The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (405 page)

The group remained a cultish indulgence, but boasted a fanbase that stretched across the globe. In December 2010, Broadcast went on their first tour of Australia and Singapore when Trish Keenan contracted swine flu: further tests showed her to be suffering from pneumonia. Keenan’s condition deteriorated rapidly until the singer passed away while in intensive care. Later in 2011, Cargill worked on a final Broadcast record using vocal tracks made by Keenan before her death.

Saturday 15

Harvey James

(Sheffield, England, 20 September 1952)

Sherbet

(Mississippi)

(Ariel)

(The Party Boys)

Harvey James travelled back and forth between his native England and adopted Australia as he sought music stardom. The guitarist cut his teeth ‘down under’ with early seventies rock act Mississippi, but while his former band mates moved on to form The Little River Band after his departure, the next stop on James’s road to stardom was the prog band Ariel. With this act, he returned to Britain to record the album
Rock
V
Roll Scars
(1974). However, it wasn’t long before the axeman was on his way again …

James was given a serious foot-up when he joined Australian pop/rock stadium-fillers Sherbet in 1975; they were already an established act and riding high with the Australian number one ‘Summer Love’. The guitarist’s first recording with Sherbet was to be the band’s biggest-ever hit, ‘Howzat’ (1976, Australia number one; UK Top Five; US Hot 100) – and their only foray into the British and American charts. Other Australian hits followed, including the trio of Top Ten singles, ‘Rock Me Gently’ (1976), ‘Magazine Madonna’ (1977) and ‘Another Night on the Road’ (1978).

Sherbet’s fortune had taken a turn for the worse by the time James left in 1979, although he did reunite with them – and Ariel – for the inevitable nostalgia tours during the late nineties, by which time he was juggling favours with another band in the shape of multi-member rock conglomerate The Party Boys, a rolling project that also included members of Rose Tattoo, Skyhooks and Dragon, plus musicians from outside of the Aus-rock fraternity.

Harvey James was diagnosed with lung cancer during June of 2010: he succumbed to the disease seven months later in a Melbourne hospital.

Sunday 16

Steve Prestwich

(Liverpool, England, 5 March 1954)

Cold Chisel

The Little River Band

(Various acts)

By a remarkable, dark coincidence, a second English-born musician with connections to The Little River Band passed away on the same weekend. And, much like Harvey James, Steve Prestwich also made his name as a musician upon relocation to Australia.

After moving to Adelaide as a seventeen-year-old in 1971, Prestwich played drums with a variety of bands, including Ice and Orange, the latter morphing into Cold Chisel by 1974. This group released a self-titled first album in 1978, and they were on their way to becoming one of Australia’s best-loved rock acts. Prestwich was present for five further studio sets, including the charttopping
Swingshift
(1981) and
Circus Animals
(1982 – for which the percussionist composed two songs).

Despite this, Cold Chisel were unable to make an international impact. During an ill-fated 1983 European tour, Prestwich left the band (to be replaced by Spectrum’s Ray Arnott) and within a year joined The Little River Band. Prestwich remained with LRB for two years, touring and playing on a pair of long-players with the band, and working with singer John Farnham. Steve Prestwich – survived by two daughters – died from a brain tumour at the age of 56.

Golden Oldies #126

Don Kirshner

(The Bronx, New York, 17 April 1934)

Celebrated Jewish-American record producer and rock manager Don Kirshner is recalled worldwide as ‘The Man With the Golden Ear’ - or, if one prefers, ‘The Godfather of Bubblegum’. Kirshner was a business-school graduate who first offered his midas touch to his friend Bobby Darin (then Robert Cassotto), the pair writing successful jingles, one of which became a hit for Connie Francis (1956’s ‘My First Real Love’), whom Kirshner was subsequently to manage. Although other co-compositions were recorded by The Coasters, Gene Vincent and Darin himself, Kirshner soon grasped that it was entrepreneurial skills that would make his name.

