The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (345 page)

Golden Oldies #78

Alton Ellis

(Trench Town, Kingston, Jamaica, 1 September 1938)

(Alton Ellis & The Flames)

(Alton & Eddy)

Known as ‘The Godfather of Rocksteady’, Alton Ellis is recalled as one of Jamaica’s greatest vocalists. Ellis, born to a musical family, actually began his career as a dancer but switched to singing at the age of 21 when he formed a popular duo with Eddy Perkins. The pair - like many - recorded with the legendary Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd and enjoyed a sizeable Jamaican hit with ‘Muriel’ (1960). That song was reportedly composed by Ellis as he laboured on a building site some years earlier.

The duo split after one more 45, and Perkins attempted an ill-fated solo career in the USA. Ellis ceased working with Dodd and instead forged a working relationship with that producer’s archnemesis, Duke Reid, with whom he began to enjoy more consistent success. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Ellis concentrated on lyrics about love, peace and the burgeoning rocksteady scene - which he was largely responsible for pioneering and popularising. These themes are best displayed on 1965’s ‘Don’t Gamble with Love’ (one of many songs recorded with his sister, Hortense) and 1966’s ‘Cry Tough’ and ‘I’ve Got a Date’ (with backing band, The Flames), the latter of which became the artist’s signature hit. By the end of the decade, Ellis was working with both Dodd and Reid - a feat that few others could have achieved at the time, such was the rivalry between the producers. In Europe, he remains best-remembered for the song ‘I’m Still in Love’, which was used by Althea & Donna as the backdrop for their 1978 British number one, ‘Uptown Top Ranking’.

During the seventies, Ellis - like many reggae artists seeking a more prominent market - relocated to the UK, where rocksteady was beginning to take off. Although he didn’t see the kind of commercial success enjoyed by Bob Marley, Desmond Dekker or Ken Boothe, Ellis remained a huge live draw and settled in south London where he started up the Alltone label and record store, continuing to record into the nineties. For his achievements in music, the singer was awarded the Order of Distinction by the Jamaican government in 2004.

Alton Ellis - who apparently also found time to father some twenty children (two of whom became recording artists) - died in Hammersmith, London on 10 October 2008 from the lymph cancer with which he’d been diagnosed early the previous year.

Former Flames member Baby G (Edgar Gordon) died in Jamaica just one month later.

Wednesday

Frankie Venom

(Frank Kerr - Glasgow, Scotland, 2 June 1956)

Teenage Head

(Various acts)

As Frankie Venom, Scots-born Frank Kerr was the distinctive original singer of pioneering Canadian punk act Teenage Head – the band he named after a Flamin’ Groovies standard. It’s widely reported that Venom and his band mates – Gord Lewis (guitar), Steve Marshall (aka Steve Mahon, bass) and Nick Stipinitz (drums) – weren’t friends when they met at Westdale High School in Hamilton, Ontario, during 1975. However, they somehow scratched something together, and Venom went on to front Teenage Head for some ten years.

Teenage Head’s debut single ‘Picture My Face’ (1978) and eponymous first album (1979) were produced by former Tornados guitarist Alan Caddy, his touch complementing the band’s primitive sound. Often referred to as ‘Canada’s Ramones’, they started to make an impact in 1980. With second record
Frantic City
making waves, their single ‘Something on My Mind’ made it into the Canadian Top Forty. Teenage Head then made national headlines when their June appearance at Ontario Place ended in a riot, which prompted a lengthy ban on rock shows there. (Lewis compounded this notoriety when he broke his back in a car accident.)

All this publicity helped third album
Some Kinda Fun
(1982) to reach gold status, but Venom – who pretty much lived the band’s ‘party hard’ subject matter – began to lose interest in the group after it signed with MCA, the major label doing its best to temper Teenage Head’s somewhat brutal output. The result was the slightly diluted
Tornado EP
(1983). After its release, Venom left and was replaced by Dave Rave (David Desroches). Venom attempted to kickstart something else with his bands The Vipers (with later Head drummer Mark Lockerbie) and The Blue Angels, but was back with his first group intermittently over the next decade. Although a new collection featuring Venom –
Head Disorder
– emerged in 1998, for Teenage Head the moment had rather come and gone.

Most of the original line-up reformed during 2007, where their appearances were welcomed by Ontario’s aging punk community. Venom, however, was soon diagnosed with throat cancer, which eventually cost the singer his life.

Golden Oldies#79

Levi Stubbs

(Levi Stubbles - Detroit, Michigan, 6 June 1936)

The Four Tops

Another month, and another legend gone to meet his maker - this time it was the great Levi Stubbs, who for more than half a century was the lead vocalist of The Four Tops.

Pershing High School student Stubbs - a cousin of emerging soul legend Jackie Wilson - formed the act in 1953 with Abdul ‘Duke’ Fakir, Renato ‘Obie’ Benson and Lawrence Payton; they called themselves The Four Aims. The group’s name was changed to avoid confusion with the then-popular Ames Brothers. As The Four Tops, the quartet had a disappointing start with Chess but went on to sign with Motown in 1963. Here, Stubbs - a baritone - was encouraged to sing at the upper end of the register, thus lending the group the sense of urgency that was to become a trademark of their classic songs. Stubbs took the lead for the majority of the Tops’ hits, starting with the first, ‘Baby I Need Your Loving’ (1964, US number eleven) and including timeless moments like the Holland-Dozier-Holland-penned US number ones ‘I Can’t Help Myself’ (1965) and ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’ (1966). The latter also topped the hit parade in Britain, as The Four Tops were well on their way to becoming as big across the pond as they were in the US. Despite decent sales, Stubbs and his group left Motown in 1972.

The Four Tops claimed a good number of chart entries while recording for ABC/Dunhill and then for Casablanca, even proving their relevance into the eighties with the US R & B number one ‘When She Was My Girl’ (1981), which was also a major UK hit. As their output slowed, however, Stubbs found lucrative work as a voice-over artist and lent his distinctive tones to the musical The Little Shop of Horrors (1986), among a number of other credits.

Despite several opportunities to strike out on his own, Levi Stubbs remained a magnanimous team player who simply couldn’t imagine working without his band mates. He was known to turn down offers for solo deals or to place his name ahead of the group’s on their billings. However, when he suffered a stroke in 2000, the front man finally gave over the reigns to new lead Theo Peoples (formerly of Motown friends and rivals The Temptations).

The singer died on 17 October 2008 at his Detroit home, having battled cancer for a dozen years. After more than four decades without a change in line-up, fans of The Four Tops had to accept their heroes’ mortality: following Payton’s death
(
June 1997)
and Benson’s
(
July 2005),
Fakir remains the only surviving member of the original group. However, when the world falls apart, some things stay in place - and Levi Stubbs’s voice will live on forever.

Golden Oldies #80

Dee Dee Warwick

(Delia Mae Warrick - Newark, New Jersey, 25 September 1942)

(The Gospelaires)