The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (356 page)

Groucutt was also to play on four tracks from 1983’s
Secret Messages,
though by then had fallen out with Jeff Lynne, eventually suing the ELO leader for £300k. (At around this time, the musician issued his one solo album,
Kelly
(1982), which nonetheless featured several of his ELO cohorts, plus in-demand arranger Louis Clark.) Kelly Groucutt reconvened once more with various ex-members who then toured as ‘ELO Part II’ during the nineties. The bass-player married his long-term girlfriend less than three years before his sudden passing a day after suffering a heart attack.

See also
Mike Edwards (e September 2010)

Wednesday 25

Randall Bewley

(Bradenton, Florida, 25 July 1955)

Pylon

(Various acts)

Randy Bewley was the guitarist with new wave rockers Pylon, a largely unsung though highly influential group that emerged from Athens, Georgia in 1978. The band was founded by University of Georgia art students Bewley and Michael Lachowski (bass), the pair shortly recruiting drummer Curtis Crowe and singer Vanessa Briscoe. Athens’s fastest-rising band (at the time) were The B-52’s, who – impressed with Pylon – secured a gig for them at the famed Hurrah Club in New York.

‘We’re not the best band in the US–Pylon are.’

REM’s Bill Berry sets
Rolling Stone
straight in December 1987

Pylon played a few dates with British band Gang of Four (whose own choppy dance style they complemented perfectly) before settling into regular tour slots opening for U2 and Talking Heads. Another feted group to break in Athens at the same time were REM, who also invited Pylon to tour with them, an experience that later prompted drummer Bill Berry to make his famous quote. Unfortunately, Pylon – despite fine albums in
Gyrate
(1980) and
Chomp
(1983) – weren’t to experience the same level of success as REM, and disbanded soon after the second record. That comment may have served as a jolt, though, as Bewley and co surprised many by returning in 1990 with
Chain
– perhaps Pylon’s best work yet. The guitarist left, however, in 1991, and it was to be fourteen years before fans saw Pylon together again.

Bewley had been working as an art teacher for some years when, as if knowing that his time was limited, he returned to music. First, Pylon reunited for a few dates, then the guitarist started working with new initiatives in Sound Houses and Supercluster – the latter a project that also involved Briscoe. Randy Bewley is believed to have suffered a heart attack at the wheel of his car on 23 February, the vehicle running off the road and turning over: the musician slipped into a coma and passed away two days later. A first Supercluster album emerged later in 2009.

MARCH

Wednesday 18

Kent Henry

(Henry Plischke - Hollywood, California, 5 April 1948)

Blues Image

Steppenwolf

(Various acts)

Although never an official member of Florida’s Blues Image, versatile bluesrock guitarist Kent Henry replaced the departing Mike Pinera to contribute much to the band’s sound during its successful period of 1969–70. Before he left to join Iron Butterfly, Pinera had co-written the song ‘Ride Captain Ride’ (1970): this infectious piece became a major hit single in the US (Billboard Top Five), boasting guitar solos from both Henry and Pinera.

However, Henry was credited only as a ‘guest’ on the 1970 albums
Open
and
Red, White and Blues Image,
and therefore opted to join Steppenwolf, feeling that he wasn’t receiving sufficient credit. The John Kay-fronted rock band were past their hit-making days, but were to reveal a more conscience-driven side to their work with the sixth record
For Ladies Only
(1971), with its themes of feminism and chivalry. This was to prove the last of the original Steppenwolf’s recordings, the band’s first not to breach the Top Forty, and, like its predecessor, failing to produce a major hit single. It made little difference to Henry, in any case – the guitarist had been secretly fired due to a falling out with Steppenwolf mainstay, Jerry Edmonton, after a restaurant spat. (He allegedly only found out he’d been replaced when new guitarist Bobby Cochran called him to ask for advice.) Henry, however, continued to record with Kay, and then returned to join very different Steppenwolf line-ups during the late seventies and early eighties.

In a varied career, Henry could boast having once recorded with Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Noel Redding (albeit on a Lord Sutch album) during a spell living in London; however, Henry was a modest man not given to such conceit, and had even been prepared to part with a gold disc. Henry’s later life, too, was spent quietly as a guitar technician, but the musician still found a regular berth for himself within bluesman Paul deLay’s band. It was while performing with this act that Henry fell backward from the stage at Sunset Strip’s famous Whisky a Go Go club: the subsequent injury caused the guitarist to suffer seizures. Also displaying early signs of Alzheimer’s disease, Kent Henry was under constant care during his final years. The musician died on the operating table, his system having swiftly deteriorated the last week of his life.

See also
Rushton Moreve (
July 1981); Andrew Chapin (
December 1985); Jerry Edmonton (
November 1993). Paul deLay passed away in March 2007, following a battle with leukaemia.

Sunday 22

Scoobie Santino

(Ian Newtion - London, 14 January 1965)

As Ian Newtion, he was a straight-up, hardworking man who cared for his family and friends; however, it was as reggae star Scoobie Santino that the man really came to life, by tapping into his natural ability to spellbind a crowd. Santino started the career he craved as a DJ working London’s sound systems, but it was his singing career that created waves during the late eighties. In 1990, ‘Cash Money’ – Santino’s catchy duet with Aswad collaborator Sweetie Irie – looked to have paved the way, the record finding much national airplay as it coasted to the top of the UK’s reggae charts. Unfortunately, there weren’t any further hit records for Santino, but the artist supplemented his income as a delivery driver by continuing to perform for his loyal audience.

His fans’ adoration makes his brutal murder in a London underpass the more difficult to fathom. Santino had played another successful concert to hundreds of eager night-owls in Greenford, west London, before heading home to Fulham. Even though it was by now approaching 7.45 am, it seems somebody had plans to either rob or assault this peaceful man. At just before 9 am, the singer’s body was found in a pool of blood in the otherwise empty underpass: horrifically, his throat had been gouged with a broken beer bottle. Although a group of teenagers seen in the area were detained for questioning, no one has been charged with the killing. Similarly, highprofile investigations – including a reconstruction on BBC television’s
Crimewatch
– have, as yet, failed to solve the mystery of Santino’s death. With Scoobie Santino having no links whatsoever to crime, the only near certainty is that his killer was a stranger to him.