The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (299 page)

It is unarguable, however, that Syd Barrett was very unwell at the time of his death at home in his beloved Cambridge, suffering a combination of diabetes and cancer. That his legacy will continue is, of course, also well beyond any debate.

Sunday 9

Milan B Williams

(Okolona, Mississippi, 28 March 1948)

The Commodores

(The Jays)

Although the group will always be best remembered for the big-selling ballads of the late seventies, it was the early songwriting of Milan Williams that propelled The Commodores into stardom. The founding group had met in 1969 as freshmen at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, with Williams – a pianist who could also play organ, synth and guitar (having done so for his first band, The Jays) – eventually one of a six-strong unit that also housed Lionel Richie (saxophone/vocals), Thomas McClary (guitar), Ronald La Pread (bass), William King (trumpet) and Walter Orange (drums/vocals). The mainly instrumental Commodores began their days supporting The Jackson 5ive, with any vocal duties generally shared out.

The group finally cracked the Billboard (and UK) charts with ‘Machine Gun’ (1974), the first of Williams’s efforts to generate international interest. For the remainder of the decade, The Commodores placed an impressive number of records onto the listings, another funk-laden Williams track, ‘Brick House’, making the US Top Five in 1977. The biggest sellers were, however, Lionel Richie’s timeless tearjerkers ‘Three Times a Lady’ (1978) and ‘Still’ (1979), both of which went to number one on Billboard, the former also topping the British charts. In all, The Commodores enjoyed seven R & B chart-toppers. With main singer and self-styled front man Richie leaving for solo megastardom in 1981, times got tough for the group, though they did manage their only Grammy with 1985’s infectious Marvin Gaye/Jackie Wilson tribute ‘Nightshift’.

‘He was once, twice, three times a brother.’

Fellow Commodore Walter ‘Clyde’ Orange

Although The Commodores exist to this day, they effectively ended in 1989 with the departures of LaPread and Williams – the latter exiting after refusing to take part in a South African tour. Milan Williams had left the music industry by the time of his death at Houston’s MD Anderson Hospital from cancer.

Monday 10

Tommy Bruce

(Stepney, London, 16 July 1937)

Tommy Bruce & The Bruisers

For Tommy Bruce there was only the one real hit record, but it created a persona upon which he could build a long career in variety. Bruce was orphaned at fifteen, his schooling disrupted and the youth thrown into hard labour before he was out of his teens. A tough existence working as a welder (which he hated) set him up for National Service after which it was remarked to Bruce by his musician flatmate Barry Mason that he had a voice not dissimilar to that of the then-popular Big Bopper.

Producer Norrie Paramor’s reaction to the pair’s gravelly demo of ‘Ain’t Misbehavin’’ proved the catalyst to Bruce’s show business career. Rerecorded with a suitably rough-hewn Birmingham four-piece called The Bruisers, the disc shot to number three in the UK charts in May 1960. From that point on, the novelty aspect of Bruce’s work – by his own admission, his voice was ‘diabolical’ – kept him earning for the next thirty or so years. No other release charted above thirty-six, but this didn’t seem to matter: Sunday night television and the cabaret circuit were made for characters like Tommy Bruce.

Just before his death from prostate cancer, Bruce picked up a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Heritage Foundation and had a biography,
Have Gravel, Will Travel,
set for publication – proof that a little can go a long, long way.

Sunday 23

Bobby Paterson

(Carntyne, Glasgow, 15 June 1956)

Love and Money

(Cado Belle)

(Set The Tone)

(Various acts)

Hardworking Bobby Paterson didn’t really achieve stardom, though he is recalled fondly by the many Scots artists with whom he played over the years. In Cado Belle, bassist Paterson played alongside singer Maggie Riley (who later found success with Mike Oldfield), but didn’t record until joining Sandy McLellan & The Backline, then Set The Tone in the early eighties. With the latter band signed to Island, much was expected when Paterson found himself with a brace of 1983 club hits in ‘Dance Sucker’ and ‘Rap Your Love’. However, while most of his friends in fashionable Scots bands – Altered Images, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, The Bluebells, etc – enjoyed major hits, Paterson had to make do with just token chart showings for these records. (His time with the embryonic Primal Scream was too short to experience the success Bobby Gillespie’s band has enjoyed since, though he did produce the great debut single ‘Velocity Girl’.)

