 1990.

At the urging of the rest of Mother Love Bone, Andrew Wood tried to wean himself off hard drugs, but it was too late: he was found semi-comatose by his girlfriend, having overdosed on heroin. Days later, Wood’s lifesupport machine was switched off at the request of his family. Wood’s contribution to music lived on to some degree in the Gossard/Ament project Temple of the Dog, a one-album mission that also featured future Soundgarden star Chris Cornell. Gossard and Ament then founded Pearl Jam – one of US rock’s biggest-selling acts of the nineties.

JUNE

Monday 4

Stiv Bator(s)

(Steven John Bator Jr - Youngstown, Ohio, 22 October 1949)

The Dead Boys

Lords Of The New Church

(The Rockets)

(The Wanderers)

He was Punk-Rock America’s loose cannon, a showman who bridged the gap between Iggy Pop and Sid Vicious, arguably (well, unarguably, in Vicious’s case) possessing greater talent than either. And one of the genre’s great characters was to have a fittingly self-destructive punk-rock demise …