The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (289 page)

2006

JANUARY

Sunday 1

Bryan Harvey

(Virginia, 27 April 1956)

House of Freaks

Gutterball

NRG Krysys

(The Dads)

‘I don’t believe sorry is strong enough. None of this was necessary.’

From the confession of killer Ricky Gray

Occasionally the story of a musician’s death is so disturbing that it transcends the status of the victim – the killing of guitarist Bryan Harvey and his family is undoubtedly such a story.

Harvey was a respected musician who never broke into the ranks of mainstream rock success yet nonetheless enjoyed critical acclaim with what might have appeared marginal acts. Originally fronting The Dads, the musician was over thirty by the time his House of Freaks – a twoman band formed with longtime buddy and future Sparklehorse drummer Johnny Hott – started to see action. Harvey’s dusky delivery and potent imagery were what prompted Rhino Records to capture his signature in 1987, releasing the House of Freaks debut
Monkey on a Chain Gang
that year. Harvey went on to enjoy college radio stardom and MTV rotation for singles like 1989’s ‘Sun Gone Down’. With his band’s later albums also performing well, Harvey got the call up from admirers within indie leading lights such as Dream Syndicate and The Long Ryders for the ‘supergroup’ project Gutterball. By the end of 2005, however, these were distant memories as the singer toured with the Richmond band NRG Krysys. His name was still something of a draw in Virginia, where he would play his final gig on New Year’s Eve 2005.

In juxtaposition to the vibrancy of his life, Bryan Harvey’s death was stark and horrific. Anticipating sinking a few beers with his pal, Johnny Hott arrived at the Harveys’ Woodland Heights home on New Year’s Day for a chili cookout, only to find the building engulfed in smoke. It seems a pair of known criminals had attempted to burgle the house – only to stumble upon Harvey, his wife Kathryn (the half-sister of US television actor Steven Culp) and their two young daughters. Almost unbelievably, the entire family had apparently been frogmarched to the basement, bound and slaughtered with little apparent motive. Harvey and his wife died from blunt trauma blows by claw hammer, their children from similar assaults and smoke inhalation. All had had their throats cut. Within days, detectives were alerted to the activities of ex-cons Ricky Gray and his nephew Ray Dandridge – both of whom were suspected in connection with a spate of other recent crimes.

A third accomplice in the Harvey murders was Dandridge’s girlfriend, Ashley Baskerville, who had acted as lookout. She herself became a victim in this spiralling tragedy and was wearing Bryan Harvey’s wedding ring when her own body was discovered three days later, alongside those of her mother and stepfather. Gray and Dandridge were eventually charged with eight murders between them, with Gray – who was found guilty of the Harvey murders – sentenced to the death penalty in October 2006.

Golden Oldies #31

Lou Rawls

(Chicago, Illinois, 1 December 1933)

(Various acts)

A classmate and early contemporary of Sam Cooke - with whom he performed in the gospel group The Teenage Kings of Harmony - four-octave Lou Rawls was once cited by none other than Frank Sinatra as ‘the classiest … in the singing game’. Many would agree with him as Rawls went on to transcend his mentor Cooke to rack up sales of over forty million albums by the time of his own death.

Rawls survived a 1958 car crash (in which he was briefly pronounced dead) with the fated Cooke
(
Pre-1965)
to record solo material by the end of the decade, though it wasn’t until his thirties that the singer started to see a primarily R & B career reap mainstream chart success. It was then a further decade before the platinum transatlantic hit ‘You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine’ (1976), Rawls’s best-known song. In an illustrious career, Rawls was prolific and selfless in television and charity events, while concert-goers found him a peerless performer: after his rendition of ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ ahead of the 1977 Ali-Shavers title fight, the star was recalled annually for the duty over the next quarter of a century.

On the last occasion Rawls sang the anthem, it had become apparent to many that, despite his continued prowess, the singer was not well. Rawls was suffering from both lung and brain cancer - which claimed his life on 6 January 2006. It is believed that the singer was attempting to annul his second, turbulent, marriage just ahead of his passing, allegedly in order to protect earnings.

Thursday 5

Alex St Clair

(Alexis Clair Snouffer - Los Angeles County, California, 14 September 1941)

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band

(Denny King’s Boogie Band)

(The Solid Senders)

(The Omens)

He played guitar with Captain Beefheart, was a contemporary of Frank Zappa and influenced the young Jimi Hendrix: Alex St Clair hung with the weird and mercurial as he carved his own small niche in rock history. Indeed, St Clair (or plain old ‘Butch’ Snouffer, as he was known back then) attended Antelope Valley Joint Union High School with Zappa, joining his first band, The Omens, at age eighteen. Within this collective, he chanced upon Don Van Vliet (Beefheart) for the first time, the eccentric singer offering occasional vocals to the project despite St Clair claiming his voice was ‘undeniably horrible’. A second, bluesier combo, Jerry Handley’s Solid Senders, also utilised Van Vliet, and from this was born The Magic Band. On the name change, St Clair has always said that he and Beefheart became thus known to evade police interest in their clandestine smuggling activities during the sixties. St Clair played on the first two Beefheart albums,
Safe as Milk
(1967) and
Strictly Personal
(1968), before a European tour left him financially unstable and unwilling to continue: Van Vliet had a longtime reputation for not paying his bands well. (St Clair’s place then went to Zoot Horn Rollo – aka Bill Harkelroad.) St Clair played solo and then with Denny King’s Boogie Band before joining Beefheart again to tour the 1972 set
Clear Spot
and record 1974’s
Unconditionally Guaranteed.
Sadly, similar monetary misfortunes befell the musician, who once more walked away, this time to relative obscurity. His former boss did, however, remember St Clair in the 1978 song ‘Owed t’Alex’.

Alex St Clair – who was believed to have been working as a gardener and hotel chef into the nineties – was found dead from a heart attack in his Lancaster, California apartment.

See also
Frank Zappa (
December 1993); Captain Beefheart (
Golden Oldies #123)