The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (19 page)

James Moore, orphaned in tenth grade, dropped out of school to follow a familiar blues path working the juke joints and picnics until he’d cemented a reputation as the fastest-rising guitarist/harmonicaplayer in Baton Rouge. By his twenties, and under the guidance of wily bluesman Lightnin’ Slim, Moore’s languid style had garnered him the attention of Nashville-based Excello Records boss, Jay Miller. (At this time, he was known as ‘Harmonica Slim’, a name that had to be dropped in favour of ‘Slim Harpo’, as it already had an owner.) Miller saw the young musician as ideal accompaniment to Lightnin’ Slim, later recording his own single, ‘I’m a King Bee’, in 1957. Flirting with rock ‘n’ roll, Slim Harpo scored an unexpected US Top Forty entry with ‘Rainin’ in My Heart’ (1961); returning the favour on this hit was none other than Lightnin’ Slim. Playing together, the pair enjoyed a string of R & B hits, while a number of Harpo songs were later covered by blues-influenced white British acts such as The Yardbirds, The Pretty Things and, naturally, The Rolling Stones.

Slim Harpo had been a hale and healthy man all his life, somehow juggling a music career with his own trucking business during the sixties. His inexplicable, untimely death from a heart attack at forty-six saddened many.

FEBRUARY

Tuesday 24

Darrell Banks

(Darrell Eubanks - Mansfield, Ohio, 25 July 1937)

(Various acts)

Brought up in Buffalo, New York, Darrell Banks’s gospel training nurtured the rounded vocal increasingly associated with the Northern soul genre. His first secular groups were little-known club acts The Daddy B Combo and Grand Prix, his dominant voice and presence enough to encourage manager Doc Murphy – who was also Eubanks’s dentist – to take a chance on the singer. All appeared to be going well for the newly renamed Banks when his first single for the Revilot label, ‘Open the Door to Your Heart’ (1966), achieved an R & B number two and a very respectable twenty-seven in the national pop charts. His following 45s would be equally competent, but in his search for consistent success, Banks was to be disappointed.

Just weeks after Darrell Banks’s final record release (and his final stab at stardom), he was to find himself in the middle of a grim domestic scenario in his then home town, Detroit. A patrolman named Aaron Bullock had just dropped his girlfriend, barmaid Marjorie Bozeman, at her home, when Banks – who, it transpired, had also been seeing her – emerged from a stationary car and grabbed Bozeman by her coat, stating angrily that they ‘needed to talk’. According to the many witnesses present, Bullock then made himself known as an officer of the law and ordered Banks to release Bozeman. At this point, Banks produced a .22 revolver from his jacket; Bullock responded as per his police training by ducking, pulling his own gun and shooting Banks – fatally – in the neck and chest. Darrell Banks died at 12.10 pm at the New Grace Hospital, his distraught lover explaining that she had been trying to end the relationship with the patrolman in order to settle down with the singer. Although Banks’s death certificate declares a ‘homicide’, no case was ever brought. Banks – who was divorced and survived by a son and a daughter – was interred at the Detroit Memorial Park Cemetery. His grave remained unmarked for over thirty years until a group of fans financed a headstone in his honour in July 2004.

MARCH

Saturday 14

Mary Ann Ganser

(Queens, New York, 4 February 1948)

The Shangri-Las

The Shangri-Las had us believe that they were two pairs of misunderstood teenage sisters with homework, unsuitable boyfriends and angst-ridden parental relationships, their lurid tales of adolescent woe seemingly torn directly from discarded romance comics. Under the guiding hand of lauded producer George ‘Shadow’ Morton, the group pumped out a series of punchy three-minute slices of emotionally draining suburban pop that couldn’t fail to resonate. Tragically, singer Mary Ann Ganser’s own life was as short and dramatic as a Shangri-Las mini epic.

Mary Ann and Margie (Marguerite) Ganser were two of five children born to a middle-class New York physician and his nightclub-singer wife, twins who sadly lost their father when still young. They lived just one block from Andrew Jackson High School colleagues Mary and Liz ‘Betty’ Weiss, and the two pairs of sisters became firm friends in 1963, when a mutual love of singing pulled their worlds together. Honing a nasal-sounding harmonic style (Mary Weiss took lead), The Shangri-Las were playing the hops before the high-school year was out. Artie Ripp – sinisterly named head honcho at Kama Sutra – was quick to sign the group after witnessing an early performance: rock ‘n’ roll may still have been young, but girl groups were very much ‘happening’. A few minor recordings were made before producer/writer George ‘Shadow’ Morton appeared on the scene with the cool, disquieting ‘Remember (Walkin’ in the Sand)’ (1964) – which would change the girls’ lives and fortunes for ever. The Shangri-Las (who had now joined the shortlived Red Bird label as minors, their contracts signed by their parents) found themselves with an unexpected Top Five hit. This was followed by an undisputed classic, ‘Leader of the Pack’, which, by the end of the fall, saw The Shangri-Las dramatically displace The Supremes at the top of the US charts. For a time, the US was hip to The Shangri-Las’ groove and a series of ‘teen angst’ vignettes followed
(
The Death Toll
#1).

Inevitably, after a unique moment like ‘Leader’, it was to be downhill for the group. The less-successful further songs prompted a ‘tougher’ image for The Shangri-Las, the flouncy dresses and sequins abandoned for catsuits or jeans, but their moment rapidly appeared to be over. Although they moved to the much larger Mercury label, The Shangri-Las’ record sales continued to fall while early contract mishandling meant that the girls saw little of the money due to them from the bigger hits of yore. Margie quit the band in 1966 for this reason (and her group’s incessant partying); The Shangri-Las – bar the odd reissue – were a spent brand by 1969.

The facts behind Mary Ann’s sudden death in 1970 still, to this day, divide her fans, friends and family. For a long time, it was believed that she might have suffered from encephalitis brought on by a malignant mosquito bite, and that she died following an untreated seizure while visiting a friend. Others – including, allegedly, the Gansers’ mother – suggest that Mary Ann had battled heroin addiction for the last two years of her life, an overdose of barbiturates causing her death at just twenty-two.

See also
Margie Ganser Dorste (
July 1996)

Monday 16

Tammi Terrell

(Thomasina Montgomery - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 29 April 1945)

The tale of soul vocalist Tammi Terrell is almost as tragic for her lack of real recognition during her short life as for her early death. A regular talentshow victor as a girl, the young Tammy Montgomery moved her audiences with a series of sublime, sensual performances and a voice that could melt the hardest heart touring with the prestigious James Brown Revue during the early sixties. Tammi Montgomery somehow still found time for her studies and, although romantically linked to Brown (and also to Temptation David Ruffin), she was believed to have married boxer Ernie Terrell (whose sister Jean replaced Diana Ross as a Supreme in 1970) while still a student at the University of Pennsylvania – though it’s more likely that she took his name as it was easier to remember than her own. Brief stints with Brown’s label and then with Checker were followed by a move to Berry Gordy’s Tamla Motown in 1965, where Terrell was ‘coupled’ with Marvin Gaye, the duo’s voices proving an instant, magical hit: a series of classic takes followed, among them the 1967–8 international smashes ‘Your Precious Love’, ‘You’re All I Need to Get By’ and ‘Ain’t Nothin’ Like the Real Thing’.