The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (251 page)

The best Clash record – and to many, one of the best rock albums of all time – was 1979’s
London Calling
(1980, US), a set that confirmed Strummer’s complete understanding and assimilation of other musical cultures (already conveyed in great earlier cuts like ‘Police and Thieves’ and ‘White Man in Hammersmith Palais’). For a punk band, a double album was almost unthinkable, but if there was a duff track among the nineteen dished up, then it has still to make itself apparent over thirty years later.
London Calling
also gave Strummer and co that elusive American breakthrough – it made Billboard number twenty-seven, while culled track ‘Train In Vain’ also became a hit. The Clash then compromised their position a tad with the 36-song
triple
set
Sandinista!
(1980), though this too contains some Strummer/Jones gems such as ‘The Call-Up’ and ‘Magnificent Seven’ – which is cited by some as the first British rap single (if you don’t count ‘Captain Beaky’). To cement their American popularity, the record became the second Clash effort in succession voted
Village Voice
magazine’s Album of the Year.

But Strummer was becoming restless. During the making of
Combat Rock
(1982), the singer went AWOL, causing a crucial tour to be postponed and leading British fans to believe that he was by now ‘bored of the UK’. The record fared well, even providing a US Top Ten hit with Headon’s tremendous ‘Rock the Casbah’ and – eventually – the band’s only UK number one, ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go?’ (1982 – reissued to sell jeans, 1991), though it was apparent that The Clash in their first, greatest guise were starting to fall apart. Although they opened a number of shows for The Who – surely one of the most incendiary double-bills ever – Headon (for his drug habit) then Chimes were both dismissed in 1983, to be followed by Jones (who reemerged a couple of years later with Big Audio Dynamite). Strummer and Simonon – who by now was barely in the band – just about kept the Clash flame alight for a while longer, though the less said about
Cut the Crap
(1986) the better.

‘I’m one of those people that pick up small and interesting bits of wood and don’t want to let go of them. I’m fascinated with the wrapper on a sardine can. A little “cuckoo”‘: Joe Strummer thereafter resembled something between a free spirit and a lost soul, frequently described as delusional by those who met him during the early nineties. His solo music career was fitful but the singer took on with some panache a couple of film roles (most notably in Jim Jarmusch’s 1989
Mystery Train).
Suddenly in 1999, Strummer reemerged with the very enjoyable Mescaleros, joined on stage impromptu by Jones in 2002 for the pairing’s first live appearance together since Clash days (Strummer’s later response to this was a good-humoured ‘Bloody cheek!’). But it was to be the last.

Jones, Simonon and Headon all stated that plans for a full Clash reunion had been put in motion by the time of Joe Strummer’s passing: he was just fifty when he died at his Somerset home, having apparently suffered a heart attack during his sleep. Homages flowed for months after, with Headon even quoted as saying: ‘If any of us should’ve gone prematurely, it shouldn’t have been Joe. It should’ve been me.’ The legend of the man’s work remained intact, however, tributes arriving from the many rock stars – among them The Manic Street Preachers and U2 (Bono having recently worked with Strummer) – who happily conceded a substantial debt to punk’s most eclectic voice.

‘Joe is as huge an inspiration to me now as he was in 1977. He taught a whole generation of us more about politics than any number of teachers or politicians. I
desperately
wish reports were untrue.’

Iggy Pop, on learning of Strummer’s passing

Among the legacies left by Strummer were the Future Forests ecology campaign, now supported by major current artists such as Coldplay and The Foo Fighters (
www.futureforests.com
). A music foundation has been set up in honour of Joe Strummer and a very impressive Class 47 locomotive engine bears his name.

Saturday 28

Meri Wilson Edgemon

(Mary Edna Wilson - Nagoya, Japan, 15 June 1949)

Meri Wilson will most likely always be known as a one-hit wonder. By the end of her life, however, she had become president of Georgia’s Americus Arts Council – a far cry from her ‘single-entendre’ past as the flirtatious voice behind 1977’s sauciest hit record. In the days before female orgasms were spoken of in such terms, Wilson – she became ‘Meri’ to avoid confusion with the former Supreme – hit the US Top Twenty and UK Top Ten with the single ‘Telephone Man’. This record singlehandedly started a trend in which ‘ringing a bell’ became the euphemism of choice, notably continued by Anita Ward in 1979. Wilson’s follow-up ‘Rub-a-Dub-Dub’ (1978) was, frankly, rubbish, and that was pretty much the last that was heard of her. Well, up until her sudden death, at any rate. Meri Wilson – who had married and taken up more serious musical pursuits – was killed after she lost control of her car on Sumpter County’s Highway 377.

