The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (342 page)

For LeRoi Moore, however, there was to be a tragic ending. Traversing the heavy ground of his farm outside Charlottesville on 30 June 2008, the musician lost control of his all-terrain vehicle as it hit a ditch. The ATV then flipped and landed on Moore, who suffered broken ribs and a punctured lung. Although he was released from the hospital some days later, Moore had a relapse and was forced to seek further treatment in July. Then, during rehabilitation, the saxophonist complained of feeling unwell and was rushed back to the hospital. He passed away soon thereafter. Doctors later confirmed that Moore died from pneumonia.

Although LeRoi Moore’s last recordings were used on the million-selling
Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King
(2009), his replacement in The Dave Matthews Band was named as former Béla Fleck & The Flecktones sax player Jeff Coffin. (Despite his given name, Moore should not, of course, be confused with rock guitarist Gary Moore, who died three years later
(
February 2011
).)

Respected drummer and one-time Dave Matthews Band collaborator Johnny/Gilmore died in a Charlottesville house fire in October 2009.

Saturday 23

Steve Foley

(Hopkins, Minnesota, 1959)

The Replacements

Bash & Pop

(Various acts)

Steve Foley left a musical family to play with legendary Minneapolis altrockers The Replacements between 1990 and the band’s demise, just a year later. The drummer had begun with regional postpunk acts like The Overtones, Things That Fall Down and Curtiss A – for whom he was playing in 1989 when earmarked by charismatic lead Replacement Paul Westerberg. (Foley, having agreed to give them a ride to the studio, then further impressed his potential new band when their recent album
Don’t Tell a Soul
came blasting out of his car stereo as he turned on the ignition.)

’Some days I walk down the street and think “Jeez, was I in that fucking band?” Unbelievable, it is!’

Steve Foley reflects proudly on his career

It was a shortlived though striking relationship. Foley replaced former drummer Chris Mars and ended up touring with The Replacements as they promoted what was to be their final album, the Grammy-nominated
All Shook Down
(1990). When the band’s propensity for self-destruction saw them fall apart after an Independence Day performance in 1991, Foley departed to join longstanding Replacement Tommy Stinson’s new group, Bash & Pop. The group with Stinson now on guitar, also featured Steve’s bassist brother, Kevin Foley. Although they received some good write-ups for first recording
Friday Night Is Killing Me
(Sire/Reprise, 1993 – a good deal of which was allegedly played by Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers), this band remained strictly cult. Foley later played with Wheelo before making an income selling cars for a Nissan dealership.

In his later years, the former drummer had suffered greatly from depression and anxiety, and it is believed that Steve Foley died after overdosing on prescription medication.

See also
Bob Stinson (
February 1995)

Wednesday 27

Jez Bird

(Jeremy Bird - Lewes, East Sussex, October 1957)

The Lambrettas

(Shakedown)

There weren’t too many great bands spawned by that damp squib of a UK mod revival during 1979–80, but The Lambrettas were perhaps the most entertaining, and certainly the best musically.

Singer/guitarist Jez Bird had previously fronted Sussex rhythm ‘n’ blues band Shakedown with future Lambrettas guitarist Doug Sanders before realising major success at just twenty-three. Bird’s next band had barely been together a year when Elton John’s Rocket Records signed them up for two albums and began promoting The Lambrettas’ debut single ‘Go Steady’ (1979): this failed to impact, but their second release – a decent cover of The Coasters’ ‘Poison Ivy’ – became an unexpected hit, soaring into the UK Top Ten in the spring of 1980. While other mod acts were faltering, The Lambrettas came up with another hit: ‘Da-a-a-ance’ (1980) which made the UK Top Twenty. For a short while at least, The Lambrettas– in their Harringtons and reflector shades – were everywhere. The next single, ‘Another Day (Another Girl)’, faced legal threats from British tabloid
The Sun;
the tune’s original title was ‘Page Three’, a sardonic reference to the newspaper’s perceived exploitation of pin-up girls. These legal troubles probably dented its chances somewhat. However a Top Forty album,
Beat Boys in the Jet Age
(1981), kept the fires burning.

The first real signs of a setback came with second album,
Ambience
(1982), which was all but swamped by a swathe of new UK pop acts to emerge that year (the socalled ‘Second British Invasion’, once it hit the US twelve months later). This record – along with its selected singles– fell mainly on deaf ears.

After The Lambrettas’ split in1983, Bird remained a popular local figure in his home town of Lewes, even occasionally dusting off the hits for a live performance or two. He returned with a revived edition of his best-known band during the nineties, but, barring a few demo recordings, this never came to much. Jez Bird died at the age of fifty, following a cancer diagnosis. Sanders, along with original Lambrettas drummer Paul Wincer, has since reformed the band in memory of their former front man.

In June 2009, Dave Blackman - popular drummer with British mod revival band (and Canadian hitmakers) The Teenbeats - died in the middle of a concert in Hastings.

SEPTEMBER

Golden Oldies#75

Rick Wright

(Richard Wright - Middlesex, England, 28 July 1943)

Pink Floyd

(Zee)

Just two years after the passing of the band’s most charismatic member, Syd Barrett (
July 2006),
Pink Floyd bade farewell to keyboardist Rick Wright. Another self-taught musician, Wright had first encountered Roger Waters (bass) and Nick Mason (drums) while studying architecture at Regent Street Polytechnic in 1962. The trio played as members of The Tea Set (initially called Sigma 6). Wright, originally a rhythm guitarist, was perfecting his craft as a neo-classical pianist at The London College of Music by the time ‘The Pink Floyd Sound’ was coming together. Having intrigued audiences with their unique live audiovisuals, the restyled Pink Floyd (now fronted by the idiosyncratic Barrett) signed with EMI in 1967 for £5,000 to create the first of their classic studio recordings. Two colourful hit singles emerged in ‘Arnold Layne’ and ‘See Emily Play’, followed later in the year by the album
Piper at the Gates of Dawn.
The set was mainly made up of Barrett-penned tunes, but Wright also emerged with vocals to complement his piano and Farfisa and Hammond organ parts.

With the troubled front man eventually departing to make way for friend and guitarist David Gilmour, Pink Floyd nurtured something of a change in style after the second record,
A Saucerful of Secrets
(1969). This - largely because of the crisis caused by the songwriter’s behaviour - became the first to feature Rick Wright’s solo compositions in ‘Remember a Day’ and ‘See-Saw’, as well as those penned by Waters. While the record wasn’t as well-received as its predecessor, Pink Floyd were on a roll, and Wright’s songs were featured prominently on the next pair of records,
Ummagumma
(1969) and
Atom Heart Mother
(1970).