The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (18 page)

Another velvet-voiced singer in the style of Nat ‘King’ Cole, Edwards was a favourite around Richmond before his songwriting prowess sent him to New York City in 1949. One song in particular had cemented his reputation: the bizarrely titled ‘That Chick’s Too Young to Fry’, a sizeable 1946 hit for Louis Jordan. Also an accomplished pianist, Edwards’s own biggest record would be 1958’s ‘It’s All in the Game’ – possibly the only number-one hit written by a former US vice-president (Charles Gates Dawes). Tommy Edwards’s success was a distant memory by the time he died of an undetected brain aneurysm at the age of forty-seven.

DECEMBER

Monday 1

Magic Sam

(Samuel Gene Maghett - Grenada, Mississippi, 14 February 1937)

The popular songwriter, guitarist and King of West-Side Blues died of a heart attack at the age of thirty-two. After briefly serving time for army desertion in 1961, Magic Sam became a prime mover in Chicago’s electric-blues scene, recording two well-received albums, and was on the verge of a deal with Stax – and major stardom – at the time of his death: a triumphant performance at Michigan’s 1969 Ann Arbor Blues Festival proved to be his critical zenith. Then, complaining of heartburn, the mercurial musician collapsed one morning in Chicago, never to recover.

Close…

Nancy Nevins

Sweetwater

While many high-profile stars of Woodstock 1969 were to fall over the next decade or so, one name seldom mentioned is that of Sweetwater. This Latin-styled band
(who regularly opened for acts like The Doors and Janis Joplin) were the first to play the legendary festival - but after that distinction, their luck was decidedly out. Lead singer Nancy Nevins very nearly became the first to perish when her car was struck by a drunk driver in December 1969; the accident left her in a coma and brain-damaged. Although she recovered, her vocal chords were permanently damaged, a disability that effectively ended Sweetwater as a going concern until a brief reconvening in 1997. But by this time few original members were around to join her: drummer Alan Malarowitz had been less fortunate than Nevins, dying in a car crash in 1981, while cellist August Burns succumbed to pneumonia after a bizarre accident the following year. Flautist Albert Moore passed away from lung cancer in 1994.

Lest We Forget

Other notable deaths that occurred sometime during 1969:

Paul Chambers
(US bassist with The Miles Davis Quintet; born Pittsburgh, 22/4/35; tuberculosis, 4/1)

Leonard Chess
(Polish-born founder of Chess Records; born Lazer Schmuel Chez, Motol, 12/3/1917; heart attack, 16/10)

Judy Garland
(celebrated US musical actress/singer; born Frances Ethel Gumm, Minnesota, 10/6/1922; overdose of barbiturates, 22/6)

Wynonie Harris
(US blues singer; born Omaha, Nebraska, 24/8/1915; throat cancer, 14/6)

Gary Allen Hinman
(US musician/teacher and ‘friend to the stars’; born Colorado, 24/12/1934; selling Manson Family member Bobby Beausoleil dodgy mescaline, he was stabbed twice by the buyer, 27/7)

Meredith Hunter
(US Rolling Stones fan murdered at the Altamont concert; born 1951; stabbed to death by Hell’s Angels employed as security guards, 6/12)

Skip James
(US blues musician; born Nehemiah James, Bentonia, Mississippi; cancer, 3/10)

Frederick Earl ‘Shorty’ Long
(US R & B singer who hit with ‘Here Comes the Judge’ in 1968; born Alabama, 20/5/1940; drowned after his boat capsized, 29/6)

Johnny Moore
(US lead with pioneering vocal act The Blazers; born Texas, 20/10/1906; unknown, 6/1)

Jimmy McHugh
(revered US composer/songwriter; born Massachusetts, 10/7/1894; unknown, 23/5)

Lemon ‘Banjo Boy’ Nash
(US blues guitarist/banjoplayer; born Louisiana, 22/4/1898; unknown)

Margaret Warnes
(Australian pop singer with Sweethearts On Parade; born Arncliffe, Sydney, 7/12/1949; she was accidentally shot on stage by a US Marine attempting to hit his commanding officer, Vietnam, 20/7)

Josh White
(US folk/blues guitarist who worked with Blind Joe Taggart; born North Carolina, 11/2;/1914; died during heart surgery, 5/9)

1970

JANUARY

Saturday 17

Billy Stewart

(William Larry Stewart - Washington, DC, 24 March 1937)

William Cathey

(1937)

Rico Hightower

(1947)

Norman P Rich

(26 February 1930)

The Soul Kings

Known in the industry as ‘Fat Boy’, the formidable Billy Stewart enjoyed a measure of US success during the sixties with his R & B-flavoured Soul Kings, the band he formed after spending some time under the wing of admirer Bo Diddley. The jovial musician’s background and upbringing in gospel – his family had performed as The Stewart Gospel Singers – had given him an enviable voice as well as considerable talent at the piano. Stewart’s move to secular music was marked by his fondness for updating show tunes: his barnstorming take on George Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’ produced a big-selling US Top Ten single for Chess Records in August 1966. In the late fifties, as a member of The Rainbows, Stewart shared the limelight with future star Don Covay and the legendary Marvin Gaye
(
April 1984).

The writing appeared to be on the wall for Stewart and his associates well before their fateful crash in January 1970: in 1968, a horrific coach accident and explosion had all but wiped out his road crew, while Stewart himself had narrowly escaped death in a motorbike smash one year later. But popular music suffered its second major band wipe-out when Stewart’s brand-new Ford Thunderbird developed a wheel-lock fault as he and his band travelled towards Smithfield, North Carolina, on Interstate 95. Hitting a bridge, the vehicle careered down a bank, coming to rest in the Neuse River; all four band members – Stewart, William Cathey, Rico Hightower and Norman P Rich – were killed. Stewart’s bereaved family went on to take legal action against Ford, reaching an out-of-court settlement.

Saturday 24

James ‘Shep’ Sheppard

(Queens, New York, 24 September 1935)

The Heartbeats

Shep & The Limelites

Hardworking and distinctive leader ‘Shep’ Sheppard fronted highly polished New York doo-wop group The Heartbeats before he hit his twenties. Writing songs in his bathtub, Sheppard composed the sumptuous ‘Crazy For You’, the 1955 airplay hit that brought his band overdue wider attention. Carrying an ego the size of a small continent, Sheppard was keen to grab as much limelight as he could (hence his second band’s name), which caused some resentment in the group, who eventually abandoned him: The Heartbeats’ patience finally ran out after a Philadelphia gig during which the singer somehow managed to fall asleep in the middle of the group’s ‘A Thousand Miles Away’! With The Limelites, Sheppard went on to compose such standards as the US 1961 number two ‘Daddy’s Home’ (better remembered in the UK as a schmaltzy Christmas runner-up for Cliff Richard twenty years later). Disbanding the group in 1966, Sheppard reunited The Limelites to play the cabaret circuit three years later; however, following one such show, the singer was discovered robbed, stabbed and bludgeoned to death in his car on the Long Island Expressway. Sheppard was known to be heavily in debt at the time, and his killers were most likely loan sharks who had been tailing him for months.

Saturday 31

Slim Harpo

(James Isaac Moore - Lobdell, Louisiana, 11 January 1924)