As co-owner (with Al Nevins) of Aldon Music, Kirshner directed the work of a number of Brill Building songwriters during the fifties and sixties. This remarkable period of his career saw Kirshner oversee teen-market hits for The Shirelles, The Crystals, The Shangri-Las, The Drifters, The Ronettes and Little Eva (to name a few), which made him an industry force and stood him in very good stead for his later projects. In 1967, Kirshner - now working with Columbia as head of Screen Gems Publishing - was hired by the producers of the all-new television comedy
The Monkees
to compose numbers for the ‘fictional’ pop quartet of the title. It’s fair to say that he did this with some aplomb. Using his Brill contacts, Kirshner published the songs, some of which became million-sellers: examples include Neil Diamond’s ‘I’m a Believer’ (1966-67, US/UK number one) and ‘A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You’ (1967, US/UK Top Three). The unauthorised release of the latter, however, resulted in Kirshner belatedly being removed from the project (for which he won himself a hefty settlement), as the now ‘real’ group demanded artistic control.

‘Screw The Monkees. I want a band that won’t talk back.’

Don Kirshner, in 1968

The fact that The Monkees’ sales dipped dramatically after his departure was underscored when Kirshner again hit platinum managing another manufactured act’s hit - The Archies’ Jeff Barry/Andy Kim-penned ‘Sugar Sugar’ (1969, US/UK/pretty-much-everywhere-else number one). Having made an absolute killing here (and less-so with other Archies tunes), Kirshner settled into televised rock during the seventies. Following his retirement in 1982, Don Kirshner was said to be greatly ‘irked’ at never having been inducted into rock’s Hall of Fame.

Don Kirshner - who died in Florida from heart failure on 17 January 2011 -also owned several record labels during his prestigious career.

Golden Oldies #127

Gladys Horton

(Gainesville, Florida, 30 May 1945)

The Marvelettes

‘Please Mr Postman’ might remain the most identifiable legacy for The Marvelettes and their first lead singer, Gladys Horton - but there was more to the fabled vocal quartet than their biggest hit. For one thing, they were a quintet at the start: Detroit glee-club singers Horton and Georgia Dobbins originally lined up as The Casinyets with backing vocalists Georgeanna Tillman, Katherine Anderson and Juanita Cowart. In 1960, The Casinyets (or Can’t Sing Yets, as detractors were to have it) managed to earn themselves an audition with Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson at Motown. The pair were impressed by the group’s original ‘Please Mr Postman’ (written by Dobbins and pianist William Garrett), and the song was worked up to become the renamed Marvelettes’ first single. (The final recording was made with The Funk Brothers’ rhythm section, which featured a young Marvin Gaye.)

With cruel irony, Dobbins was removed from the group by disapproving parents before her song became a hit, Horton thus taking over the sole lead as the restyled Marvelettes - bolstered by newcomer Katherine Anderson - took off. ‘Please Mr Postman’ stunned everyone at Motown (and beyond) by quickly becoming the label’s first pop chart-topper at Christmas 1961 (and also a US R & B number one). The forgettable cashin ‘Twistin’ Postman’ kept The Marvelettes in the Top Forty before two more sizeable hits followed - the great ‘Playboy’ (1962, US Top Ten) and ‘Beechwood 4-5789’ (1962, US Top Twenty).

Even after such a start, it was far from sailing for Horton. First, her group made the fatal decision of rejecting the Holland/Dozier/Holland song ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’ - which was instead recorded by The Supremes, who, in doing so, scored a global smash and usurped The Marvelettes as Motown’s top girl group. Finally, the lead singer lost her own personal spot to newcomer Wanda Young in 1965. Horton became increasingly despondent, leaving the group eighteen months later, to be replaced by Anne Bogan. It soon transpired that Horton was pregnant with the first of her three children.

Horton returned to performance after bringing up her family, but came to discover that the ownership of her former group’s name had been sold. She nonetheless managed to tour with new backing singers as ‘Gladys Horton
of
The Marvelettes’, but, like many of the label’s second tier of stars, never fully reaped what she should have from an early career that had done much to cement Motown’s reputation. After a fairly successful return to show business during the eighties, Horton finally left the industry to care for her disabled son. She died at a California nursing home on 26 January 2011, following a stroke.

See also
Georgeanna Tillman (
January 1980)