The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (146 page)

‘Dee Murray made huge musical and personal contributions to my life.’

Elton John (despite firing him in 1975 and 1984)

A British bassist with a remarkable CV, Dee Murray began his professional career with Mirage and then UK one-hit wonders Plastic Penny (‘Everything I Am’, 1968). In the latter, he encountered drummer Nigel Olsson, and the pair graduated through the latter phases of the declining Spencer Davis Group to join Elton John’s set-up in the early seventies. It was an exciting time for the still-young Murray, playing around the world with the new star: John was particularly huge in America, where at least four of his singles went to number one during the period Murray was playing. After ‘Philadelphia Freedom’ (1975), the latest hit to do so, Murray and Olsson were let go by John – but Murray rallied to secure session work with more big names such as Procol Harum, Alice Cooper, Kiki Dee and Yvonne Elliman. Murray reconvened with John for a further four years – but was again dismissed in 1984, soon after which he learned he had skin cancer. Suffering a stroke during chemotherapy, Dee Murray was taken to hospital in Memphis and died four days later.

APRIL

Sunday 19

Rob Clayton

(Atlanta, Georgia, 28 January 1970)

The Jody Grind

Hallow’s Eve

Robert Paul Hayes

(Georgia, 1966)

The Jody Grind

Deacon Lunchbox

(Timothy Tyson Ruttenber - Washington DC, 30 July 1950)

With rock heading towards grunge meltdown in 1991, the sound of The Jody Grind was unusually mellow and jazz-tinged, claiming fans with the hypnotic performance and vocal of a strong frontwoman, Kelly Hogan. The band’s debut,
One Man’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure
(1990), garnered plaudits left, right and centre for the Atlanta-based four-piece – Hogan, Bill Taft (guitar), Robert Hayes (bass) and drummer Walter Brewer. By the release of
Lefty’s Deceiver
(1991), Brewer had left and been replaced by new boy Rob Clayton, a versatile percussionist who had previously served at the other end of the rock spectrum with thrash-metallers Hallow’s Eve (whose previous drummer, Ronny Appoldt, had been murdered in 1985), playing on their
Monument
album (1988) before the group fell into disarray and disbanded.

Just months after Clayton joined The Jody Grind, the band hit the road for yet another tour. As they completed a show in Pensacola, Florida, the new drummer – known for some reason as ‘Angel Boy’ – informed the hard-drinking older members of the band that he wished to return to Georgia to attend Easter service with his family (something of a turnaround, given his previous band’s interests). Fending off their ribbing, he and Hayes jumped into the band’s hired van and set off into the fog. Travelling back with them was local Atlanta singer/performance artist Tim Ruttenber – better known to his public as Deacon Lunchbox, a bearded, chainsaw-wielding, cross-dressing poet who had opened for The Jody Grind. As the van reached the brow of a hill on Interstate 75 in Alabama, a 48-foot truck approaching from the other direction began veering erratically, before crossing right into the van’s path. All three were killed instantly; Clayton was decapitated as the van slid under the truck. The negligent driver of the truck was found to have been drunk, asleep at the wheel and at least 10 mph over the speed limit; he survived to receive a superficial prison sentence. While The Jody Grind finished there and then, Hogan continues her solo career to this day.

Saturday 25

Brian ‘Too Loud’ MacLeod

(Halifax, Nova Scotia, 25 June 1952)

Headpins

(Chilliwack)

(Various acts)

Brian MacLeod had been a stalwart of the Canadian and Northern California rock scenes since the early seventies. The drummer began in earnest at the softer end of the pomp-rock scale with Chilliwack, a Vancouver band signed to Mushroom Records – home of future stadium types like Heart. In his first band, MacLeod met guitarist/vocalist Bill Henderson and bassist Ab Bryant, with whom he formed Headpins after the label went into stasis following the 1979 death of boss Shelly Siegel. Recruiting photogenic singer Denise McCann (wife of The Guess Who’s Randy Bachman) and drummer Matt Frenette, MacLeod took the unusual step of giving up percussion for guitar as the band readily embraced the ‘hair metal’ vogue of the time. Despite a substantial live following (and tours with Whitesnake), Headpins were unable to find more than token success, and a number of line-up changes lead to a split in 1986. Eventually moving into production, MacLeod won a prestigious Juno award in 1983, before succumbing to bone cancer nearly a decade later.

MAY

Friday 1

Sharon Redd

(Norfolk, Virginia, 19 October 1945)

Tiny but flamboyant eighties disco diva Sharon Redd seemed destined for global stardom. For a start, she had some pretty serious musical connections in her immediate family: her sister is Snap vocalist Penny Ford, her brother Gene Redd Jr, a producer/arranger with Kool & The Gang; her stepfather was a member of Benny Goodman’s band. Redd was also a terrific performer in her own right and the purveyor of one or two sizzling disco epics. Openly gay, Redd was warmly accepted into the late-seventies scene, having previously performed in
Hair,
backed Bette Midler and gained recognition as ‘the Schaeffer beer girl’ on US television. She signed with Epic, then Prelude, giving the world a great second album,
Redd Hott,
and such hits as ‘Can You Handle It?’ (1981), ‘Never Give You Up’ (1982) and ‘In the Name of Love’ (1983).

As Sharon Redd prepared a comeback, the DNA-remixed ‘Can You Handle It?’ (1992) became her biggest hit in the UK (where Redd had most successfully crossed over) – yet three months later she was dead. Her passing is generally attributed to pneumonia, though it is widely believed she was carrying the AIDS virus, making Redd the highestprofile female singer at the time to fall to the disease. (Unsubstantiated rumour suggests, however, that, performing barefoot, Redd stepped on broken glass and eventually succumbed to a staph virus.)

Monday 4

Dudu Zulu

(Dudu Mntowaziwayo Ndlovu - Zululand, South Africa, 25 December 1957)

Johnny Clegg & Juluka/Savuka

Dudu Zulu – who had recently re-embraced his birthname (above) – did not live to see the reintegrated South Africa of which he and his band had dreamed. A noted supporter of black South Africa’s cause, popular white singer Johnny Clegg had employed Dudu as percussionist/dancer with first Juluka (who almost managed a UK hit with 1983’s ‘Scatterlings Of Africa’) and then Savuka, to whom Dudu also contributed vocals.

The musician was returning from a neighbour’s to his home in Esiphongweni when he was shot at close proximity in what was believed to have been a case of mistaken identity. During this time of destabilization, local ‘taxi wars’ had flared up between drivers desperate to maintain their patches: Dudu was thought to have been killed erroneously, or in crossfire. A family man orphaned himself as a young boy, Dudu Zulu left nine children, his shooting coming less than six months after that of Ladysmith Black Mambazo’s Headman Tshabalala (
December 1991).

Thursday 7

Nigel Preston

(London, 4 April 1959)

The (Southern Death) Cult

Sex Gang Children

The Gun Club

Theatre of Hate

(Various acts)