The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (427 page)

Golden Oldies #159

Ron Mosely

(George Ronald Mosley - Akron, Ohio, 18 August 1939)

Ruby and the Romantics

A sad week for R & B’s Golden Oldies continued with the passing of baritone vocalist Ron Mosely, a mainstay with charttopping group Ruby & The Romantics. Mosely - he changed the spelling of his surname having lost patience with having to correct people - attended the Juilliard School of Music in New York before returning to Ohio, where he was shortly picked to join a group signed to End Records. This act was known as The Skarlettones - one of many names tried out by the line-up before their discovery by Alan Stanton of New York’s Kapp Records - and they recorded the, uh, forgotten single, ‘Do You Remember?’ (1959).

The renamed/reformed quintet of Ruby Nash (lead), Mosely, George Lee (first tenor), Ed Roberts (second tenor) and Leroy Fann (bass) struck gold instantly with a million-seller in the bewitching, bossa-nova styled ‘Our Day Will Come’ (issued 1962; 1963, US number one/US R & B number one), which also made the Top Forty in the UK and Australia. Although no one really expected Ruby & The Romantics to match this initial success, all looked to be going well with further 1963 hits ‘My Summer Love’ (US Top Twenty) and ‘Hey There, Lonely Boy’ (US Top Forty). The Romantics almost-constant profile on the Billboard listings saw a succession of impressive support slots, including The Four Seasons - whom the group had displaced at number one in March -James Brown and Ray Charles.

Unfortunately, no further sides bothered the Top Forty, and Ruby & The Romantics found changing tastes highlighted by their fine ‘Hurting Each Other’ (1969, US number 113) becoming a far greater hit when it was recorded by The Carpenters (1972, US number two). There were still bookings, but once these had thinned out around 1971, the group called it a day.

Two years later, Fann was shot and killed in a mysterious incident in New York, while both Roberts and Lee died of cancer within a year of one another in the early eighties. With Ron Mosley/Mosely having died on 3 December 2011 after some time spent in an Akron nursing home following a stroke, Ruby Nash Garnett - at age seventy-eight - remains the only surviving Romantic.

Golden Oldies #160

Dobie Gray

(Lawrence Darrow Brown - Simonton, Texas, 26 July 1940*)

(Various acts)

Dobie Gray was an artist as varied and versatile as the array of names he used might suggest. Born into a family of sharecroppers in Simonton, the singer honed his voice via the familiar path of gospel and church choir - although he went on to master pop, soul, R & B and country styles as he developed as an artist in Los Angeles.

Gray originally recorded as Leonard Ainsworth - believed by many to be a family name - and then as Larry Curtis and Larry Dennis before settling on the identity under which he found fame. It took some seven singles before Gray could make a dent into the charts, but he managed a low showing with 1963’s ‘Look At Me’. Two years later, one of the artist’s varied signature tunes caught on in the shape of ‘The “In” Crowd’ (1965, US/US R & B Top Twenty; UK Top Forty). This standard has been covered by many, although seldom with the same loose energy pervading through Gray’s rendition, which garnered him a following in the UK (particularly among the Mod and R & B crowds). The 1966 recording, ‘Out On the Floor’ - perhaps the singer’s finest moment - cemented his reputation with Britain’s dance fans when reissued in 1975. (In 2000, this hypnotic tune was beaten only by Frank Wilson’s ‘Do I Love You (Indeed I Do)’ in Northern Soul’s 500 Greatest Anthems.) With the hits somewhat sporadic, Gray decided to take to the stage, performing in the Los Angeles production of
Hair,
while also singing with long-forgotten R & B outfit Pollution.

As a soloist, Gray had to wait until the seventies for his biggest record, the million-selling ‘Drift Away’ (1973, US Top Five), a gentler song still regularly spun on MOR/oldies radio stations. A Top Ten re-recording - featuring both Gray and rock singer Uncle Kracker (Matthew Shafer) - then charted once more in 2003. (The singer’s previous Billboard entry had been the rhythmic hit ‘You Can Do It’ (1979, US Top Forty).)

So, having dabbled in R & B and pop, Gray finally settled into a more dignified country style, scoring minor country hits like ‘That’s the One to Grow On’ (1986). Gray was again relocated, this time in Tennessee, where he was in demand as a songwriter, his compositions recorded by a variety of artists including John Denver, Ray Charles, Johnny Mathis and Don Williams. Dobie Gray died at his Nashville home after a lengthy battle with cancer on 6 December 2011.

