The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (173 page)

JUNE

Tuesday 6

Sims Ellison

(Austin, Texas, 10 March 1967)

Pariah

An impressive hard-rock bass-player, Ellison formed Pariah with his brother Kyle (guitars) and drummer Shandon Sahm in the late eighties; the band quickly developed something of a local following before an opportunity to record an album with Geffen Records came knocking. Having recorded
To Kill a Mockingbird,
however, Pariah had to wait three years for the material to be released: when it eventually surfaced late in 1993, their moment had already passed – and the record bombed. By early 1995 Pariah were treated exactly thus and had been dropped from Geffen’s roster.

Depressed, Ellison ended his life by gunshot; his distraught ex-manager, Wayne Nagle, was sufficiently moved by the suicide to form the support foundation SIMS, which offers counselling to musicians suffering from mental illness.

Wednesday 14

Rory Gallagher

(Ballyshannon, Republic of Ireland, 3 March 1948)

Taste

Emerging as an international force in late-sixties blues rock, Rory Gallagher was perhaps the only guitarist to marry the skiffle he had loved as a boy with the blues of Muddy Waters – he would later realize the dream of playing with Waters. Gallagher had learned much of his craft in local amateur showband The Fontanas, before turning his attention to the musical phenomenon sweeping the UK. He formed the three-piece Taste, who were signed up by Polydor on relocating to London and secured a Top Twenty album,
On the Boards
(1970). Following this success, Gallagher surprisingly split the group, becoming a solo act during the seventies. By now a recognized virtuoso, he also played on a number of records by other artists.

An unlikely star, Rory Gallagher dressed down for his performances and suffered from intermittent stage fright throughout his career. To combat this, the nonetheless popular guitarist regularly indulged in drinking bouts: as a consequence, he underwent liver surgery more than once. However, after a transplant appeared to have saved his life, Gallagher failed to recover from a resultant chest infection, and died at London’s King’s College Hospital a month after his operation.

Friday 30

Biggie Tembo

(Rodwell Marasha - Chinhoyi, Mashonaland, 30 September 1958)

The Bhundu Boys

The Bhundu Boys burst on to the scene from the Zimbabwe capital of Harare, a city whose name – with an irony not lost on those who have followed the career of this otherwise most uplifting of musical acts – translates as ‘death everywhere’. When their native country (formerly Rhodesia) gained independence in 1980, opportunities improved for musicians oppressed by the previous regime. Indeed, ‘Bhundu Boys’ refers to the guerrillas who fought to make such liberation a possibility: as a boy, singer and guitarist Biggie Tembo, like hundreds of other youngsters, served as a runner to these soldiers. An early member of the band, Tembo joined group founder Rise Kagona on the nightclub circuit, frequently performing their hypnotic brand of ‘jit jive’ on borrowed equipment. This state of affairs changed dramatically following the release of
‘Hatisi Tose’,
a record that spent three months atop the Zimbabwe charts in the mid eighties. The Bhundus soon became one of the first non-Western acts to tour Europe – culminating in an unlikely support slot for Madonna at Wembley Stadium. Tembo was clearly the main man, turning in performance after performance that had the most retiring of observers jumping to their feet. (Influential British DJ John Peel allegedly broke down in tears during one show at London’s Dingwalls club.)

The Bhundu Boys were seldom far from more serious issues, however, and tragedy struck three times in quick succession for them with the AIDS-related deaths of band members David Mankaba (1991), Shepherd Munyama (1992) and Shakespear ‘Shakie’ Kangwena (1993). Biggie Tembo (who had mysteriously been voted out of the band in 1990) was clearly affected by all this, pursuing a solo career which took in some deeply religious music. Before his own death, Tembo had, like his mother before him, taken up preaching. Clinically depressed, this once-irrepressible performer ended his days in a Zimbabwean mental institution, where he hanged himself in his bedroom. Rise Kagona continues to perform with a new line-up of the band.

Phyllis Hyman

(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 6 July 1949)

Phyllis Hyman had a distinct philosophy on life: she believed that just as she had the right to choose how to live, she possessed the same entitlements regarding her death. In short, Hyman believed that suicide was a justifiable solution for those who could not manage the spiritual, emotional or physical pain of their lives.

Hyman, deep-voiced and statuesque, was a distinctive talent. Her career began to flourish in earnest when she graduated from Buddah Records to the esteemed Arista label in 1978. She’d scored hits with Buddah, but this move elevated her to the level of contemporaries like Chaka Khan and Melba Moore. Plans were afoot for this exciting new singer: Arista allegedly even told her that she would be ‘the next Diana Ross’. She (possibly unintentionally) cracked the burgeoning gay market with the highly praised album
Can’t We Fall in Love Again?
(1981), while impressing Broadway audiences with her performances in the Duke Ellington tribute show,
Sophisticated Ladies.
But progress internationally was slow for Hyman, and her continued annoyance at Arista’s impatience boiled over when Whitney Houston arrived at the label in 1984. The company’s obsession with a younger, supposedly fresher talent caused artist and label to go their separate ways. Many believe Hyman failed to move on from this setback, although her career briefly revived at Philiadelia International – during which time Arista chose to delete several earlier releases.

Just hours before a scheduled performance at Harlem’s Apollo Theater, Hyman told a friend this would be the final concert she would play. In truth, she had already sung her last. Apparently depressed by the recent loss of both her mother and grandmother – and traumatized by the Oklahoma bombing – Hyman felt that her own time had come. Discovering her unconscious, Hyman’s live-in assistant, Lennice Malina, contacted police, whose reports listed a multitude of pills and suicide notes at her Manhattan apartment. Phyllis Hyman died two hours later at New York’s Roosevelt Hospital. In her adult life, Hyman had been diagnosed as bipolar (suffering from manic depression), but, refusing to accept conventionally prescribed drugs, had chosen to self-medicate – distorting her mental state even further.

Her manager and close friend, Gloria Gracia, talked also of her ‘empathic’ nature, which supposedly caused her to feel the physical pain of others and experience premonitions: ‘Phyllis never considered herself to be “psychic” per se, but her sensitivity was such that she experienced telepathy, precognition and, generally speaking, the paranormal environment in a way that did not allow her to be easily understood by others.’ The posthumous
I Refuse to be Lonely
(1995) – much of which deals with her personal struggle – tells us that Phyllis Hyman was a very complex character indeed.

Longtime Phyllis Hyman and Chaka Khan producer Sami McKinney died in February
2008.

JULY

Saturday 1

Ian Parkin

(Wakefield, 1950)

BeBop Deluxe

Ian Parkin was rhythm guitarist with singer Bill Nelson’s cult seventies rock act BeBop Deluxe – the pair became friends during the early/mid sixties, forming the nucleus of the band (as The Strangers) while still at school in Wakefield. Parkin played on only one BeBop Deluxe album, 1975’s critically acclaimed debut,
Axe Victim,
before an acrimonious split later that year saw a change of line-up; the band became history in 1978. Indeed, Nelson hadn’t stayed in touch with Parkin – who, still involved in music, was married with two children – but was moved by his untimely death, believed to have been from cancer: ‘This brings great sadness to my heart. His companionship during my teenage years and early twenties will always be fondly remembered.’ Just months later, Nelson learned of the death of another former BeBop Deluxe colleague, bass-player Charlie Tumahai, who unexpectedly died from heart failure in Auckland on 21 December.