The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (374 page)

Depending upon one’s standpoint, early nineties hedonists Flowered Up could be viewed either as the perfect embodiment of rave-culture hedonism or as opportunistic bandwagon-jumpers par excellence. Whichever is the chosen representation, the baggy pirates – fronted by the brash, swaggering Liam Maher – shuffled out of a Camden housing estate to kidnap the UK’s alternative club scene for a year or two.

Flowered Up were dismissed by some as a ‘Cockney Happy Mondays’ (the group even affecting their Manchester rivals’ penchant for employing an onstage dancer, in this case, Barry Mooncult); however, the collective rapidly became clown princes in the eyes of the British music press and finally claimed a UK breakthrough with the reissued debut single ‘It’s On’ (London, 1991). Their album
A Life with Brian
suffered from over-production and performed only modestly, but still heralded Top Forty hits for Flowered Up – the biggest one being the remarkable ‘Weekender’ (Heavenly, 1992), a twelve-minute dance ‘epic’ that, for one or two critics, belatedly validated the band’s existence
per se.
Nevertheless, somewhat mirroring the effects of the MDMA so beloved of their chosen culture, Flowered Up were soon a distant memory.

Liam Maher reemerged from the haze in 2000 with a proposed new project in Greedy Soul, but, with a record deal falling through, it seemed that the party was truly over. Released from prison on 9 October 2009, the former rave figurehead – who had battled addiction for two decades – was found by his girlfriend eleven days later, dead from a heroin overdose at his Euston home. Although the autopsy revealed that Maher’s blood contained eight times the fatal level of the drug, suicide was ruled out.

Wednesday 28

Taylor Mitchell

(Taylor Josephine Stephanie Luciow - Toronto, Ontario, 27 August 1990)

The tragedy of Taylor Mitchell is that this talented and acclaimed young folk singer/songwriter is now more likely to be remembered for the shocking nature of her death than she is for her music.

Still in her teens, Mitchell had graduated from Toronto’s Etobikoke School of the Arts and, adopting her stage name, had made serious inroads into the folk industry. The singer had also received promising reviews for her debut collection, the independently released (and modestly titled)
For Your Consideration
(2009 – reissued posthumously via iTunes) and was in the midst of a Canadian tour to support the record. Indeed, on the night of her terrible passing, she had been due to play a concert in Sydney, Nova Scotia.

Prior to the performance, Mitchell had decided to clear her head by taking a brief hike in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Under normal circumstances, there should have been little need for concern on a sunny afternoon along the popular Skyline – the hike was known by tourists as a manageable walk with spectacular views. However, as the singer began to make her descent, she was attacked by a group of three coyotes. Although a further group of hikers managed to disperse the animals, the singer had been critically injured. Taylor Mitchell was taken to a hospital in nearby Cheticamp, before being airlifted to Halifax’s Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Center, where, sadly, she died overnight.

Aside from the obvious shock at this attack, experts expressed surprise at how a normally timid species might become so aggressive and deadly. The suggestion was that the creatures – which were later located and destroyed – might actually have been distant coyote-wolf hybrids. Whatever the truth, Mitchell’s death was only the second-recorded fatal coyote-attack in North American history – and the first-ever for an adult.

Bluegrass guitarist Bob Boardman was killed by a mountain goat as he hiked in Washington the following year.

Friday 30

Norton Buffalo

(Philip Jackson - Richmond, California, 28 September 1951)

The Steve Miller Band

(Various acts)

Although never one of the most ‘visible’ members of the line-up, Norton Buffalo was a skilled harpist who played with The Steve Miller Band for over two decades. Buffalo – who had picked up his father’s harmonica as a boy – became a noted exponent of the instrument on San Francisco’s fertile Bay Area music scene, picking up bookings with name acts such as Clover and Elvin Bishop, while also fronting his own band, The Knockouts.