‘He was the most beautiful person I’d ever met in my whole life.’

Robert Hodgens, The Bluebells/The Poems

One act having similar fortunes were Friends Again, a quartet from which James Grant (vocals/guitar), Paul McGeechan (keys) and Stuart Kerr (drums) were to join Paterson in forming Love and Money in 1985. At a time when more soulful Scots pop acts such as Wet Wet Wet and (to a lesser extent) Hue & Cry were charting, it seemed just a matter of time before this far superior act would make it big. However, strong singles like ‘Candybar Express’ (1986) and ‘Hallelujah Man’ (1987) received maximum airplay, but failed to impact. In all, Paterson and Love and Money charted eight singles and albums without ever making the UK Top Forty.

After quitting Love and Money in the early nineties, a somewhat disillusioned Bobby Paterson immersed himself in Glasgow’s social scene, opening a number of clubs and even a unique ‘boutique hotel’ called Saint Jude’s. His final foray into recording was as a member of duo The Poems with Bobby ‘Bluebell’ Hodgens. Paterson’s death at Stobhill Hospital following a brief illness shocked a community that described the ubiquitous musician as ‘The Lord Provost’.

AUGUST

Thursday 3

Arthur Lee

(Arthur Taylor Porter - Memphis, Tennessee, 7 March 1945)

Love

(Various acts)

In the early years of his music career, Arthur Lee
was
counterculture, it seemed. The son of white jazz cornet virtuoso Chet Taylor and his African-American schoolteacher wife, Lee took on the surname of his mother’s second husband when aged seven, though otherwise did little to conform during his formative years. Stubbornly refusing to follow a similar musical path to his father, Lee had already proved himself a creative underground talent during his teens. In his later career, he was set to receive widespread accolades, not least from fellow mavericks Jim Morrison and Syd Barrett – both of whom regularly cited Love as a major influence (the latter, of course, dying less than a month before his mentor
(
Juy 2006)
– as well as Jimi Hendrix, whose first-ever studio run-out is thought to be on Rosa Lee Brooks’s 1964 version of Lee’s ‘My Diary’, a recording that the composer also engineered.

Well before this, though, Arthur Lee had been recording himself, with Lee’s American Four and the surf-inspired LAGs (a band name inspired by Booker T’s group) who put out the instrumental ‘The Ninth Wave’ to little response in 1963. This prompted Lee to form another band – The Grass Roots – and broaden his musical scope, enmeshing vocals usually inspired by those of Sam Cooke or James Brown with music that embraced the baroque pop of The Beatles and the psychedelic folk of The Byrds. From the latter he recruited road manager Bryan MacLean – a strong guitarist and songwriter needing a better outlet – to a line-up that already boasted Lee (vocals/guitar), Johnny Echols (guitar), Johnny Fleckenstein (bass) and Don Conka (drums) – though the latter pair were shortly replaced by Ken Forssi and Alban ‘Snoopy’ Pfisterer. The Grass Roots had now become Love, the band regular fixtures at LA clubs such as Brave New World and The Whisky a Go Go before signing with Elektra in 1965. With Lee and MacLean fashioning an instant songwriting partnership, all seemed to be falling into place when the debut album
Love
(1966) reached #57 on the Cash Box listings. In August, the punchy single ‘7 and 7 Is’ hit the Top Forty – but, bafflingly, this was the only such hit Arthur Lee was ever to enjoy. (Many believe that any lack of commercial return was partially due to Lee’s reluctance to take the band on the road at this time.) In 1967, however, he cemented his reputation forever with a pair of classic recordings in
Da Capo
and
Forever Changes.
The latter album showed a considerable maturing in Lee’s style (and gave him a Top Thirty placing in the UK, where Love were making more of an impact), also including the MacLean standard, ‘Alone Again Or’.