The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (211 page)

‘I will miss him - he was the thunder and I was the rain. This black-on-black crime needs to stop.’

Mr Cheeks, The Lost Boyz

Freaky Tah (top): Not just another lost boy

APRIL

Friday 9

Colin Manley

(Liverpool, 16 April 1942)

The Remo Four

The Swinging Blue Jeans

Once upon a time, guitarist Colin Manley was a classmate of Paul McCartney and George Harrison at Liverpool Institute Grammar School, the three musicians often grouping in empty classrooms to play Duane Eddy and Chet Atkins numbers. Manley was the first to make some kind of an impact, at sixteen years of age forming The Remo Quartet (later The Remo Four) – described by the young Beatles as the band to whom they had to aspire in order to make it themselves. In the next few years, it was, of course, to be the Beatles who made waves, The Remo Four nonetheless proving a popular act as they toured with the rising superstars in 1964. During the rest of the decade, the Brian Epstein-managed Remos found work backing solo stars like Billy Fury and Billy J Kramer, before disbanding in 1970 – though not before Manley had crossed paths once more with Harrison, playing on his
Wonderwall Music
soundtrack album (1968).

On his own, Manley backed a number of unlikely characters (including his friend comedian/singer Freddie Starr), becoming absorbed into variety. In 1977, he joined a later incarnation of sixties favourites The Swinging Blue Jeans – and remained with them until his death from cancer twenty-two years later.

Friday 16

Skip Spence

(Alexander Lee Spence Jr - Windsor, Ontario, 18 April 1946)

Jefferson Airplane

Moby Grape

So – was he misunderstood, or just plain fried? The story of Alexander ‘Skip’ Spence is one of many cautionary tales from the LSD-addled sixties – the gifted though impressionable son of a jazz musician was a casualty of prolonged hallucinogenic use. In the end, Spence was left to fend for himself – a sad and all-too-familiar example of a musician with much to give somehow slipping through life’s net. Spence was, somewhat bizarrely, originally cast as drummer with Jefferson Airplane, his wayward, unkempt look appealing to former folk singer Marty Balin, who selected his man at a club where Spence was supposed to be auditioning for Quicksilver Messenger Service. (This kind of confusion and opportunism was to punctuate the guitarist’s career.) Despite contributing four songs to a debut album,
Jefferson Airplane Takes Off
(1965), Spence became disenchanted with the band’s direction, not to mention the length of time it was taking to issue the record, so he took off himself, to Mexico, before returning to start his own band. Now wielding his beloved guitar, Spence unleashed Moby Grape, a group of psychedelic blues warriors boasting four songwriters in their ranks. This band – Spence (guitar/vocals), Peter Lewis (ditto), Jerry Miller (ditto, but lead guitar), Bob Mosley (bass) and Don Stevenson (drums) suited Spence far more but was ultimately capsized by a series of odd events. Massively publicized by Columbia Records, Moby Grape’s first album was hyped by the simultaneous issue of its tracks on five singles, a crazy ploy which backfired – as did a band member’s decision to ‘flip the bird’ on the sleeve photo, which saw the record pulled from some stores. A series of drug busts, squabbles with management and Spence’s increasing LSD- and alcohol-promoted paranoid schizophrenia ended any real interest in the project. In 1968, while working on a follow-up album, he attacked his cohorts with a fire axe – resulting in his incarceration in a secure unit at Bellevue for six months. It was not the last time the guitarist would be institutionalized.

On his release, Spence launched a solo career. Although often dismissed as impenetrable, his 1969 album
Oar
(all of which he wrote and played) is actually a very touching work, albeit as addled as one might expect. A fine talent who could, and should, have been a major star, Spence existed only in the shadows, his mental condition deteriorating to the degree that he wound up in care once more, at other times living either reclusively or on the streets. Although he had reportedly managed to kick his alcoholism by 1999, a bout of pneumonia destroyed his already weakened constitution. He died at the Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz.

See also
SpencerDryden (gJanuary 2005)

Sunday 25

Larry Troutman

(Hamilton, Ohio, 12 August 1944)

Roger Troutman

(Hamilton, Ohio, 29 November 1952)

Zapp

‘He ain’t breathin’, he’s my brother.’ The dramatic demise of both Larry and Roger Troutman is likely to remain enshrouded in mystery for ever – a tale of double-crossing, jealousy or perhaps just desperation. The real catalyst to their band Zapp’s fame was ‘Little’ Roger, a multi-instrumentalist who liked to be known purely by his first name and had fashioned his first group at the age of ten. Involving two further brothers (Lester and Terry), Roger & The Human Body was the group’s first incarnation in the mid seventies; older brother Larry played the congas, but seemed happier as manager when the renamed Zapp began to gain recognition. Roger was very much the focal point and recognized contributor of the bulk of the ideas and musicianship, with cheeky, Kid Creole-meets-Prince pin-up looks. With the help of P-Funk guru Bootsy Collins, Roger & Zapp – as they were later to be billed – had a major radio hit with the single ‘More Bounce to the Ounce’ (1980), a vocoder-driven slice of electro-funk that took them to the top of the R & B charts. With the super-confident younger brother also taking on solo recordings, Larry took a back seat, overseeing Troutman Enterprises, the business side of Zapp’s affairs. Or not, as the case may be …

Roger Troutman’s best year was 1987 – his solo hit ‘I Want to be Your Man’ was all over the US airwaves as it climbed into the Billboard Top Five. Although not all his releases sold as well, his subsequent reputation put the musician in demand with a number of rap acts during the nineties, and Roger continued to put out his own material at quite a rate. For his part, Larry had pushed Troutman Enterprises into real estate and even transport hire – yet something was wrong. On the night of 25 April 1999, Larry Troutman let his younger brother know that the company’s financial situation was critical and that this was likely to affect Roger’s recordings. A fierce argument then broke out between the pair in an alleyway behind their studio in Dayton, Ohio. Suddenly pulling a gun, Larry shot his brother several times, leaving him for dead as he jumped into his Sedan and sped away; he then turned the pistol to his own head as he drove, pulled the trigger and crashed the car into a wall some blocks from the studio.

Some 4,000 mourners joined the Troutman family at a combined service a few days later. Perhaps the most unusual tribute that day was a rendition of ‘Amazing Grace’ by young Rufus Troutman (a nephew of the deceased siblings) using Roger’s vocoder – the machine that had driven his last hit, the US number one ‘California Love’ (1996). This track had been a collaboration with Tupac Shakur, who’d also died by the bullet, just months after its success (
September 1996
).

The Troutman family’s grim history continued just four years later with the death of Roger’s son, singer Roger T Lynch – who had performed with Zapp as a kid.

Monday 26

Kemistry

(Valerie Olukemi Olusanya - Birmingham, England, 13 October 1963)