The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (301 page)

Hill’s son, Kenyatta, has since taken over lead vocal duties as Culture deal with their first line-up change in over thirty years.

Tuesday 22

Bruce Gary

(Burbank, California, 7 April 1951)

The Knack

(Various acts)

It was largely thanks to the short attention span of an older cousin whose drum kit he suddenly inherited that Bruce Gary embarked on the road to a career that took in stints backing some of rock’s biggest legends – as well as multiplatinum success with his own band. A teenager fast growing out of playing along to Little Richard, Gary was soon hungry to take in the burgeoning rock scene in Topanga Canyon, thus left home to rub shoulders with upcoming luminaries like Randy California (Spirit). Those he met felt the young percussionist was something of a prodigy, and within a few years he was playing behind Cream’s Jack Bruce, Albert Collins, Dr John and the Stones’ Mick Taylor.

While he was thrilled to be touring with such great names, it was a meeting with unknown Detroit musician Doug Fieger that proved a turning point in terms of recordings. Singer/guitarist Fieger and his cohorts Berton Averre (lead guitar) and Prescott Niles (bass) suggested that Gary help their band, The Knack, complete a series of songs Fieger had composed. Gary’s first impression of the ode to teenage lust that was ‘My Sharona’ wasn’t positive (and given some of the tune’s lyrics, who could blame him), but he added a rhythm redolent of Smokey Robinson & The Miracles’ ‘Going to a Go Go’. Presto – the tune was all over the radio as the band vaulted to US number one in the summer of 1979. With a debut album
Get The Knack
then selling six million copies, all looked set for chart – and world – domination. But with Fieger’s songwriting never really improving, the group were done and dusted within three years. Feeling he’d sufficiently played his part, Gary shunned a reunion of the group at the end of the eighties. There was little concealing his mistrust toward Fieger, particularly as the latter has always refuted Gary’s input into The Knack’s hit anthem.

For Bruce Gary, it was not the end. He remained a much-sought session drummer until his death, playing with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Bette Midler, Sheryl Crow and Rod Stewart among many others, while also winning accolades for his production work. Gary died at California’s Tarzana Regional Medical Center having battled non-Hodgkins’ lymphoma for much of the decade.

See also
Doug Fieger (
February 2010)

SEPTEMBER

Golden Oldies #36

Danny Flores

(Santa Paula, California, 11 July 1929)

The Champs

(Various acts)

Known universally for one song, Danny Flores (occasionally Chuck Rio, for multiple recording purposes) briefly enjoyed notoriety as the ‘Godfather of Latino Rock’.

Flores was saxophonist with Los Angeles instrumental R & B combo The Champs - who at one point boasted Glen Campbell among their roster - and enjoyed instant international recognition with his composition ‘Tequila’ (1958, US number one, UK Top Five). The record moved over a million copies and Flores, who also hollered the song’s punctuating title, enjoyed many years of folks shouting it back at him on the street. The man’s ‘dirty’ sax sound similarly became much copied, though further hits for The Champs (who were named after the horse of their label boss, recording legend Gene Autry) were harder to find. Flores left just a year after the hit to follow other paths. (He and drummer Gene Alden were replaced by Jimmy Seals and Dash Crofts, who also enjoyed later success as a duo.)

Danny Flores - a Parkinson’s disease sufferer who died of pneumonia on 19 September 2006 - enjoyed a reasonable income from ‘Tequila’ until his death. However, he’d have died far wealthier had he not offloaded the US rights for a pittance in the early sixties.

Original Champs bassist Van Norman died in a 1958 car crash, while later members Dean McDaniel (bass, d 2006) and Jerry Cole (guitar, d 2008) have also passed on.

Thursday 21

Boz Burrell

(Raymond Burrell - Holbeach, Lincolnshire, 1 August 1941)

Bad Company

King Crimson

(The Boz People)

(Various acts)

Boz Burrell’s name might not be on the lips of all rock fans, but he did feature prominently as music moved out of the studio and into the live arenas during the 1970s.

A fan of jazz as a boy, Burrell joined Norfolk-based Lombard & The Tea Time Four (which featured a young Ian McLagan, later of The Small Faces) as a singer, but found their style too ‘pop’ for his initially trad stance. Instead, Burrell fashioned his own Boz People, a unit that issued a series of singles on Columbia. In 1966, he found himself on the verge of replacing Roger Daltrey when the latter was in a shortlived dispute with The Who. Although this post failed to materialise, Burrell recognised that the rock genre was the one to choose. In 1970, he was approached by Robert Fripp to front a revitalised line-up of the latter’s King Crimson – a group with sufficient musical eclecticism to interest the singer. The first result of Burrell’s input was the well-received
Islands
(1971), King Crimson’s fourth album. Fripp was known as something of a ‘tinker’, however, and shortly returned former lead singer Gordon Haskell to vocal duty. Burrell thus found himself switching to bass guitar, taught him by the band’s multi-instrumentalist founder.

A restless Burrell in 1973 joined the first stadium rock supergroup in the shape of the Peter Grant-managed Bad Company. With a line-up containing Burrell, Paul Rodgers (vocals, ex-Free), Simon Kirke (drums, ex-Free) and Mick Ralphs (guitar, ex-Mott the Hoople), Bad Company experienced enormous commercial success, particularly in the US, where the eponymous debut album – replete with the huge hit ‘Can’t Get Enough of Your Love’ – topped the Billboard charts in 1974. They may not have been about to break any new barriers artistically, but Bad Company were nothing if not prolific: Burrell and co. put out no fewer than six albums of good-time bluesy rock in just eight years. One or two further FM-staple smash singles (such as 1975’s infectious ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’ – of which Burrell was always critical) didn’t harm things, either.

But with Grant losing interest in the band after the death of John Bonham from his other moneymakers Led Zeppelin
(
September 1980),
Bad Company fell into disarray during the eighties, with Burrell and Rodgers often at loggerheads. Burrell quit in 1986 and in the nineties worked with Alvin Lee (among others), but joined Bad Company for an emotional reunion in 1998. By the time of his death from a heart attack in Spain, Boz Burrell had returned to his jazz roots, occasionally playing behind British entertainer Kenny Lynch.

OCTOBER

Golden Oldies #37

Freddy Fender

(Baldemar Huerta - San Benito, Texas, 4 June 1937)

(Los Super Seven)

(The Texas Tornados)

At ten years old, future country crossover star Freddy Fender – then known to his folks as little Baldemar Huerta - won a ten-dollar food hamper for singing the standard ‘Paloma Querida’ on Texas radio station KGBS. Though this was a sizeable prize for a young man, the singer/guitarist was set to reap much greater rewards during his career.