The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (184 page)

Tuesday 16

John Panozzo

(Chicago, Illinois, 20 September 1948)

Styx

With his twin brother, the bass-playing Chuck, drummer John Panozzo was determined to emulate the extravagant stylings of his favourite prog bands: in the event, it proved to be bombastic ballads that drove his band to the very top as the seventies came to a close. The twins played together from age fifteen, growing up as US rock gained confidence in the face of the UK’s beat boom. By 1970 Styx (then the rather anonymous TW4) had recruited a strong vocalist/instrumentalist/songwriter, Dennis DeYoung, and guitarists John Curulewski (who was replaced by Tommy Shaw in 1976 and died in 1988) and James Young. It was not until 1975 that Styx unlocked the Billboard charts, however, with the DeYoung-penned single ‘Lady’, which sold a million copies. Momentum grew with a series of platinum albums – the peak for Styx was surely 1979’s
Pieces Of Eight
and its number-one single, the orchestrally driven ‘Babe’ (their only noteworthy UK hit, a year later). The band showed more resilience than most of their stadium rivals, scoring hits into the nineties – ‘Show Me the Way’ (1991) was picked up as a chest-beating Gulf War anthem. Heavy drinking taking its toll on his health, John Panozzo at this point began to take a sidelined role in Styx’s activities: to his chagrin, the drummer – suffering an arm injury – was eventually replaced by Todd Sucherman for a reunion tour in 1996. Within days he was dead, discovered at his Chicago home, the victim of a series of bleeding ulcers resulting from cirrhosis of the liver. Styx continued into the millennium (legal wrangles replaced the recording of new material); Chuck Panozzo, meanwhile, was diagnosed HIV positive in 2001.

Wednesday 17

Chas Chandler

(Bryan James Chandler - Heaton, Northumberland, 18 December 1938)

The Animals

Chas Chandler couldn’t really have done a lot more to secure his place in pop folklore. The genial six-foot Geordie was first of all bassist with an internationally successful beat group, then discovered and managed one of the finest talents rock music has ever seen (Hendrix, as opposed to Slade), and finally used his experience and clout as a music ambassador for his beloved Newcastle. Befriending pianist Alan Price, Chandler played with the latter’s blues trio in 1962 before they discovered charismatic vocalist Eric Burdon – and renamed the band The Kontours. Completed by Hilton Valentine (guitar) and John Steel (drums), the band were then renamed The Animals – and the big time was just around the corner. According to late producer Mickie Most, they recorded the transatlantic number one ‘House of the Rising Sun’ (1964) in less than twenty minutes. The single was the biggest of eight Top Ten hits the band enjoyed in the UK, including ‘Don’t Let Me be Misunderstood’ and ‘We Gotta Get out of This Place’ (both 1965), but ferocious internal squabbling caused Chandler to follow Price’s lead and leave The Animals in 1967: ‘We toured non-stop for three years and hardly saw a penny,’ Chandler revealed in 1994. (Even a reunion tour twenty years later had to be cancelled because of an outbreak of onstage brawling between the musicians.)

Chandler and Hendrix: ‘Listen, Jim - you run through “Voodoo Chile” as many times as you want. I’m just gonna nip out for some smokes …’

In 1966, Chandler chanced upon a young musician named Jimi Hendrix playing in a bar in Greenwich Village; he knew immediately that this young man was going to cause a sensation. Wasting no time, Chandler took Hendrix to England, introducing him to guitarist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell – the remaining pieces of The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Having produced the prodigy’s first two albums, Chandler later said on record that he wished he hadn’t left the job unfinished: falling out with the star before the release of
Electric Ladyland
(1968), the manager never had the chance to make up with Hendrix before he died (
September 1970).
In terms of out-and-out commercial return, though, Chandler’s most successful period was surely his dozen or so years as manager of Slade, supervising the Wolverhampton good-time boys as they topped the British charts no fewer than six times between 1971 and 1974.

In his later life, the former Animal began his own label and helped develop the 10,000-seat Newcastle Arena. The project was completed just a year before Chas Chandler’s death from an aortic aneurysm.

See also
Noel Redding (
May 2003); Mitch Mitchell (
November 2008)

Monday 22

Rob Collins

(Sedgley, West Midlands, 23 February 1963)

The Charlatans (UK)

Sixteen years after Rob Collins’s death, many still feel that, despite his increasingly wilful behaviour while a member of the band, The Charlatans were at their best when he was about. A pianist since his teens, Collins developed a swirling organ sound that set the music of The Charlatans apart from their immediate peers (Stone Roses, Inspiral Carpets, etc). The band – fronted by photogenic singer Tim Burgess, who joined Collins, John Baker (guitar – soon replaced by Mark Collins), Martin Blunt (bass) and John Brookes (drums) – hit the jackpot first time, their debut album,
Some Friendly,
topping the UK listings in 1990, while evocative hits such as ‘The Only One I Know’ (the
NME’s
Single of the Year) meant that their faces were seldom far from
Top of the Pops.
Perhaps Collins’s own most distinctive moment was his jarring Hammond intro on the 1992 Top Twenty hit ‘Weirdo’. Then, in November 1993, Collins was suddenly imprisoned for four months for his supposedly unintentional part in the armed robbery of an off licence; while he waited at Her Majesty’s pleasure, The Charlatans built an entire album (1994’s
Up to Our Hips)
around the swathes of organ Collins had already created.

The Charlatans were close to finishing yet another album,
Tellin’ Stories,
at Monmouthshire’s Rockfield Studios in 1996 when another, far worse incident occurred. Expecting the roads to be quiet, Collins had decided to drive himself and Charlatans sound engineer Richard Peet back to the studio after a session at a local pub. Collins miscalculated a bend, and his BMW flipped up and off the road, throwing the driver through the sunroof and fifty feet into a cornfield. While Peet escaped unhurt, Rob Collins was confirmed dead at the scene from massive head injuries; his blood alcohol level was found to be twice the legal limit. Collins, who left an estranged wife and young daughter, was remembered on the next single ‘One To Another’ (issued just two weeks after his death) and its parent album – the biggest hits of The Charlatans’ career.