The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (325 page)

*Some sources have Turner registered ‘Izear Wister Turner’ after his father; however the musician called this inaccurate in his 1999 autobiography
Takin’ Back My Name.

See also
Jackie Brenston (
December 1979). Longtime Kings of Rhythm pianist Clayton Love died in February 2010.

Sunday 16

Dan Fogelberg

(Peoria, Illinois, 13 August 1951)

(The Coachmen)

Dan Fogelberg, a self-taught singer/guitarist whose style encompassed folk and soft rock, was the son of a high-school band director of Swedish extraction – the man who was to inspire one of his best-known hits.

Fogelberg made his first recordings with The Coachmen, contributing the songs ‘Maybe Time Will Let Me Forget’ and ‘Don’t Want to Lose Her’ (Ledger, both 1967), which displayed his burgeoning talent for reflective and introspective lyric-writing. However, when these early records had little impact, Fogelberg returned to college, and to playing the coffeehouses of Champaign-Urbana.

Having honed his songwriting skills in Nashville, the musician issued a debut album,
Home Free
(Epic, 1972), which was broadly ignored. The second,
Souvenirs
(1974 – produced by Joe Walsh) was much more the ticket and even spawned a Top Forty single in ‘Part of the Plan’. From this launching pad, Fogelberg issued a series of platinum albums into the eighties, the biggest-selling of them
Phoenix
(1979), which housed the singer/songwriter’s signature ballad ‘Longer Than’, a single that all but made US number one at the start of 1980. Among other Top Ten hits were the greatly played ‘Same Old Lang Syne’ (1980 – apparently drawn from a Christmas meeting with an old college flame) and ‘Leader of the Band’ (1981 – the moving tribute to his father). Throughout his career, Fogelberg preferred to remain at his Boulder, Colorado ranch than to tour behind his albums. While critics continued to deride Fogelberg’s work as ersatz and sentimental, there were few complaints from his hardcore fans – nor indeed his record labels, for whom Fogelberg was to deliver some twenty million sales throughout his career.

Dan Fogelberg announced to his public that he was fighting prostate cancer in 2004: despite some time in remission, the singer was defeated by the disease three years later at his Deer Island home. The city of his birth was quick to rename a street in Fogelberg’s honour, while the singer’s widow made his unreleased ‘Sometimes a Song’ available via the internet, with proceeds going toward cancer. For Fogelberg – a man who had dedicated much of his lifetime to supporting charitable causes – it was a singularly appropriate gesture.

Dan Fogelberg’s touring guitarist - the Grammy-winning Barry ‘Byrd’ Burton -died just four months later.

Friday 21

Kex Gorin

(Kevin Gorin - Birmingham, England, 1949)

Magnum

Magnum were a British prog/hard-rock band formed at the scene’s high-water mark around 1972, yet it took them some years to find any kind of commercial recognition. Kevin ‘Kex’ Gorin was the drummer in situ as the band became regulars at Birmingham’s Rum Runner club that year.

The emerging New Wave of British Heavy Metal (NWOBHM) gave Magnum – Gorin, Bob Catley (vox), Tony Clarkin (guitars), Mark Stanway (keys – replacing departing members Richard Bailey and Grenville Harding) and Colin Lowe (bass/vox) – a welcome push toward the end of the decade, the group finding a Top Forty berth for the live album,
Marauder
(1979). For many critics, the band’s strongest material was recorded at this time and the record-buying public appeared to agree, placing
Chase the Dragon
(1982) into the UK Top Twenty. The next charting album – 1983’s
The Eleventh Hour
– proved to be just that for Gorin, substituted as he was by Jim Simpson the following year.

While Magnum moved on to greater success in the late eighties, Gorin could only reflect on his twelve years of service to the band, eventually finding a position with the band of former Magnum guitarist Robin George. Gorin was diagnosed with advanced kidney cancer in 2005, the former percussionist – much like Tony Wilson
(
August 2007
)
-
unable to find the considerable amount of money to fund his medication. Without this, Kex Gorin’s condition deteriorated – and he passed away two years later.

Lest We Forget

Other notable deaths that occurred sometime during 2007:

Dick Burns
(US rock guitarist and founder member of The Dartells, who hit with ‘Hot Pastrami’ in 1962; born Woodbine, Iowa, 1943; heart attack–twelve years after the death of singer/bassist Doug Phillips, 5/11)

Byron Contostavlos
(UK touring bassist with international chart-toppers Mungo Jerry; born London, 27/2/1954; heart attack–he was discovered dead at home by his son, British grime/R & B star Dappy from N-Dubz, 12/4)

Ralph Ezell
(US bassist and founder of Shenandoah, who scored five country chart-toppers–he worked with Allison Krauss, Tammy Wynette, Mac Davis and The Osmonds, among dozens of others; born Newton County, Mississippi, 25/6/1953; heart attack, in South Dakota, 30/11)

Gable ‘Ben’ Frazier
(US doo-wop first tenor with notorious troupe The Paragons–he was the last surviving member; born Brooklyn, New York, 1941; illness, 12/10)

Joe Hunter
(US R & B pianist, musical director and original Motown Funk Brother who played on classics like The Miracles’ ‘Shop Around’ and influenced the style of Stevie Wonder; born Jackson, Tennessee, 19/11/1927; natural causes, 2/2)

Wayne Knupp
(original singer with US extreme death-metallers Devourment; born 1976; multiple organ failure as a result of alcohol abuse, 15/9)

Frankie Laine
(internationally-renowned pre-rock ‘n’ roll crooner/actor known as ‘Old Leather Lungs’–he wowed post-war audiences, scored countless gold records and played alongside the biggest cabaret names; born Francesco LoVecchio, Chicago, 30/3/1913; heart failure, 6/2)

George Malone
(US second tenor with doo-wop group The Monotones–who scored a huge hit with 1958’s ‘The Book of Love’; born Newark, New Jersey, 5/1/1940; stroke, 5/10–some decades after the passing of brothers John and Warren Ryanes)

Mercedes Merciano
(Cuban-born R & B/disco singer/songwriter who hit the big time with Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine; born Havana, 20/12/1957; pneumonia, 8/1)

Jim Nesbitt
(US ‘King of Country Comedy’ who scored a major hit with ‘Looking for More in ‘64’; born 1/12/1931; congestive heart failure, 29/11)

Ricky Parent
(US drummer with glam-metallers Enuff Z’nuff, also working with Alice Cooper and Vince Neil; born Passaic, New Jersey; cancer, 27/10)

Steven Rappaport
(US rock ‘n’ roll singer/guitarist with New Jersey’s The Ran-Dells who scored a freak #16 hit with 1963’s ‘Martian Hop’; born c 1942; heart attack in Hawaii, 4/7–four years after the death of his band mate John Spirt)

Weepin’ Willie Robinson
(US blues singer who worked with B B King and Bonnie Raitt, among others; born Atlanta, Georgia, 6/7/1926; falling asleep with a cigarette burning, he died in the resultant house fire in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, 30/12)

Ernie Warren
(US lead of great-but-forgotten vocal group The Cardinals who scored four R & B Top Ten hits, starting with 1951’s ‘Shouldn’t I Know’; born Junius Ernest Warren, Norfolk, Virginia, 16/3/1929; illness, 30/7)

Paul ‘Tubbs’ Williams
(Singer/bassist with underrated UK funk/fusion bands Light of the World and Incognito; born Hackney, London, 11/10/1962; natural causes, 10/1)

2008

JANUARY