The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (248 page)

AUGUST

Friday 2

Nathan Maddox

(Japan, 1977)

Gang Gang Dance

One of the project’s two vocalists, Nathan Maddox was a founder member of little-known experimental unit Gang Gang Dance. The Brooklyn-based quintet had released one self-titled CD via the Fusetron label, their music primal and penetrative, drawing from Ethiopian influences. The history of this interesting band was, however, to be diverted in an unexpected direction.

Maddox, being the type of guy who did that kind of thing, decided to dance on the rooftop of his girlfriend’s Chinatown apartment during a severe lightning storm. As he cavorted, the singer was struck by a stray bolt and killed instantly, becoming
The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars
only such victim. Gang Gang Dance continued as a band, dealing with this tragedy by refusing to accept that Maddox had left them and continuing to use his voice. Synth-player Brian DeGraw summed it up thus: ‘The idea of him not being involved in the music after his departure from Earth is just absolutely impossible. The last thing we recorded with him was the final scream at the end of side two of the Fusetron LP, and I think the sound of that scream says quite a lot.’

Dave Williams: Mild-mannered and unassuming to the end

Friday 9

Paul Samson

(England, 4 June 1953)

Samson

(Various acts)

Paul Samson was the axe-wielding warrior chief of the British rock act that bore his name, but Samson were never to match the international achievements of contemporaries like Def Leppard and Iron Maiden. Formed in 1977, the band was an integral part of the UK’s new heavy-metal scene (‘NWOBHM’, to resurrect its snappy acronym), in their earliest incarnation boasting Maiden’s future frontman Bruce Bruce (Dickinson) as singer, before he saw the light and shifted allegiance. The line-up also included demented drummer Thunderstick (Barry Graham), whose decision to play in an executioner’s mask drew more than the occasional raised eyebrow.

Paul Samson himself was a decent enough guitarist who had come through the ranks of a number of bands since his teens, to remain leader of Samson for over seventeen years and more than a dozen box-ticking albums. The musician and longtime partner in crime Nicky Moore (vocals) had just completed yet another Samson collection,
Brand New Day
(2002), when Samson – who had been battling cancer for some years – died at his home in Norfolk.

Samson guitarist/bassist Chris Aylmer died from throat cancer in January 2007.

Thursday 15

Dave ‘Stage’ Williams

(Texas, 29 February 1972)

The Drowning Pool

Howling and angry on stage, Drowning Pool singer Dave Williams was, by all accounts, considered to be among metal’s nicest guys behind the pose. His band were one of the new breed of hard-rock outfits, designed to be enjoyed live and – alongside US contemporaries Coal Chamber and Sevendust (with whom Drowning Pool landed their first touring break)– offering a real alternative to nu metal’s ‘designer’ angst. Within six weeks of its release, the band’s first album,
Sinner
(2001), was certified platinum. A year on, a follow-up was scheduled for recording, with hair-metal legend and fan Nikki Sixx set to produce.

The Drowning Pool – Williams, C J Pierce (guitar), Stevie Benton (bass) and Mike Luce (drums)– were once again on tour with Ozzy Osbourne’s Ozzfest that summer, with hordes of followers looking forward to Williams’s visceral stage act. The band were travelling by tour bus to Bristow, Virginia, for the latest leg of the tour when Dave Williams failed to appear from his bunk during a stopover at Manassas. Found by members of the crew, the singer had died in his sleep, coroners later confirming his death as a result of cardiomyopathy – a disease of the heart muscle. Although it was suspected that Williams’s previously undiagnosed condition might have been exacerbated by cocaine, no traces of any drug were found in his system. As the rock ‘n’ roll machine trundled on regardless, Drowning Pool returned in 2004 with a new singer, Los Angeles tattoo artist Jason ‘Gong’ Jones – though he, too, was replaced by Ryan McCombs a year on.

SEPTEMBER

Saturday 7

Erma Franklin

(Shelby, Mississippi, 13 March 1938)

(The Cleo-Patrettes)

In another existence, she’d have been one of the world’s most respected singers – her effortless, gospel-trained voice made for the soul standards she would surely have mastered. But when Erma Franklin wasn’t in dispute with record labels, she was spending her career in the shadow of her younger sister Aretha. A singer who, of course,
is
the world’s most respected.

Erma, having found her voice in her father’s church choir at just five years of age, later sang with Aretha and a third sister, Carolyn, as the trio The Cleo-Patrettes. As Aretha was being discovered, Erma rejoined her father to tour with his gospel group. She’d had the opportunity to record with Chess, but Reverend Franklin wanted his eldest daughter to go to college. She complied – and the first of a number of missed opportunities disappeared into the ether. Returning to music on graduation, Erma was taken up by Epic but, despite the thrill of a debut album,
Her Name is Erma
(1961), constant disagreements between singer and label caused this also to end in disappointment. Next, Atlantic beckoned and, for the first time, Erma Franklin was being promoted to her satisfaction. But with the exception of an R & B Top Ten hit, ‘Piece of My Heart’ (1967 – and even this a song now more readily associated with Janis Joplin), her records refused to sell. Joining Aretha, now a superstar, on tour was Franklin’s only real option after this. Following yet another failed stint, this time with Brunswick, she stepped away from the music industry altogether – with just a Grammy nomination as reward for all her hard work.

With both her father and Carolyn passing away during the eighties, little was heard from Erma Franklin until she – like her sister fourteen years earlier – died from cancer at her Detroit home.

Tuesday 24

Tim Rose

(Washington DC, 23 September 1940)

(The Smoothies)

(The Big Three)

Respected folk troubadour Tim Rose very nearly eschewed his career in music for one in the priesthood, his ecclesiastical ambitions scuppered by his supposedly inappropriate behaviour, details of which are now thankfully lost to history.

Instead, he hooked up with fellow ‘heathens’ John Phillips (later of The Mamas & The Papas) and Scott ‘San Francisco’ Mackenzie – both of whom of course went on to enjoy greater commercial success than Rose– in a group called The Smoothies. The songwriter was nonetheless very much a part of the DC folk/pop scene. In 1962, he and Cass Elliot made up two-thirds of The Big Three (completed by James Hendricks), the group putting out two albums in a busy year, before the relationship soured. With CBS on the lookout for the next Bob Dylan, Rose embarked upon a solo career. Receiving little commercial recognition for his first album,
Tim Rose
(1967), he became very much a musician’s musician, his career putting him in the studio with the likes of John McVie (of Fleetwood Mac), Aynsley Dunbar and even John Bonham. Before his death– following surgery for bowel cancer– Rose had left music for a number of years to work as, among other things, a geography teacher, but had returned with the acclaimed albums
Haunted
(1997) and
American Son
(2002).

See also
‘Mama’ Cass Elliot (
July 1974); John Phillips (
Golden Oldies #11)