The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (287 page)

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Monday 28

Tony Meehan

(Daniel Joseph Anthony Meehan - Hampstead, London, 2 March 1943)

(Cliff Richard &) The Shadows

Jet Harris & Tony Meehan

(The Tony Meehan Combo)

(The Vipers)

Although they were never to register a US Top Forty hit, The Shadows were by far and away Britain’s most distinctive and successful instrumental band, dominating the UK listings at the turn of the sixties – and drummer Tony Meehan was there at the very start of it all. Already having played drums for five years, Meehan was, in December 1958, coaxed away from his studies by the lure of £25 a week to tour with the band then known as ‘The Drifters’. The backing band to the largely unknown Cliff Richard, The Drifters – then Meehan, Hank Marvin (lead guitar), Bruce Welch (rhythm) and Jet Harris (bass) – were (for obvious reasons) forced to seek a name-change, beginning in earnest the legend of The Shadows. The projected dates did not materialize until the following year, Meehan gaining experience playing with Harris’s other band, skiffle favourites The Vipers, in the meantime. Aided by the magnetism of the pouting Richard, The Shadows became the number-one pre-Beatles attraction on the UK circuit. Having topped the charts three times with the singer, they then began to show that they could be equally adept at rattling off the hits under their own steam. After a couple of flops, the classic ‘Apache’ – the first of sixteen Top Ten hits – stayed at number one for five weeks in 1960, supplanting Richard’s ‘Please Don’t Tease’, upon which The Shadows also played; the record later took the
NME
Record of the Year award. Meehan, however, was to grow tired of constant touring before the group’s most dominant period of 1961–2. With a second record now in pole position (‘Kon-Tiki’, 1961), the drummer made the decision to quit at the very top, pulling out of a UK tour in order to pursue new ambitions as an A & R man with Decca. Brian Bennett assumed the kit as The Shadows went on to greater strengths. But – continuing a remarkably consistent chart return – Meehan still found time to reunite with Harris (who’d left The Shadows just two months after he had) for the number-one single ‘Diamonds’ (1963 – featuring Jimmy Page on guitar), a tune that gave the pair the added satisfaction of deposing their former band at the top spot. The duo almost turned the trick twice more that year with further massive hits in ‘Scarlett O’Hara’ and ‘Applejack’ – but the drummer’s own Tony Meehan Combo was less successful.

Known as ‘The Baron’, Tony Meehan had a taste for the better things in life, using his career to fund his lifestyle of choice. Over the subsequent years, the drummer continued to play sessions for a number of top artists, occasionally rejoining the enduring Shadows over the decades and, most notably, Richard for his 1989 arena shows. In later life, Meehan pursued an interest in psychology, but his main devotion was to his wife and seven children. It was as the result of a domestic accident that the otherwise healthy musician lost his life: hitting his head during a bad fall at home, Meehan died from his injuries later that afternoon at a Paddington hospital.

See also
John Rostill (
November 1973); Jet Harris (eGolden Oldies #132)

DECEMBER

Sunday 4

Tre’ Stylez

(Richard Normand Michaud III - North Carolina, 2 November 1982)

Tre’ Stylez

From North Carolina came the story of yet another rap shooting, although this time the victim seemed only to be attempting to do good by his fellow man. Richard Michaud had an unusual take on hip hop, blending street styles with the industrial metal of bands like Skinny Puppy to create a different flavour. A rap fan all his life, Tre’ Stylez – or simply ‘Trey’ – had a good-humoured attitude to the genre that pulled fans from a variety of local boroughs.

With his latest CD doing the rounds, Stylez, dressed in his finery, hung out with friends at an all-night party in Greensboro; by 7 am most of the alcohol had been polished off and just a handful or so guests remained. Rumour later circulated that, at some point, two brothers who had not long arrived began arguing violently. Fearful that the situation was getting out of hand, the rapper apparently intervened – to have a gun pulled on him for his trouble. The weapon was discharged at pointblank range and Stylez died on the spot. Some days later, the usually disparate hip-hop community was united at a benefit for the dead artist. The story of Stylez’s killing was then thrown into some doubt by a local retired policeman who, having called at the apartment, suggested that the killing was the result of a fierce poker game – and nobody present was prepared to confess to having fired the gun. In March 2006, the suggestion came forward that the artist may even have fired the weapon himself.

DEAD INTERESTING!

NUMBER ONE IN HEAVEN - OFFICIAL !

So, who is the ‘deadest’ group? It might sound like a fun pastime for lengthy car journeys or slow parties, but few have the gen on which act takes the spoils. Well, now it can be revealed: The Drifters finish third with at least eighteen departed members (alongside The Sons of the Pioneers
(
2008 Dead Interesting!)),
while The Comets remain runners-up on nineteen. The runaway leaders of the Deceased Members Hit Parade are still The Ink Spots with no fewer than
twenty-eight of
their ever-changing personnel gone to croon with St Peter. They are: