The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (416 page)

However, Seth Putnam passed on aged just forty-three, following a heart attack at his home. He was survived by an ex-wife and children.

Golden Oldies #139

Carl Gardner

(Tyler, Texas, 29 April 1928)

The Coasters

The Robins

(Various acts)

Genial Carl Gardner began recording as long ago as the late forties in his capacity as tenor with vocal group The Robins. This band had an early chart hit with ‘Smokey Joe’s Cafe’ (1955), which was one of the first songs penned by legendary songwriting partnership Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller - who were also to feature fairly prominently in the work of Gardner’s next act. Despite signing with a major label (Atlantic), Gardner - along with fellow-Robin, Bobby Nunn -left the group to found R & B scoundrels The Coasters in 1955, the group surviving one or two line-up changes to become one of the biggest pop draws in America by the end of the decade. And the singer was indeed the last-surviving member of the quartet’s classic line-up of Gardner, Cornell Gunter (
February 1990),
Billy Guy (d 2002) and Will ‘Dub’ Jones (d 2000). The Coasters waited three years for major success, which arrived in the shape of enduring, knockabout hits like ‘Yakety Yak’ (1958, US number one; UK Top Twenty), ‘Charlie Brown’ (1959, US number two; UK Top Ten) and ‘Poison Ivy’ (1959, US Top Ten; UK Top Twenty), among ten Billboard Top Forty hits. An attempt to fashion a ‘maturer’ sound led to a split in the group’s ranks, however. By 1971, Gardner was the only original Coaster remaining, the group having its final Hot 100 entry with a cover of ‘Love Potion Number Nine.’ With his band disintegrating, Gardner - who held the legal rights - battled against various offshoots of The Coasters for the next couple of decades.

Following Carl Gardner’s retirement in 2005, the role of lead singer was taken over by his son, Carl Jr: the original front man passed away in Port St Lucie, Florida on 12 June 2011 from complications of congestive heart failure and vascular dementia. Gardner, at least, died peacefully, unlike several of his former Coasters colleagues: Gunter, King Curtis (
August 1971)
and Nathaniel Wilson (
April 1980)
were all violently murdered; the latter’s killer, group-manager Patrick Cavanaugh, died in jail; Nunn suffered a heart attack (
November 1986);
Guy passed away in near-destitution.

Various touring members of The Coasters have also died, including guitarist Sonny Forriest (d 1999), plus singers Bob B Soxx (
November 2000) and Darrell Reynolds (d 2002).

Golden Oldies #140

Clarence Clemons

(Norfolk County, Virginia, 11 January 1942)

The E Street Band

(Various acts)

Tributes poured in following the death on 18 June 2011 of Clarence Clemons, for many years the dynamic tenor-sax anchor to Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. The son of a fish marketeer, Clemons spent his childhood listening to gospel, his parents encouraging his interest by buying him an alto saxophone, upon which he quickly became proficient. The clearly gifted player then won a music scholarship to Maryland State College, during which time he switched to a tenor instrument and joined his first band, The Vibratones. Clemons’s earliest studio recordings were, however, with a variety of future P-Funk legends as one of Tyrone Ashley’s New Jersey band, The Funky Music Machine.

It’s for his work with Springsteen that Clemons will always be most fondly remembered. He finally met The Boss in 1971, while a member of Norman Seldin’s Joyful Noyze: this meeting at one of Springsteen’s early gigs is etched into rock folklore, Clemons citing that he and the front man looked at one another and ‘just knew’. The following year, Springsteen was recording his debut album,
Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ
(1973), and realised that Clemons was the man whose playing would add the finishing touches to the now-standard ‘Blinded By the Light’. From here, the saxophonist became a mainstay of The E Street Band (in which his 6’5” frame saw him dubbed - predictably - as ‘The Big Man’) and played on the majority of Springsteen’s works into the millennium. This tenure included platinum recordings such as the breakthrough
Born To Run
(1975), on whose title cut Clemons’s work absolutely soars. There were also many key moments upon
Darkness On the Edge of Town
(1978),
The River
(1980) and
Born in the USA
(1984).

As if he hadn’t achieved enough, Clemons also recorded with a multitude of further ‘name’ musicians including Jackson Browne, Aretha Franklin, The Grateful Dead and even, in recent times, Lady Gaga. The Big Man also enjoyed fame as an actor and in fronting his own band, The Red Bank Rockers.

On 12 June 2011, Clarence Clemons suffered a severe stroke that required emergency surgery: despite claims that he was on the verge of recovery, the legendary sax man passed away six days later at a Palm Beach, Florida hospital. Springsteen paid the following eulogy to his late friend and sidekick: ‘With Clarence at my side, my band and I were able to tell a story far deeper than those simply contained in our music.’

See also
Danny Federici (
April 2008)

JULY

Friday 1

Raymond Jones

(New York City, 13 December 1958)

Chic

(Various acts)