The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (419 page)

‘I was a spectrum drug-user… alcoholic … you name it.’

Dan Peek remembers the good old days

Now settled back at home in the US, the band earned consistent acclaim, not to mention success, throughout the seventies with hit songs such as the excellent ‘Ventura Highway’ (1972, Top Ten), plus ‘Tin Man’ (1974, Top Five), Peek’s ‘Lonely People’ (1974, Top Five) and a second chart-topper in ‘Sister Golden Hair’ (1975). Six of the group’s first seven albums achieved either gold or platinum status in the USA, while the band’s ‘greatest hits’ package,
History
(1975) sold four million copies alone. By 1974’s
Holiday –
all titles were given the ‘H’ treatment at this point – America were renewing English ties by inviting former Beatles producer George Martin to give them a lick of studio paint.

However, America’s popularity was on the wane by 1977, and the band’s apparent ‘wholesome’ image called into question by Peek’s by-now-serious substance issues. The musician recalled: ‘I tried everything. I was taking hash, marijuana, quaaludes, alcohol and tobacco.’ (Perhaps the next record should’ve been called ‘Habit’?) With the once-amicable inter-band relationship turning sour, Peek left by mutual consent by the end of the year. The artist dealt with his growing problems by finding Christianity, which also inspired his next musical move: Peek’s first solo album
All Things Are Possible
(1979) was well received, spawning a Contemporary Christian number-one single with its Grammy-nominated title track. (America, meanwhile, continued as a duo, although good relations were renewed following their contributions to Peek’s project.)

A dozen further Dan Peek albums were released into the millennium, the last –
All American Boy
– was issued online in 2007. (An autobiography also emerged in 2004.) Although no official cause of death was announced, it’s known that the musician had been unwell at the time before his passing; he died during sleep at his Farmington, Missouri, home.

Golden Oldies #143

Gene McDaniels

(Eugene Booker McDaniels - Kansas City, Missouri, 12 February 1935)

Brought up on a diet of jazz and gospel, Gene McDaniels was a fine singer, but one of the many pin-up performers who were to suffer at the hands of the socalled British Invasion of the early sixties. However, this was not before he’d nailed several major chart records of his own. Daniels scored his biggest hit with his first side, ‘100 Pounds of Clay’ (Liberty, 1961, US Top Three), a million-seller that was followed by further cuts such as ‘Tower of Strength’ (1961, US Top Five), for which he received a second gold record. ‘Chip Chip’ (1962, US Top Ten) and ‘Point of No Return’ (1962, US Top Forty) also performed well, and McDaniels’s standing was sufficient enough to merit his appearance in the 1962 beat movie
It’s Trad, Dad!

After this short time of highprofile activities and impressive chart placings had passed by, McDaniels became more involved in black rights issues, and this was reflected in his songwriting. It was one of his ballad compositions, though, that became a Grammy-winner and a classic - Roberta Flack’s velvety ‘Feel Like Makin’ Love’ (1974, US number one). (The song also later earned him a BMI Award for surpassing five million plays.)

Although continuing to record (under his given name of ‘Eugene’), Gene McDaniels lived a reclusive later life, eventually passing away from natural causes at his Maine home while sleeping on 29 July 2011.

AUGUST

Wednesday 3

Andrew McDermott

(England, 26 January 1966)

Threshold

(Various acts)

From the opposite end of the musical spectrum, Andrew ‘Mac’ McDermott was a respected rock/metal singer best known for his work with the British progressive band, Threshold.

The singer first appeared with German metallers Sargant Fury [sic], whose first record
Still Want More
emerged in 1991. McDermott eventually gained the exposure he craved with popular north-eastern progsters Threshold (replacing original singer Damian Wilson), with whom he recorded for ten years. The band’s concept albums
Clone
(1998) and
Decadent
(1999) received considerable notice in the hard-rock press. McDermott finally left the group following 2007’s
Dead Reckoning,
but still remained active in the metal world thereafter.

Also recording with Powerworld, Yargas and Swampfreaks, Andrew McDermott worked until he fell ill early in 2011. The singer had been in a coma for four days before succumbing to kidney failure.

Thursday 4

Conrad Schnitzler

(Dusseldorf, Germany, 27 January 1937)

Tangerine Dream

Kluster

(Various acts)

Conrad Schnitzler was a versatile and inventive musician who found himself at the forefront of experimental German rock, in some quarters later dubbed as ‘Krautrock’.

The prolific artist – who studied under celebrated avantgarde musician Karlheinz Stockhausen – first appeared on
Electronic Meditation
(1969), the debut album from Tangerine Dream. This group, alongside Kraftwerk and Can, were among the first acts to utilise custom-made synthesizers and associated electronica. (Schnitzler is credited as having contributed ‘cello, violin and typewriter’ to a record still considered the most vital of the group’s career.) While Tangerine Dream went on to great acclaim without him, Schnitzler opted to record instead with Kluster, a unit he founded with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius. The three albums Schnitzler recorded with Kluster –
Klopfzeichen
(1970),
Zwei-Osterei
(1971) and
Eruption
(1971) – are similarly regarded as greatly influential, particularly on the industrial music scene that followed a decade later. The latter also became the name of the experimental ‘supergroup’ with whom Schnitzler was later to work.

From 1973 onward, Schnitzler largely produced his own solo recordings: the multi-skilled musician issued a bewildering ninety-plus albums of conceptual music until 2011. Conrad Schnitzler died in Berlin following a long battle with stomach cancer.

See also
Klaus Dinger (
March 2008). Karlheinz Stockhausen died in 2007.

Sunday 7

Joe Yamanaka

(Akira Yamanaka - Yokohama, 2 September 1946)

Flower Travellin’ Band

(The Wailers)

Akira ‘Joe’ Yamanaka was a Japanese rock and reggae singer and actor, known as widely for his roles in action pictures as he was his work with psychedelic rock act, Flower Travellin’ Band. FTB were a band formed as The Flowers by revered Japanese musician/producer Yuya Uchida (a close friend of John Lennon) during 1968, briefly backing singer Remi Aso. Yamanaka joined the band a year later, fronting FTB on the debut album
Anywhere
(1970). At this point, the band’s material was mainly heavily distorted versions of rock/blues classics such as ‘House of the Rising Sun’. In the early seventies, Yamanaka and FTB relocated to Canada, where they signed to Atlantic and collaborated with post-psych musicians such as Dr John. However, with the group going into hiatus, Yamanaka began to issue his own records, one of which – ‘Proof of the Man’ (1977) – became a major Asian hit, shifting well over half a million copies.

Then – somewhat surreally – Yamanaka replaced his friend Bob Marley as temporary front man of The Wailers following the legend’s death
(
May 1981
), the singer recording with the remaining Wailers on the albums
Reggae Vibration
(1982) and
Reggae Vibration II
(1983).