The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (222 page)

Screamin’ Jay Hawkins: Out of his head?

Later in his career the much-admired guitarist opened for lifetime fans The Rolling Stones, his act influencing many highprofile rock groups such as Black Sabbath, Arthur Brown and Alice Cooper, and his songs covered by, among others, Creedence Clearwater Revival. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins had decamped to Paris by the time of his death from complications following an aneurysm. The guitarist passed away from multiple organ failure on 12 February 2000 at a clinic in Neuilly-sur-Seine.

Tuesday 22

Matty Blag

(Matthew Roberts - Shropshire, England, 1964)

Blaggers ITA

Ten years after the British punk scene became caught up with undesirable far-right movements, along came Blaggers ITA – a no-nonsense group of anti-fascists who mixed rap and rock during their brief flirtation with fame. At the helm was Matty Blag (occasionally aka Matt LaCoste), a man unafraid to boast of ‘hunting down’ neo-Nazis in his songs – one of which, ‘Abandon Ship’ (1994), very nearly gave Blaggers a Top Forty hit on EMI. Almost always at odds with a press that couldn’t see a difference between the Blaggers’ behaviour and that of the political groups they opposed, Blag reached the height of infamy when, in 1993, he was quizzed about his methods by
Melody Maker
journalist Dave Simpson. Not one to suffer those he considered fools, Blag beat
him
up, too. With success seemingly around the corner, this misdemeanour effectively cost the band, Blaggers ITA struggling to remain with any UK label thereafter. A performer who engaged in dangerous onstage antics such as leaping from amp stacks into what would have been a pretty sparse crowd, Blag clearly also took many risks in his personal life, dying from a heroin overdose.

Wednesday 23

Ofra Haza

(Hatikva, Tel Aviv, 19 November 1959)

From the other end of the pop-music spectrum came Ofra Haza, an Israeli singer whose notable appearance as runner-up in the 1983 Eurovision Song Contest (with
‘Chai
‘) did not reflect her true talent. She was already a huge star in her homeland before a sample of her voice exposing the fullness of her range made her a household name in Western music. Haza’s sinuous ‘Im
NinAM
(‘If the Gates of Heaven are Locked’) is probably the only recording to feature on three major UK hits within two years: originally placed in Eric B & Rakim’s ‘Paid In Full’ (1986), the sample was then picked up by 4AD studio group MARRS for the chart-topper ‘Pump Up the Volume’ (1987) before Haza’s own version landed her in the Top Twenty in 1988. Further to this, Haza is likely the only purveyor of Yemenite poetry to appear on a goth record: her additions to The Sisters of Mercy’s ‘Temple Of Love’ (1991) similarly gave Andrew Eldritch’s band their biggest UK hit. Showing remarkable versatility, she also contributed to Paula Abdul’s ‘My Love is Real’ (1995).

Ofra Haza’s family hid news of her suffering from AIDS, considering it shameful despite the fact that she had contracted HIV via a blood transfusion twenty years before. Haza had been married just three years before her death from the disease.

MARCH

Monday 27

Ian Dury

(Upminster, Essex, 12 May 1942)

Ian Dury & The Blockheads

(Kilburn & The High Roads)

He was undoubtedly the warmest performer to emerge from the UK’s newwave scene – a poet, writer and actor given to role-playing both on screen and, most significantly, via his songs. And yet, for Ian Dury, it might never have happened. Despite his poor health and early deprivation, Dury made many friends throughout his life due to his humour and expansive optimism. After a bout of polio left him partially paralysed at the age of seven, Dury spent several years in a home for disabled children – where he was seldom happy. But his style and talent were readily displayed, at first during the sixties in his days as an art teacher at various schools around London – a profession he’d entered after graduating from the Royal College of Art. Dury’s first forays into music took place during this time: in 1970 he became singer with the peripatetic pub-rock band Kilburn & The High Roads, who cut albums with Pye and WEA, though were more popular as a live act. Not so the next band, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, a splendid collision of new wave, jazz, music hall and rock ‘n’ roll – with jaunty wordsmith Dury the perfect person at the helm. With punk holding centre stage in the UK, the seemingly anomalous Blockheads somehow fitted right in, signing with one of the new wave’s coolest labels, Stiff, in 1977 – by which time Dury was already thirty-five years old. The debut single ‘Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll’ (1977) set the stall for one of the great British albums of the era,
New Boots and Panties
(1978) – a scrapbook of bawdy verse, fly-by-night characters and no shortage of killer licks. Although this represented an artistic peak for Dury, his commercial zenith was to arrive with ‘Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick’ (1978), a UK number one at the start of the next year – and then ‘Reasons to be Cheerful’ (1979), which wasn’t far short. Subsequent albums were inevitably patchier than
New Boots,
with Dury having to settle for respect as opposed to the fan worship to which he’d grown accustomed. This more middling profile provided the opportunity to air a few grievances about the treatment in the media of the disabled (of which he was one), which Dury did with some aplomb in the single ‘Spasticus Autisticus’ (1981) – though nobody heard it, thanks to the double irony of a BBC ban.

‘I don’t spend my time shaking my fist at the moon. It doesn’t make you feel any better. Fifty per cent of any battle you’re in is your spirit.’

Ian Dury, in 1999

With interest in his work waning on the radio (and therefore in the charts), Ian Dury turned to acting – for which the world had already seen he possessed a natural gift – and also screen-writing. After some deserved success in this field – Dury found roles in a number of movies, including Peter Greenaway’s 1989 film
The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
– he then returned in 1998 with the acclaimed album
Mr Love Pants,
followed by the rather less welcome news of his deteriorating physical condition. Having become a goodwill ambassador for the disease that had crippled him as a child, Dury now revealed he had cancer of the bowel, which was fast spreading to his liver. His death in 2000 robbed the world of entertainment of a true original. Although Dury’s Cockney brogue limited his success mainly to his homeland, characters like ‘Billericay Dickie’, ‘Clevor Trever’ and ‘Plaistow Patricia’ say more about Britain in the last century than much of the country’s contemporary literature. The singer is survived by four children, including his son, Baxter, who – having featured as a boy on the cover of his father’s most famous album – had issued three well-received records of his own by 2012.

Ian Dury: From Essex - in case you couldn’t tell

See also
Charlie Charles (
September 1990)

Friday 31

Adrian Fisher

(England,
c
1950)

Sparks

Boxer

A respected guitarist, Adrian Fisher joined US brothers Ron (keyboards) and Russell Mael (vocals), plus fellow Britons Martin Gordon (bass) and Dinky Diamond (drums) in the second line-up of Sparks – one of the most visually arresting pop bands of the seventies. Fisher added the key riffs that enhanced the group’s splendid series of sub-operatic staccato hit singles, including ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us’ (UK number two, 1974), ‘Amateur Hour’ (1974) and ‘Something for the Girl with Everything’ (1975). A member of the band for two years, Fisher reemerged with UK rock band Boxer in 1977, later also playing with Paul Rodgers. Although his death was put down to myocardial infarction, it is believed Fisher’s exuberant lifestyle of alcohol and drugs may have contributed more than a little to his demise. For the final years of his life, however, Fisher had been living a simpler lifestyle in Thailand.