The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (296 page)

As a result, Wilder relinquished his role in Heatwave during 1983, looking to religion – and his younger brother’s church – for an outlet to find inner peace. During the nineties, he returned to the studio for a brace of solo albums, the second of which,
One More Day
(1996) was entirely a cappella (with overdubs) and with a decidedly gospel feel. Johnnie Wilder passed away in his sleep at the age of fifty-six.

Golden Oldies #35

Freddie Garrity

(Collyhurst, Manchester, 14 November 1936)

Freddie & The Dreamers

(Various acts)

The ‘veteran’ of a number of Manchester skiffle combos, Freddie Garrity unexpectedly found himself embraced by the booming Merseybeat scene, he and his Dreamers (formed in 1960 as The Kingfishers) having to quell any standard rivalry between the two cities’ inhabitants.

Ex-milkman Garrity was, at five-foot-three, almost frail looking, though he utilised his diminutive, bespectacled appearance to comic effect, adding to a reasonable voice an irrepressible onstage shtick. What appeared merely a gimmick surprised many by landing Freddie & The Dreamers - Garrity, Derek Quinn, Roy Crewsdon, Pete Birrell and Bernie Dwyer - a series of major-league hit records, the biggest of which, ‘I’m Telling You Now’, topped the American charts for a fortnight in the spring of 1965, almost two years after it had peaked at number two in Britain. During this time, the group opened for The Beatles, and many thousands felt compelled to ‘Do the Freddie’, the inane jig devised by Garrity. (One of these was ‘twist’ king Chubby Checker, who quickly recorded a cover of this number.) At one point, a
Monkees
- style TV series was in the works for Freddie & The Dreamers, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) this never came to fruition. (In 1971 - well after record sales had diminished completely - Garrity did manage to land a regular television slot, but on ITV’s
Little Big Time,
a children’s show rather suiting his group’s low-level slapstick humour.)

Inevitably, The Dreamers were adversely affected by their reliance on stunts (and the fact that they hadn’t written a great deal of their recorded material), but Garrity still managed to put together various line-ups of his band to play the cabaret circuit - and even stunned many with a serious stage performance in a production of Shakespeare’s
The Tempest
in 1988. But ultimately Garrity was more than at home playing the clubs with The Dreamers until his diagnosis with emphysema and pulmonary hypertension after collapsing on a flight in 2001. Three years on, his performing days were ended by a heart attack following a US tour. Freddie Garrity was holidaying in North Wales with his third wife, Christine, when finally taken: he died in a hospital in Bangor on 19 May 2006.

See also
Bernie Dwyer (
December 2002)

Thursday 25

Desmond Dekker

(Desmond Adolphus Dacres - St Andrew, Jamaica, 16 July 1941)

Desmond Dekker & The Aces

Hard to imagine now that it might never have happened for Desmond Dekker – a performer widely acknowledged as one of the pioneers of his genre, a key talent and stylist who helped guide reggae out of the Jamaican ghettos and into the international mainstream. Then called Dacres, Desmond was relatively young when his mother died, and was discouraged from ‘indulgent’ pursuits by a father who prompted him to train first as a tailor and then as a welder. (In the latter trade, he worked briefly alongside Bob Marley – perhaps the only artist later able to claim a greater share in creating international awareness for reggae, though one most definitely assisted by Dekker’s own breakthrough.)

Remarkably, though, Dacres was turned down by both Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd’s Studio One and Duke Reid’s Treasure Isle labels before being picked up by Leslie Kong, who saw significant talent and became the first to record the singer in 1963, under the new name of ‘Desmond Dekker’. Under Kong’s wing, Dekker recorded a number of Jamaican hits – mainly with themes of honour, religion and patriotism, before the UK Top Twenty ‘007’ (1967) which, remarkably, prompted an army of British mods to pick up on Dekker as an identifiable icon.

Desmond Dekker: The JCPenney catalog years

Then, of course, came the international watershed that was ‘Israelites’ (1969). For this, Dekker was backed by The Aces – singers Wilson James and Easton Barrington Howard. The song was, of course, the defining moment of Dekker’s career, topping the UK chart and piercing Billboard’s pop Top Ten, where it remains likely the purest Jamaican song ever to have made a major impact. Although he found no further US hits, Dekker stayed in the UK Top Ten with his follow-up ‘It Mek’ and managed sporadic hits for the next decade: his interpretation of Jimmy Cliff’s ‘You Can Get It If You Really Want It’ (his first for the Trojan label) was only prevented from giving Dekker a second number one by Freda Payne’s ‘Band of Gold’ in 1970. With Dekker now situated permanently in the UK, ‘Israelites’ was reissued on at least three further occasions, becoming something of a staple for television advertisers. But much of the singer’s direction and impetus was lost when Kong passed away in 1971, with only a brief wave of interest cultured by the Top Ten re-showing of ‘Israelites’ (and its Top Twenty follow-up ‘Sing a Little Song’) in 1975 saving Dekker from a return to poverty. Signing with Stiff Records in the late seventies did little to improve Dekker’s situation, despite a huge UK resurgence of interest in reggae and ska, and even a Belgian hit with (once again) ‘Israelites’. By the mid eighties, the artist was forced to declare himself bankrupt.

In Britain, Desmond Dekker remained a popular live performer, working with The Specials and later Apache Indian, who remixed his biggest hit, now boasting a six-strong version of The Aces. Dekker was set to play a world music festival in Prague at the time of his death from a heart attack at his home in Thornton Heath, London. In death, he continues to be revered by both black and white musicians alike, and holds the distinction of being one of the most referenced artists in the songs of others.

Respected UK reggae guitarist Steve Roberts of Dreadzone - who played with Dekker during the seventies - also died in 2006, aged fifty-three.

JUNE

Friday 2

Vince Welnick

(Leo Vincent Welnick - Phoenix, Arizona, 21 February 1951)

The Tubes

The Grateful Dead

(Various acts)

On 2 June 2006, the curse of the Grateful Dead keyboardist struck once again as Vince Welnick joined Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan
(
March 1973),
Keith Godchaux
(
July 1980)
and Brent Mydland
(
July 1990)
at the celestial organ.