*Some sources quote the singer as having been born in 1942, but the earlier date is far likelier.

Saturday 10

Karryl Smith

(Seattle, Washington, 1967)

The Conscious Daughters

Formed in Oakland, California, The Conscious Daughters were a socially conscious hip-hop duo discovered and mentored by uncompromising San Francisco rapper, Paris.

The Conscious Daughters – Carla ‘CMG’ Green and Karryl ‘Special One’ Smith – signed to Paris’s label Scarface, the rapper also producing their first, commended album
Ear to the Street
in 1994. Within this recording, ‘femcees’ Green and Smith reflected many familiar thug-life issues, but from a distinctly female perspective: ‘Wife of a Gangsta’ was just one cut to win the group plaudits. National television exposure via
Soul Train
and
Rap City
helped push the debut well into the Billboard 200 and R & B Top Forty, while a heavily rotated single, ‘Somethin’ to Ride (Fonky Expedition)’ also performed well. The Conscious Daughters’ second record,
Gamers
(1996), felt more predictable than
Ear to the Street,
but this album pushed on to spot twenty-nine in the rap listings, shifting 300,000 units. Although The Daughters collaborated on many other artists’ recordings in the meantime, their own disappearance from the studio for over a decade was something of a puzzle. Green and Smith eventually returned with the ‘maturer’
The Nutcracker Suite
(Guerilla Funk, 2009), but most of their fanbase had by now moved on.

Even more mysterious, however, was the death of Special One in December 2011. The rapper was found unconscious and unresponsive at her Oakland apartment, pronounced deceased shortly after. Although no medical condition had previously been determined, Karryl Smith had died from blood clots on the lungs. The artist’s funeral was well-attended by family, friends and admirers – local hip-hop artist Qui510 reportedly break-ing into a rap-ballad tribute during the service.

Golden Oldies #161

Billie Jo Spears

(Beaumont, Texas, 14 January 1937)

The name of Billie Jo Spears was one that resonated throughout the world of music for decades, yet this singer never quite reached the expected platform that would have put her alongside country’s biggest names. Although she’d been discovered as a teenager, the Texas-born singer was to wait almost twenty years to land a major label contract.

In Nashville, Spears looked set to become one of the genre’s key female artists after signing with Capitol in 1968. Her first hit here was ‘Mr Walker It’s All Over’ (1969, US Country Top Five; US Hot 100), an era-defining tune that documented discrimination against a female employee. Other cuts - such as ‘Marty Gray’ (1970, USC Top Twenty) -performed well enough, but Spears at this time maintained listeners’ interest mainly through recording covers of other ‘story’ songs (eg Jeannie C Riley’s ‘Harper Valley PTA’ or Bobbie Gentry’s ‘Ode to Billy Joe’ - which hadn’t been written about her, obviously).

A return to her first label, United Artists, was to make a noticeable difference for Spears internationally. In the mid-seventies, the star finally made number one with the song ‘Blanket on the Ground’ (1975, US Hot 100; UK Top Ten), a signature hit that also - perhaps surprisingly - broke her into Britain. (Until her passing, Spears denied that the song was a paean to adultery -despite the lyric’s strong suggestion to the contrary.) The track also pushed its parent album into the Country Top Five. With other ‘leading ladies’ such as Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton now faring well in the United Kingdom, Spears scored an even bigger UK hit the following summer with ‘What I’ve Got in Mind’ (1976, USC/UK Top Five), and she also charted well with ‘Sing Me an Old Fashioned Song’ (1976, UK Top Forty). Although her rendition of Bob Montgomery’s ‘Misty Blue’ (1976) gave Spears another major country hit, there were still no real breakthrough pop hits at home. Indeed, her relationship with the British market - in which she was affectionately known as ‘The Queen Mother of Country’ - saw Spears release albums there, well after her popularity at home had tapered off.

Billie Jo Spears survived triple heart bypass surgery in 1993 to tour for practically all of the remainder of her life. Spears - who had reportedly been married five times - died on 14 December 2011 from complications of cancer.

Friday 16

Slim Dunkin

(Mario Hamilton - Detroit, Michigan, 1987)

1017 Brick Squad