The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (16 page)

But, despite his prowess as a musician and performer, Drummond had severe mental-health issues not helped by his excessive marijuana use, lack of financial reward or indeed recognition while he was alive. His problems came to a tragic head on 31 December 1964, when his girlfriend, Anita ‘Margarita’ Mahfood, administered him the wrong drugs, causing Drummond to sleep through a scheduled concert appearance for The Skatalites, apparently a genuine mistake on her part. On discovering some hours later, however, that Mahfood – an exotic dancer – had deliberately given him the wrong medication in order to spend New Year’s Eve performing herself, he flew into a rage. When she returned to his East Kingston home at 3.30 am, an argument ensued, during which Mahfood was stabbed four times in the chest. Entering the Rockfort police station an hour later, Drummond apparently muttered, ‘A woman in de yard stab herself – an’ I would like de police to come and see her.’ Two officers accompanied him back home to discover Anita Mahfood dead on their bed. The murder weapon still protruded from her body, now covered in a chamois; Drummond then tried to claim Mahfood had inflicted the wounds herself. What quickly confirmed his guilt was the position of his beloved trombone, by the bed with his girlfriend’s hand strangely thrust far into the bell. Drummond was deemed legally insane and sentenced to imprisonment at the Bellevue (a notorious Jamaican psychiatric unit). While he was incarcerated his band fell apart – that ‘Guns of Navarone’ went on to become a massive international hit in 1967 is little more than a sad footnote. The causes of Drummond’s own death while institutionalized remain speculative: the majority accept the given verdict of suicide, though suggestions of intervention by members of Mahfood’s family – or even a beating by guards at the unit – were dramatically brought to the fore by Drummond’s contemporary Hugh Malcolm (drummer with The Supersonics), who symbolically ripped up his friend’s death certificate at a memorial service for the musician.

See also
Jackie Mittoo (
December 1990); Tommy McCook (
Golden Oldies #6); Roland Alphonso (
Golden Oldies #8). Lloyd Knibb (
Golden Oldies #136). Occasional Skatalites singers Jackie Opel (1970) and Vic Taylor (2003) have also passed on, as have guitarist Jah Jerry Haynes (2007), trumpeter Johnny ‘Dizzy’ Moore (2008), and double-bassist Lloyd Brevett (2012).

Wednesday 14

Martin Lamble

(London, 28 August 1948)

Fairport Convention

Martin Lamble was only twenty when he died. The cocksure drummer had been so convinced of his own ability that his heckling of original Fairport Convention percussionist Shaun Frater resulted in the latter getting the push and Lamble securing the job at only seventeen. At various times boasting the now-revered Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson and Ian Matthews among its ranks, Fairport found crossover success fairly rapidly.

With two albums cementing their position at the fore of Britain’s folk-rock scene, Fairport Convention were touring the third,
Unhalfbricking
(1969), when disaster struck. Travelling back to London from a Birmingham concert, the band’s van was involved in a crash near Mill Hill; while other members were shaken up, Thompson was badly injured – and Martin Lamble was killed instantly. As a mark of respect to their young drummer, Fairport Convention decided to continue, issuing in July what would be their only UK hit single,
‘Si tu dois partir
’, in his memory. The band was to endure a fractured career until further tragedy claimed singer Sandy Denny less than a decade later
(
April 1978);
her partner and sometime Fairport member, Trevor Lucas, also died prematurely
(
February
1989).

Brian Jones: Turned his back on one or two over the years

‘Of course Brian was being set up. First the police would be tipped off that he was holding drugs and a few minutes later the tip-off would come to me. I think that someone in The Stones’ organization wanted him out of the way.’

Trevor Kempson, journalist,
News of the World

JULY

Thursday 3

Brian Jones

(Lewis Brian Hopkin-Jones - Cheltenham, England, 28 February 1942)

The Rolling Stones

Although Jagger and Richards were inevitably to become the focal point, The Rolling Stones were Brian Jones’s band. Although the founder’s playing was inspired by the traditional arrangements of his heroes, it was his own wayward, maverick behaviour that informed The Stones’ enduring attitude and stance. At the age of twenty-seven, a whirlwind life – involving much mistrust and betrayal – yielded to a shocking and needless death. Shortly before he died, Brian Jones had seemed to his many friends reconciled and focused for the first time in years. He had a new partner – Swedish student Anna Wohlin – with whom he seemed content, plus an enviable home that he loved at Cotchford Farm.