The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (300 page)

Arthur Lee: Wearing ‘da chapeau’

By the latter album, though, the classic line-up of Love was falling apart. Despite his free playing style, Lee claimed to have little truck with drugs (though he himself appeared frail at this time, and suffered a felony charge for possession in later life), on more than one occasion dismissing Love members for their habits. With MacLean leaving for these reasons in 1968, the creative nucleus of the group was gone forever – though Lee attempted to keep things running with a new roster. Sadly, 1969’s
Four Sail
– a harder-edged take on the Love sound– refused to make an impression on the US Top 100 albums: two further albums similarly failed to impress, despite 1970’s
False Start
once again teaming Lee with Hendrix on the track ‘The Everlasting First’. A further Love album
Reel to Real
emerged in 1974, though this was effectively the latest in a string of Arthur Lee solo efforts, with backing band. Indeed, all of Lee’s albums throughout the seventies and early eighties came and went relatively quietly as Love shrank to become an incandescent dot on pop’s horizon.

After disappearing himself to care for his dying father, Lee reemerged in the early nineties with the
Arthur Lee & Love
album (1992), issued on a French label to sympathetic sales. The musician then toured for the first time in twenty years – mainly with members of neo-psychedelic rockers Baby Lemonade – and appeared to be on the comeback trail. Any such rebirth was snuffed out, however, when Lee was sentenced to twelve years in jail for unlawfully discharging a weapon, his sentence compounded by the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ ruling. (Owing to a technicality, though, he was released in 2001.) What might appear a sobering experience seemed to have a rejuvenating effect on Lee, who then took yet another version of Love on the road to rave reviews. Worldwide fans were thrilled with sets including
Forever Changes
in its entirety– while some in the UK were amused at the sight of the singer losing his false teeth mid-song during a 2004 performance.

It became known publicly during spring 2006, however, that Arthur Lee – who had once again taken on an emaciated appearance – was receiving treatment for acute myeloid leukaemia. Unfortunately, a revolutionary treatment during which he received stem cells from an umbilical chord was unsuccessful, and this groundbreak-ing artist died at Memphis’s Methodist University Hospital. Whatever his lack of record sales might suggest, Lee might well be remembered as the most enduring and influential cult musician of all time.

See also
Jimi Hendrix (
September 1970); George Suranovich (
February 1990); Ken Forssi (
January 1998); Bryan MacLean (
December 1998). Don Conka passed away in 2004 and later bassist Robert Rozelle in 2010.

Wednesday 16

Jon Nödtveidt

(Sweden, 28 June 1975)

Dissection

(Various acts)

A stalwart of the Swedish death/black metal scene, Jon Andreas Nodtveidt was a reasonably good guitarist troubled by demons that led to acts of extreme violence on others, as well as, finally, himself.

Nödtveidt – who’d already fronted a couple of shortlived bands, Siren’s Yell and Rabbit’s Carrot – formed the popular, melodic Dissection back in 1989, at just fourteen already courting Satanism as a viable lifestyle choice. In 1990, the band (who, to give them their dues, had worked for it) were supporting more established acts like Entombed, finally issuing their debut
The Somberlain,
at the end of 1993.

Signing to German imprint Nuclear Blast the following year should have settled the band further (inasmuch as a black metal act ever could experience this), but it was merely a precursor to a disturbing downturn in the founder’s character.

Nödtveidt immersed himself in the darker side of the culture; he was found guilty of aiding and abetting a murder in Gothenburg during 1997. As though echoing a spate of attacks perpetrated by the Norwegian black metal community, the singer served seven years for his part in the killing of a thirty-eight-year-old homosexual man. On his release, Nodtveidt – who was also to feature within a host of other similar bands – returned to music and reformed Dissection. By now, though, it was clear his mental condition had deteriorated beyond repair.

Finally, Jon Nodtveidt was found in his apartment surrounded by a circle of candles, a satanic ‘grimoire’ (book of laws) close by his side. The singer had shot himself through the head.

Saturday 19

Joseph Hill

(St Catherine, Jamaica, 22 January 1949)

Culture

(The Soul Defenders)

(Various acts)

Culture was one of the most enduring and vital reggae acts of our generation, fusing the devout Rastafarianism of the three members with a hypnotic and compelling sound that saw them become as popular in Britain as they were back home. The leader was the extravagantly dreadlocked Joseph Hill, a Haile Selassie devotee who had worked as a sound system DJ and then percussionist during his teens.

It was as the drummer of Linstead group The Soul Defenders – sometimes behind vocalists like Burning Spear and Dennis Brown – that Hill made his earliest recordings with Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd’s Studio One label. Stints with further acts preceded the formation of Culture (originally The African Disciples), a vocal act featuring Hill backed by his cousin Albert Walker and Kenneth Dayes, in 1976. (Backing musicians generally comprised such luminaries as Ansel Collins, Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare).

Culture benefited from Hill’s genial if outspoken nature, the group coming to prominence with
Two Sevens Clash,
a debut album forewarning the year of its release (1977) as prophesied by imprisoned pan-Africanist Marcus Garvey some decades before. The centrepiece of this record was the title track, rightly accepted now as one of reggae’s epochal anthems. (Indeed, rumour has it that while those in the UK celebrated the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, many Jamaican establishments shuttered their doors and windows, anticipating the apocalypse.) While this was to remain Culture’s most treasured moment, there were other great albums like 1978’s
Africa Stand Alone
and
Lion Rock
(1982).

Although Hill and Culture’s profile would lessen during the next decade, the group remained together until his death. Culture – still recording into the millennium – were on a sellout tour of Europe when tragedy struck. Having given another rip-roaring performance, Hill was suddenly taken ill. He subsequently passed away in a Berlin hotel room. At his funeral, he was eulogised as an ambassador by Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller.