The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (225 page)

Paul Young was in semi-retirement when he collapsed from an apparent heart attack at home in Cheshire: the singer died on arrival at Wythenshawe Hospital.

Saturday 22

Kim Roberts

(Rosemary Ann Cottnam - Halifax, Yorkshire 11 April 1945)

Limehouse

Rusty & The Renegades

(The Settlers)

(Gilbert O’Sullivan)

Kim Roberts, whose demise was the latest in a run of deaths related to Joe Meek, was first discovered by the producer’s protégé, Tornados bassist Heinz Burt, who thought the teenage singer had something special when he saw her perform back in 1963. Meek gave Rosemary Ann Cottnam her new name and identity, slapping her vocals on to a backing track by The Outlaws (a band that featured a young Ritchie Blackmore) for her first single, ‘Prove It’ (1963). Although her solo career didn’t really take off, Roberts nonetheless found her way into show business, albeit elsewhere in the world, fronting a television show in South Africa, where she was extremely popular. Thereafter, Roberts sang with pop-folk also-rans The Settlers and then as backing to Gilbert O’Sullivan as he cleaned up in Britain and America. Her later career was more stop-start, the vocalist working with blues bands Rusty & The Renegades and the all-female Limehouse; Roberts also appeared on stage with old friends Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages (she later married the drummer, Jack Irving). Her final live performance was at a memorial concert for Sutch in June 2000. Just weeks later, Kim Roberts passed away after complaining of a heart murmur.

See also
Joe Meek (
February 1967 and the accompanying Dead Interesting!); Screaming Lord Sutch (
June 1999); Heinz Burt (
April 2000)

AUGUST

Wednesday 2

Jerome Smith

(Miami, Florida, 18 June 1953)

KC & The Sunshine Band

The Divinyls Blowfly

Here’s a nasty one. The life of Jerome Smith, original rhythm guitarist with disco heavyweights KC & The Sunshine Band, came to an unfortunate end in an accident at his new workplace – a construction site at Florida’s West Palm Beach.

Smith was at founder Harry ‘KC’ Casey’s side when The Sunshine Band came bouncing out of Florida to enjoy unrivalled global success during the seventies. The hits seemed to arrive at the snap of Casey’s fingers: the group enjoyed five number ones in the USA alone, including three in two years with the funky ‘Get Down Tonight’, ‘That’s the Way (I Like It)’ (both 1975) and ‘(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty’ (1976). Jerome Smith’s trademark playing had been present on all these chartbusters, as it had been on George McCrae’s worldwide chart-topper ‘Rock Your Baby’ (1974) – the song that convinced Casey that this was indeed his man. While Casey was in no doubt about Smith’s guitar work, he was less happy with the musician’s increased drug intake – a sore point that eventually cost Smith his place in the group during 1979. Having cleaned himself up, Smith returned to music with outrageous disco artiste Blowfly, for whom he played on many albums: he was also to work with the excellent Australian pop band The Divinyls.

KC & The Sunshine Band, with Jerome Smith standing to leader Harry Casey’s right shoulder: Sound your funky horn!

By the summer of 2000, Smith was sufficiently rehabilitated to rejoin Casey and his latest line-up of The Sunshine Band some twenty years after the pair had gone their separate ways. Now a 47-year-old construction worker, Smith was excited by this prospect and dreamed of re-creating the good old days with his former friend. Sadly, it wasn’t to be: one morning, as Smith attempted to operate a bulldozer at the work site, the sometime musician fell from the machine. As he landed, the vehicle continued to trundle forwards, trapping Smith beneath it and crushing him. He was killed instantly. His death followed that of later Sunshine Band keyboardist Ernest ‘Snuffy’ Smith, who died after an asthma attack in April 1997.

Wednesday 16

Alan Caddy

(Chelsea, London, 2 February 1940)

The Tornados

Johnny Kidd & The Pirates (The Five Nutters)

(The Alan Caddy Orchestra)

Hot on the heels of the passing of bassist Heinz Burt (
April 2000)
came news of the death of the more talented Alan Caddy, lead guitarist with The Tornados. Caddy’s background was one of some musical expertise: his father was a dance-band drummer who ran a jazz club; Caddy himself had been head chorister and orchestra leader at his Battersea school. It came as some surprise to his family when Caddy developed a love for skiffle and beat that saw him playing most nights of the week at clubs, while he worked by day as an estate agent. As guitarist with The Five Nutters, he became friends with Johnny Kidd (aka singer Frederick Heath), playing with the band on their transformation into Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, thus giving Caddy his first taste of rock ‘n’ roll stardom. Donning extravagant stage gear with a piratical theme, The Pirates – completed by Brian Gregg (bass) and Clem Cattini (drums) – proved to be one of the UK’s best pre-Beatles rock ‘n’ roll bands: this was reflected in tunes such as ‘Please Don’t Touch’ (1959) and ‘Shakin’ All Over’ (1960), the latter of which shifted half a million copies in Britain. Despite this, Caddy and Cattini left the group (after a disastrous tour of Italy in 1961) to sign over to wunderkind producer Joe Meek’s home-based studio, forming the basis of the Tornados. This group – originally vaunted as backing for Billy Fury – then experienced what none of them would have believed possible a few years before: their ‘Telstar’ (1962) topped the charts in both the UK and US (and pretty much everywhere else) on its way to becoming the biggest-selling instrumental piece of all time. For Caddy, this was his major triumph. With Meek being tone-deaf, it had been down to the guitarist to arrange the piece – as he would further tunes by The Tornados.