The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (318 page)

Wednesday 22

Wayne Chapman

(Ontario, Canada, 1955)

Stompin’ Tom Connors

Genial Wayne Chapman was for some time a guitarist with Stompin’ Tom Connors – the Canadian country icon who scored huge national hits during the early seventies with singalongs like ‘Big Joe Mufferaw’, ‘The Ketchup Song’ (both 1970) and ‘Moon-Man Newfie’ (1972). The young Chapman had joined Connors on the road during his peak period, contributing songs like ‘My Home Town’ and ‘The Bars of Vancouver’.

Chapman, now working as a janitor, was enjoying one of his favourite pastimes – sharing a cocktail with a friend on the roof of his Milton, Ontario apartment – when he came to meet his maker. Irritated to discover hornets swarming around the fire escape, Chapman set about them with a fly-swat. This proved a costly mistake. The guitarist, having in turn angered the insects, made hasty his retreat – only to lose his footing and fall three storeys to the driveway below. Wayne Chapman never regained consciousness, suffering a fatal heart attack in the hospital some hours later.

SEPTEMBER

Sunday 2

Fritz Fryer

(David Fryer - Rochdale, Lancashire, 6 December 1944)

The Four Pennies

(The Fables)

Although The Four Pennies’ biography almost apologetically describes them as ‘the most important British Invasion band not to chart in America’, for a while they sat pretty among the biggest new acts in the UK.

The Lancashire-based Four Pennies – singer/guitarist Lionel Morton, lead guitarist Fritz Fryer, bassist Mike Wilsh and drummer Alan Buck (who died in 1994) – watched their first two singles falter outside the UK Top Forty, before shooting to number one with their third, the winsome ballad ‘Juliet’ (1964), named after Fryer’s two-year-old niece. This song, a co-write between all four members, was the twentieth-best-seller of the year in Britain. As suggested, The Four Pennies failed to dent America’s listings, but managed three further Top Twenty hits at home – and even scored a chart-topper in Turkey.

After the group broke up in 1966 (Morton to a solo career and then children’s television), Fryer and Wilsh formed a shortlived group before the guitarist found himself a niche producing at the famous Rockfield studios in Wales. Among his charges were Motorhead, Stackridge and Prelude – the latter of whom finally gave him a US hit with their striking
a capella
version of Neil Young’s ‘After the Gold Rush’ (1974). Fritz Fryer had not long retired to Portugal at the time of his death from pancreatic cancer.

Monday 3

Carter Albrecht

(Jeffrey Carter Albrecht - Derby, Kansas, 23 June 1973)

Edie Brickell & The New Bohemians

Sorta

(Various acts)

A classically-trained musician who had spent time with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, award-winning pianist Carter Albrecht finally gained attention in the rock world via the band Sorta. Albrecht provided keyboards, guitar and vocals to this much-vaunted group, their debut,
Laugh Out Loud,
emerging in 2002. (A label dispute caused the follow-up to be delayed until 2006.)

Having moved to Texas as a teenager, Albrecht also played keys with local Dallas acts The Limes and later the alternative ‘supergroup’ The Sparrows – which also featured Ward Williams (ex-Limes/Sorta – steel/slide guitar) and Danny Balis (ex-Sorta – bass/vox) as well as Polyphonic Spree’s Bryan Wakeland (drums), and members of Fiona Apple’s band. Albrecht’s friendship with quirky singer/songwriter Edie Brickell, however, enabled him to play with her band The New Bohemians (who had found fame a decade previously): Albrecht contributed considerably to their album
Stranger Things
(2006).

However, with his career seemingly assured, Albrecht was, tragically, to lose his life the following year. The artist and his girlfriend Ryann Rathbone had enjoyed a Sunday evening drinking in Dallas, but the mood was to turn sour on their return to her home. With no previous history of violence, the musician shocked Rathbone by break-ing a drinking glass and hitting her several times. Rathbone escaped into her garden with a by-now enraged Albrecht in pursuit: she then managed to return to her house and lock herself in, this inflaming his mood even further. The keyboardist proceeded to hammer on her door before electing to try and break into the house next door. Rathbone’s neighbour – understandably perturbed by this behaviour – retrieved his rifle and fired what he intended as a warning shot in Albrecht’s direction. Sadly, the musician was hit in the head and died at the scene. No charges were pressed. Doctors now believe that the sudden, dramatic changes in Carter Albrecht’s mood could have been caused by the interaction of alcohol with Chantix – an anti-smoking drug that both he and Rathbone had been using.

As a gesture of her respect, Brickell was able to finance completion of Albrecht’s only solo album, released posthumously in 2009.

Golden Oldies#54

Janis Martin

(Sutherlin, Virginia, 27 March 1940)

She was a teenage girl in a man’s world. Early rock ‘n’ roll didn’t appear to have much truck with female performers, but one who broke the mould was bright, confident Janis Darlene Martin - a rockabilly singer who could play guitar at age six and was on the road with Glen Thompson’s band at twelve. Martin - still only fifteen - signed to RCA just weeks after Elvis Presley.

Martin was indeed dubbed ‘The Female Elvis’: her cute looks matched some equally cute licks. The comparisons weren’t to see her dominate the charts in the way that Presley was about to do, but she saw her ‘Will You Willyum’ (backed with ‘Drugstore Rock ‘n’ Roll’ - her own composition) fall just short of a million sales in 1956. Among Martin’s follow-ups was the catchy ‘Let’s Elope Baby’, which her label was quick to release as her popularity caught on: RCA were less impressed, however, when Martin actually
did
run off and marry, then somewhat sanctimoniously dropped her when she fell pregnant at eighteen. (Martin’s career suffered from more male control when a second husband forced her to leave the industry; however she made something of a return during the 1970s.)

Although her career in rock ‘n’ roll was fitful, the talented Janis Martin made a serious mark and enabled many women who followed her to live out similar dreams. She died from cancer in Durham, North Carolina, on 3 September 2007 -just months after the passing of her only son.

Sunday 9

Hughie Thomasson

(Tampa, Florida, 13 August 1952)

The Outlaws

Lynyrd Skynyrd

Hughie Thomasson was regarded as one of the finest guitarists in the genre that came to be known as Southern rock – and his first band, The Outlaws, were among the pioneers of the genre.

Formed in Thomasson’s home town of Tampa at the back end of 1967, The Outlaws underwent many line-up changes before arriving with what aficionados have come to regard as the classic roster of Thomasson (guitar), Henry Paul (later of BlackHawk – vox/guitar), Billy Jones (guitar), Frank O’Keefe (bass) and Monte Yoho (drums), this version sometimes known as ‘The Florida Guitar Army’. The Outlaws were the first act signed to Arista, issuing an acclaimed – and gold-selling – debut album in 1975. Around this time, Thomasson was considered the central hub of the band and nicknamed ‘The Flame’ for his fiery red hair and incendiary guitar work. He maintained his position as the only original member of The Outlaws throughout the eighties, though by the following decade the band were recording on smaller labels.

Tragedy struck the already-faltering Outlaws in 1995, with the dual – and unrelated – suicides of Frank O’Keefe and Billy Jones, both of whom died within a month of one another. A clearly affected Thomasson went on to join Lynyrd Skynyrd – a band that had suffered its own share of tragedy over the years – by the end of 1996, though he was to rejoin The Outlaws for reunion gigs in 2005. With Skynyrd, the guitarist and now vocalist enhanced his reputation even further by penning much of the band’s later output, in particular the albums
Edge of Forever
(1999),
Vicious Cycle
(2003) and
God + Guns
(2009).