The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (223 page)

See also
Mike Patto (
March 1979)

APRIL

Thursday 6

Eugene Pearson

(Joshua Leviston - New York, 1935)

The Rivileers

The Drifters

(The Cleftones)

The latest member of The Drifters in our survey to pass away (see Rudy Lewis (
Pre-1965
and the accompanying
Dead Interesting
) was baritone Eugene Pearson – who, as 18-year-old Joshua Leviston, had begun his singing career with New York’s Rivileers. The young man was an avid songwriter whose fervour impressed smalltime entrepreneur Sol Rabinowitz: his subsequent investment in the group was sufficient to record an EP of Pearson’s songs headed by the schmaltzy ‘A Thousand Stars’ (1954). Despite being of high quality – and sufficiently commercial to retain radio airplay – this sadly did not lead to the expected breakthrough for the group. A disillusioned Pearson, having signed away the rights to his tunes, left music for the armed forces – where he learned that a group called The Innocents had successfully rerecorded ‘A Thousand Stars’. Frustrated but determined to restart his career as a singer, Pearson then joined The Cleftones and finally The Drifters as the troupe’s baritone during the highly successful years of 1962–6. Thereafter, Pearson juggled appearances as part of a Drifters touring unit with far less stressful shifts with the New York transit police. His death in 2000 was due to lung cancer – though just five years earlier, Eugene Pearson had been present when The Rivileers played their first concert in over forty years.

Friday 7

Heinz Burt

(Hargin, Germany, 25 July 1942)

The Tornados

As a 19-year-old bacon-slicer in unfashionable Southampton (having arrived from equally unfashionable Hargin), blond-haired Heinz Burt cut an unlikely figure. Good-looking and magnetic, Burt found that his life underwent dramatic changes when he arrived as a young rock ‘n’ roll-obsessed bassist in London: the unfaltering attention of one Joe Meek saw to that. The UK’s first independent producer saw a role for Burt in his studio-based instrumental band The Tornados, alongside Alan Caddy (lead guitar), George Bellamy (rhythm – father of current rock hero Matt Bellamy, of Muse), Roger Lavern (keyboards) and Clem Cattini (drums). Among the first results was the magnificent Telstar’ (1962), an evocative piece of zeitgeist pop that, having reached number one at home, also saw The Tornadoes (as they were spelled in the US) become the first UK band to reach the summit in America. Despite being recorded in ninety minutes – and dismissed as ‘crap’ by the wilful Burt on first hearing – the record stamped itself indelibly into world culture with 5 million global sales. After a follow-up, ‘Globetrotter’ (1963), also fared well in the UK, Meek began to see solo possibilities for the boy, who was fast becoming something of a favourite of his. There’s little doubt that Meek had a major crush on Burt, pushing the young musician forward to the detriment of one or two other charges – and, with the promise of gold records, moving him into the now-famous Holloway Road flat that was the focal point of Meek’s working life (and, indeed, his death). No matter that Burt – now renamed simply ‘Heinz’ – didn’t really possess much of a voice; he had the requisite pose and looks, while with the Eddie Cochran tribute ‘Just Like Eddie’ (1963) Meek had given Burt an admittedly quite good tune to kickstart his solo venture. (The producer also gave him a bottle of peroxide, thus emphasizing his blondness to the max.)

Things started to go downhill when it became apparent that Burt was not going to reciprocate Meek’s feelings. Over the next few years, Burt was handed hectic tour schedules (quite possibly as punishment by Meek): during one performance, sharing the stage with his heroes Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis, the out-of-his-depth ‘Heinz’ was pelted with baked beans by witty rockers in the audience. His records also began to slip dramatically in the charts. Cutting his losses, the former star decided on a diversion into cabaret – while his mentor’s life ended in the shocking and sensational episode in which Burt was briefly implicated (
February 1967).
Without Meek to enhance his work, Burt was reduced to doing the panto circuit by the seventies. The last stages of Heinz Burt’s life were distressing: crippled by motor neurone disease, he played his final gig just two weeks before his death, from a wheelchair at a club in Hampshire. His funeral attracted 150 guests – who celebrated the erstwhile heart-throb’s life with a ghostly rendition of ‘Telstar’. It is said that Burt had just £18 to his name at the time of his passing.

See also
Kim Roberts (
July 2000); Alan Caddy (
August 2000)

Thursday 27

Vicki Sue Robinson

(Harlem, New York, 31 May 1954)

For an all-too-brief moment, she was a star: if not the queen of disco (that position was clearly taken by Donna Summer), Vicki Sue Robinson seemed a princess in waiting – her vibrant ‘Turn the Beat Around’ (1976) a Top Ten realization of the girl’s aspirations. Brought up in Philadelphia by artistic parents (her mother was folk singer Jolly Robinson, her father Bill a respected black actor), the young singer had returned to New York just ahead of her teens, her ebullience winning Robinson starring parts in
Hair
and
Jesus Christ Superstar
in 1970, while her strong cabaret-style vocals eventually brought her backing work with a number of fellow artists, among them Cher, a young Michael Bolton and -unlikeliest of all – Japanese noodlers The Sadistic Mika Band. Robinson’s solo success, surprisingly, was limited to her one major hit and its parent album, a collection of upbeat dance numbers – though she remained in demand as an actress and performer, while also warbling one or two memorable jingles for TV commercials.