The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (351 page)

Gilbert Moorer Jr
(US vocalist with his siblings Alvis and Betty in briefly popular R & B troupe The Esquires, who scored Billboard hits with 1967’s ‘Get On Up’ and ‘And Get Away’; born 1941; throat cancer, 28/8)

Vinnie Naccarato
(US co-founder and baritone of Italian-American doo-wop act The Capris, who hit #3 with 1961’s ‘There’s a Moon Out Tonight’; born Queens, New York, 1942; pancreatic cancer, 26/12)

Cliff Nobles
(US R & B singer who led Cliff Nobles & Co–although he didn’t even feature on the band’s biggest hit, 1968 #2 smash ‘The Horse’; born Grove Hill, Alabama, 4/8/1941; cancer, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, 12/10)

Lita Roza
(UK pop/standards singer who, with 1953’s ‘(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?’, became the first female artist to top the UK charts; born Lilian Patricia Lita Roza, Liverpool, Lancashire, 14/3/1926; natural causes, 14/8)

Jo Stafford
(highly regarded pre-rock ‘n’ roll pop singer who scored dozens of hits including the transatlantic #1 ‘You Belong to Me’–she was a member of The Stafford Sisters and The Pied Pipers; born Coalinga, California, 12/11/1917; natural causes, 16/7)

Feliciano Vierra Tavares Sr
(US R & B singer/guitarist who played with The Hep-Cats and The Jimmy Barros Band–also the patriarch of highly successful R & B act, Tavares; born Providence, Rhode Island, 29/10/1920; prostate cancer, 17/12)

Wayne Wadhams
(US singer/keyboardist with Connecticut rock band The Fifth Estate, who recorded the 1967 novelty hit ‘Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead’–he also founded the Boston Skyline label; born Stamford, Connecticut, 12/11/1946; illness, 19/8)

Jerry Wallace
(US pop/country singer/guitarist who charted many singles, including 1959’s Top Ten ‘Primrose Lane’–also topping the country and album listings; born Guilford, Missouri, 15/12/1928; congestive heart failure, 5/5)

2009

JANUARY

Sunday 4
*

Ron Asheton

(Washington DC, 17 July 1948)

The Stooges

The New Order

(The New Race)

(Destroy All Monsters)

(Various acts)

Ron Asheton – the sixty-year-old guitarist/bassist and co-songwriter of The Stooges – proved 2009’s first significant rock fatality. A teenage Rolling Stones fan who had seldom previously ventured far from his accordion, Asheton surfaced first as bassist with Washington DC garage rockers The Dirty Shames, and then with the cover act The Chosen Few. But if these shortlived enterprises taught him anything, it was that the guitar was more his instrument of choice. Thus, Ron, his drummer-brother Scott and bassist Dave Alexander fleshed out The Stooges, the primal band that was to back irrepressible vocalist Iggy Pop (James Osterberg – ex-Iguanas, Prime Movers).

Like contemporaries such as The Velvet Underground, The Stooges found themselves at odds with much of the music scene about them. However, despite courting huge amounts of controversy, a Stooges gig made for a compelling live experience – the band shambling through three-minute bursts of ‘disillusionment’ while their front man threw himself about the stage, smeared in burger meat, peanut butter or, more often than not, his own blood. Elektra certainly seemed unfazed by this – they, after all, already had The Doors – signing The Stooges in 1968, alongside fellow outlaws The MC5. With a rough-hewn sound now described as ‘protopunk’, the band issued the first of a short series of primordial rock albums in the shape of 1969’s
The Stooges
– a record that boasted several Asheton compositions, but nevertheless left most critics cold.
Fun House
(1970) was also released by Elektra, this record – to the label’s great annoyance – reflecting the group’s sudden submergence into heroin use. (Ron Asheton was the only member to abstain after manager John Adams had switched his band mates onto the drug.) Despite the addition of another guitarist in James Williamson, performances descended into farce, and The Stooges were unsurprisingly dropped by their label. With the band in hiatus, Pop attempted to reorganise matters with the help of new friend David Bowie and some fresh musicians. Asheton – who’d returned as a bassist – was decidedly nonplussed to be considered ‘second string’ and at having to give up guitar and songwriting duties to Williamson for 1973’s
Raw Power.

Iggy & The Stooges were to have their critical moment some decades later, but the band ‘as was’ finally fell apart amid acrimony during 1974. (The sudden, alcohol-related death of Alexander
(
February 1975)
saw the Asheton brothers maintain a long-running feud with Pop that was only resolved at the band’s millennium reunion.) Asheton kept himself busy, thereafter forming The New Order with the MC5’s Dennis ‘Machine Gun’ Thompson – a project that self-destructed after just one album. This preceded a further ‘supergroup’ in the shape of US/Australian venture The New Race, the band featuring three ex-members of Radio Birdman. (Asheton had simultaneously worked with another former MC5-man, bassist Michael Davis, in the more popular punk act Destroy All Monsters.) The unexpected came to pass in 2003 when The Stooges got together once more to tour extensively, and when, four years later, Pop and the Ashetons issued an unlikely fourth album,
The Weirdness
(Virgin, 2007).

‘I’d never met a convincing musician that didn’t look kinda ill and dirty–and Ron had those two things covered.’

Iggy Pop

Ron Asheton – who had been in poor health for some time – was found by police in his bed on 6 January 2009, after a distress call from his personal assistant: the guitarist had died some days before, apparently of a heart attack.

*
The actual date of Asheton’s passing can, of course, only be estimated.

See also
Dave Alexander (
February 1975). Stooges bassist/roadie Zeke Zettner also passed in 1975, however, sometime sax player Steve Mackay survived persistent rumours of his own death to play with the reformed group in 2003.

Golden Oldies #86

Dave Dee

(David Harman - Salisbury, Wiltshire, 17 December 1941)

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich

Dave ‘Dee’ Harman - the gap-toothed lead vocalist with chirpy UK popsters Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich - served with the police prior to an unexpectedly successful music career. It’s believed his tending to a dying rock ‘n’ roll star may have inspired him as a songwriter (
Pre-1965/Dead Interesting!).
To his parents’ chagrin, Harman jettisoned his career in 1962 to focus on his up-and-coming pop band - then known as Ronnie Blonde & The Beatniks. Under their distinctive new handle, Dee’s Wiltshire pals Dozy (Trevor Ward-Davies, bass), Beaky (John Dymond, rhythm guitar), Mick (Michael Wilson, drums) and Tich (Ian Amey, lead guitar) were happy to join him on the road to pop stardom. After some time playing Hamburg’s notorious Reeperbahn (and an unsuccessful experience recording with Joe Meek), DD,D,B,M&T were teamed with top-notch pop songwriters/managers Alan Blaikley and Ken Howard - and the hits began to flow on Fontana.