Tuesday 31

Kevin MacMichael

(Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, 7 November 1951)

The Cutting Crew

(Various acts)

Kevin MacMichael could, contrary to Ms Wilson, boast a couple of major hits for his band, eighties fly-by-nights The Cutting Crew In the seventies, the keen guitarist had found broader attention harder to come by as a member of Beatles tribute act Spice. And there were other bands, the most notable being Fast Forward, who also had suggestions of The Fab Four in their sound – before MacMichael headed for the UK, where success was finally to beckon. The Cutting Crew were formed in 1985, MacMichael joined by Nick Van Eede (vocals), Colin Farley (bass) and Martin Beedle (drums). The band’s smooth shtick fitted snugly into the transatlantic AOR scene (though heaven knows why they chose a name that made them sound like a B-Boy outfit). A first single, the tepid ‘(I Just) Died in Your Arms’ (1986), was a Top Five UK hit before making it all the way to the top slot in America and beyond in 1987; a further US Top Ten hit ‘I’ve Been in Love Before’ then emerged from the band’s debut album
Broadcast.
When the second album, well, ‘died on its arse tonight’, the game looked to be up for The Cutting Crew, who, after their next album failed to sell, were dropped by Virgin in response to changing fashions. Before calling it a day, Kevin MacMichael worked with a hero of his, Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant, on the well-received album
Fate of Nations
(1993). But eight years on, the guitarist learned he had lung cancer: he died from the disease within a year of diagnosis.

Lest We Forget

Other notable deaths that occurred sometime during 2002:

Richard ‘Pistol’ Allen
(prolific US drummer with Motown’s Funk Brothers house unit - who therefore played on countless top hits; born Howard Richard Allen, Tennessee, 12/8/1932; cancer, 30/6)

Peter Bardens
(UK rock/prog singer/keyboard stalwart with Them and Camel; born London, 19/6/1945; lung cancer, 22/1)

Steve Caldwell
(US beat/pop singer/saxophonist with The Swinging Medallions who went Top 20 with 1966’s ‘Double Shot (of My Baby’s Love)’; born Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 22/11/1947; pancreatic cancer, 28/1)

Rosemary Clooney
(big-selling US light-pop singer who scored a transatlantic #1 with 1954’s ‘This Ole House’; born Kentucky, 23/5/1928; lung cancer, 29/6)

Cesar Diaz
(Puerto Rican rock eccentric with Frijid Pink - known in the industry as ‘The Amp Doctor’ - who went US/UK Top Ten in 1970 with ‘House of the Rising Sun’; born 13/7/1951; liver failure, 26/4)

Gus Dudgeon
(renowned UK producer whose work made Elton John an international star; born Surrey, 30/9/1942; car crash, which also killed his wife, 21/7)

Doug Ferguson
(noted US experimental keyboardist with Vas Deferenz Organization, Ohm and Yeti; born Texas, 25/9/1970; pancreatic infection, 23/2)

Juvenal Gomez
(US drummer with Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent’s Blue Caps - when he was just fifteen; born Texas, 1942; heart attack, 12/9)

Billy Guy
(kiss-curled US baritone with Bip & Bop and the original Coasters; born Frank William Phillips, Texas, 20/6/1936; heart attack - he died impoverished in Las Vegas, 5/11)

John ‘Speedy’ Keen
(UK rock singer and drummer with Thunderclap Newman - he wrote their #1 hit ‘Something in the Air’; born Ealing, London, 29/3/1945; heart failure, 21/3)

Peggy Lee
(muchloved US singer whose biggest song was 1958’s ‘Fever’; born Norma Delores Egstrom, North Dakota, 26/5/1920; heart attack, 21/1)

Billy Ward
(US lead singer with classic vocal group The Dominoes - alongside Clyde McPhatter and Jackie Wilson; born Robert Williams, California, 15/9/1921; natural causes, 16/2)

2003

JANUARY

Saturday 11

Mickey Finn

(Thornton Heath, Surrey, 3 June 1947)

T Rex

(Various acts)