The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (177 page)

Original Beat Farmer Buddy Blue died in April 2006, while sometime Country Dick collaborator Lorna Doone died in a road accident in November2008.

Friday 17

Alan Hull

(Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 20 February 1945)

Lindisfarne

(Various acts)

Woody Guthrie-influenced singer/guitarist/pianist Alan Hull fast became a local hero to North-Easterners as his folk-rock band Lindisfarne became a popular festival draw in the late sixties. A songwriter rated by many at the time as one of Britain’s finest, Hull had to wait for ten years to taste real success. Having played the clubs with an assortment of bands, the breakthrough occurred in 1972 with two UK Top Five singles for Lindisfarne – now Hull, Simon Cowe (guitar/mandolin), Ray Jackson (mandolin/banjo), Rod Clements (bass/violin) and Ray Laidlaw (drums). ‘Meet Me on the Corner’ and the whimsical reissue ‘Lady Eleanor’ charted concurrently to three hit Lindisfarne albums within a year, of which the first,
Fog on the Tyne
(1971), gave the group a once improbable chart-topper. Despite this unexpected national acceptance, Lindisfarne split soon after, and the new line-up had to wait a further six years for a third Top Ten single (1978’s ‘Run For Home’, also a US hit), and a further twelve for a fourth – the less-welcome ‘Fog on the Tyne (Revisited)’ (1990), featuring a vocal ‘performance’ by footballer Paul Gascoigne.

By the late eighties Lindisfarne had become little more than a perennial Christmas knees-up act. Hull then became active in Labour politics before his death from a heart thrombosis in November 1995. Having released solo albums for over two decades, Alan Hull completed work on his final record on the night that he died.

See also
Kenny Craddock (
May 2002)

Tuesday 21

Peter Grant

(London, 5 April 1935)

A former wrestler from a deprived background, Grant tagged himself first with The Yardbirds, then The Pretty Things and Led Zeppelin, becoming arguably the most successful rock manager since Brian Epstein. Far from keeping his bands in order, Grant was widely recognized as the protagonist in Led Zeppelin’s much-reported touring debauchery during the seventies. But the 250 lb-plus Grant – who had been known to use strong-arm tactics to land gigs – was not a character with whom to mess: on one notable occasion, he singlehandedly (and very publicly) ‘dispatched’ a pair of US marines who had been mocking Robert Plant and Jimmy Page’s extravagant haircuts, uttering the immortal phrase ‘What’s your fucking problem, Popeye?’ as he removed them from the scene. After another fracas in 1977, Grant received a suspended sentence for an attack on an employee of US promoter Bill Graham.

The accidental death of Led Zep drummer John Bonham
(
September 1980)
saw a devastated Peter Grant finally distance himself from the music industry. Grant himself died of a heart attack in the back of a friend’s car while travelling to his Eastbourne home.

Matthew Ashman

(Barnet, England, 3 November 1960)

Bow Wow Wow

Adam & The Ants

Agent Provocateur

(The Chiefs of Relief)

A ‘puppet’ (in name only) of Malcolm McLaren, Matt Ashman was actually a versatile musician who switched from the jazz leanings of his youth to hit the sharp end of UK glam punk by the eighties. A teenage member of Adam & The Ants, Ashman contributed keyboards and guitar to the band’s debut album
Dirk Wears White Sox
(1979), enjoying a belated Top Ten hit with ‘Young Parisians’ (1981) as Adam’s new brood hit paydirt. By this time Ashman was a key member of equally tribal-sounding pop act Bow Wow Wow, a band that courted controversy by somewhat brazenly parading its underage singer, Annabella Lwin. A couple of 1982 hits notwithstanding, Bow Wow Wow didn’t match the success of McLaren’s earlier charges – he had, of course, also overseen the career of The Sex Pistols – and split after two albums.

Matthew Ashman then teamed up with ex-Pistols drummer Paul Cook for the largely unsuccessful Chiefs of Relief, before working as a session-player. His dance project, Agent Provocateur, looked more likely to succeed, with a well-received single ‘Kicks’ (1995). However, Ashman fell into a coma and died of complications arising from a diabetic condition before the debut album could be completed.

Friday 24

Junior Walker

(Autry DeWalt 11 - Blytheville, Arizona, 14 June 1931)

Junior Walker & The Allstars

(The Jumping Jacks)

Saxophonist Junior Walker was the third Motown giant to pass away in 1995 and possibly the first of the Detroit music factory’s instrumental players to have made a worldwide name for himself. Walker’s earliest band was The Jumping Jacks, a troupe that played Indiana clubs during the fifties. The Allstars formed on his relocation to Michigan, and were discovered by singer Johnny Bristol in 1961. After their first US R & B hit with ‘Shotgun’ (1964), a stream of chart entries ensued, most notably the international smash ‘(I’m a) Roadrunner’ (1969). Although hits were fewer towards the end of the seventies, Walker enjoyed an unlikely guest slot on Foreigner’s US Top Five song ‘Urgent’ (1981).

Diagnosed with cancer six years before, Junior Walker died at his adopted home of Battle Creek, Michigan. Allstars drummer Billy ‘Stix’ Nicks continued to tour the band, while Walker’s son kept his father’s name alive by pursuing a career as a percussionist in his own right. Longtime Allstars saxophonist Willie Woods survived his boss by just two years.

Saturday 25

Wildchild

(Roger McKenzie - Southampton, 22 July 1971)

‘Wildchild’ was the alter ego of the dance-mix practitioner who otherwise conducted business under the less flamboyant moniker of Roger McKenzie. Born in Southampton, at the age of twenty McKenzie made the exhausting journey to Brighton – ie, the future home of ‘big beat’ – where he worked as an underground house DJ and set up his own Dark & Black label. The single ‘Renegade Master’ (1995) was, however, issued on Norman ‘Fatboy Slim’ Cook’s label, and became a club and Top Twenty hit that September, putting Wildchild on
Top of the Pops.

By now, though, Wildchild had relocated to New York, where his tragic death from an unspecified heart condition one short month later came as a complete shock to the many who had recently worked with him. Sensing its unfulfilled potential, Cook excellently restyled the single in 1998, presenting Roger McKenzie’s estate with a posthumous number-two hit in the UK and nearly 2 million worldwide sales.