Buffalo’s real break, however, came as he toured with Commander Cody & The Lost Planet Airmen on a substantial farewell tour across Europe in 1976. Those taking note included Steve Miller, who invited Buffalo to join
his
band on the road as they promoted the record
Fly Like an Eagle
later that year. The musician’s performances (and the speed with which he’d learned the band’s entire back catalogue) prompted Miller to take him on as a full-time member, a position Buffalo maintained for some thirty years. The harpist’s work can be heard on selected tracks from the mainly platinum-selling albums
Book of Dreams
(1977),
Abracadabra
(1982),
Living in the 20
^th
Century
(1986),
Wide River
(1993) and
Bingo!
(2010).

Buffalo still found time to record with Johnny Cash, Bonnie Raitt and The Doobie Brothers (with whom he earned a Grammy in 1979), also issuing his own solo records for Capitol in
Lovin’ in the Valley of the Moon
(1977) and
Desert Horizon
(1978). It is thought that the artist’s contributions can be heard on some 180 recordings.

Norton Buffalo died near his home in Paradise, California, within two months of being diagnosed with stage-four ardenocarcinoma, the disease having spread to his brain. A tribute concert was arranged for an instrumentalist held in high regard by his fellow musicians. The highprofile Oakland event featured The Doobies, Raitt and Bishop, plus Huey Lewis and George Thorogood & The Destroyers. It was – of course – headlined by Steve Miller.

See also
‘Sneaky’ PeteKleinow (
Golden Oldies #41). Steve Miller Band founder-member Tim Davis died in 1988, while occasional guitarist James ‘Curley’ Cooke died in 2011.

NOVEMBER

Sunday 1

Chen Lin

(Chongqing, 31 January 1970)

She was attractive, successful and wealthy – yet Chinese ‘mandopop’ sensation Chen Lin could not shake herself free from the shackles of depression. At twenty-three, Lin had risen to stardom with an album of simple, independent-spirited pop songs entitled
I Can Never Understand Your Love
(1993). This record scorched its way to the top of the Chinese album listings – and shifted one-and-a-half million copies in the process – but its defiant title proved strangely prophetic for the troubled singer. Lin made hits out of songs such as ‘I Choose What I Want’ (1994), but, perhaps paradoxically, was to marry quickly to music manager Shen Yongge. Despite the singer’s success predictably levelling off within a few years, everything seemed fine within her relationship until his affair with rival singer Deng Rong, which resulted in her filing for divorce in 2007. Later, it came to light that Yongge had already fathered a child by Rong. Despite Lin remarrying in July 2009, Lin’s new relationship was alleged to have been abusive and loveless. She was described by friends as constantly depressed as a result of the previous infidelity and had several times threatened to take her own life.

Thus, it came as little shock when Chen Lin’s body was found in the garden of a nine-storey apartment building in Chaoyang, Beijing. The singer had apparently jumped to her death from the top floor, on her first husband’s birthday. Rumours abounded that the singer’s injuries – which included a bruised neck – weren’t consistent with such a fall. The fact that she was found still wearing her trademark red stilettos also seemed at odds with such an incident. However, a verdict of suicide was passed.

Monday 2

Beverley O’Sullivan

(Donaghmede, Dublin, 16 January 1981)

(Fifth Avenue)

A pop chanteuse from a very different background lost her life the following day. Beverley O’Sullivan was disad-vantaged in her bid for pop stardom, having been diagnosed with OME (‘glue ear’), a condition that caused her partial deafness for the entirety of her life. The singer worsened her affliction while on tour with manufactured pop-outfit Fifth Avenue, a vocal group that had been put together to support multiplatinum Irish boyband Westlife. Indeed, a flight to Spain where Fifth Avenue were set to record a promo for the group’s debut single ‘Spanish Eyes’ (2004), caused O’Sullivan’s hearing to diminish by a further ten percent. Although Fifth Avenue were inevitably to split after a short career, the singer overcame her hearing disability to perform regularly as a solo artist.