The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (46 page)

‘If I could put into one word what the essence of The Yardbirds was - it would be “electricity”.’

(The unfortunate words of) Keith Relf, 1975

MAY

Friday 14

Keith Relf

(William Keith Relf - Richmond, Surrey, 22 March 1943)

The Yardbirds

Renaissance

(Medicine Head)

(Various acts)

Never especially healthy, Keith Relf seemed to be living on borrowed time from his childhood. Chronic asthma almost cost him his life on three separate occasions, his choice to sing and play the harmonica perhaps not the most sensible given his talent as a guitarist and songwriter. Playing in London-based bands, the musician found fame at just twenty with The Yardbirds (originally The Metropolis Blues Quartet), still one of the most widely revered British rock bands of the mid sixties, shedding in their wake an extraordinary legacy of guitarists: Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton (the latter a former Kingston art-school friend recommended by Relf). Before their breakthrough, however, Relf suffered his first major health scare with a collapsed lung after the band’s first tour of the States in 1964. Nevertheless, his renewed vocals were heard across the land just months later as The Yardbirds put together a run of five consecutive Top Ten hits – including the brilliant and evocative ‘For Your Love’, ‘Heart Full of Soul’ (both 1965) and ‘Shapes Of Things’ (1966). A constantly changing line-up of such auspicious musicians inevitably limited the band’s lifespan, the inevitable split coming in July 1968. While Page went off to form Led Zeppelin, Relf took a statelier path, forming Together with fellow ex-Yardbird Jim McCarty, this band becoming, with the addition of Relf’s sister, Jane, Renaissance – a group that had its biggest success after the Relfs had left. A brief stint with Medicine Head continued Relf’s Midas touch, as they too gained commercial acceptance, but an unlikely spell with heavy act Armageddon brought less success, and Relf had begun yet another new project, Illusion, by 1976.

On 14 May, Relf’s young son, Daniel, walked into his basement studio to find him lying prone, apparently having fallen. The musician had actually been electrocuted as he stood over a hidden gas line to tune his badly earthed guitar. The shock had not been great, but Relf, who had emphysema on top of his asthma (and had been suffering personal problems) was dead.

AUGUST

Tuesday 10

Gus Gossert

(Robert Charles Gossert - Pennsylvania, 14 June 1943)

Known as the ‘Curly-Headed Kid’, Gossert was a law graduate turned US disc jockey brave enough to play ‘street corner’ doo-wop on pop radio when nobody else would touch it – a decade-plus after most of it had been released. Generally credited with coining the phrase itself, Gossert opened his
Doo-Wop Shop
on New York’s WCBS, having completed rookie stints in Hawaii and San Francisco, where mainstream pop/rock was all that was on the menu. While the show itself became an indefinite fixture, Gossert – a radioarchive fanatic – took his platters to nearby WPIX, where he augmented a longer slot with segments of old radio shows from a similar era.

Gossert’s use of narcotics and alleged connections with drug-trafficking rings brought about his downfall. Following a bust, the NYPD offered the DJ an early release on the condition he remained clean – and moved elsewhere. Whether this deal was carved out because he was a public figure or simply because he had ‘information’ will always remain unclear. One clue might come from the nature of his death: returning from a visit to Nashville to spend time with his student girlfriend (future country star Pam Tillis), Gus Gossert was gunned down in mysterious circumstances.

DECEMBER

Saturday 4

Tommy Bolin

(Sioux City, Iowa, 1 August 1951)

Deep Purple

The James Gang

(Zephyr)

(Energy)

One of the few youngsters of his era whose parents completely approved of rock ‘n’ roll, Bolin’s mother taught music and his father took him, aged five, to see Elvis Presley. Although Bolin learned drums, his broad-minded mum and dad also saw to it that he had a guitar and a radio, to which he played along with the hits of The Beatles and Stones as a teen. Bolin was single-minded: he left school at fifteen (following an altercation regarding the length of his hair) and set about making it in music. Stints with a number of bands, including Denver act Zephyr – on whose albums he added lead vocals while playing some strikingly fluent guitar – got the young Bolin noticed by The James Gang (an interim stint with jazz-rockers Energy having failed to land him a deal) and finally Deep Purple. The British rock pioneers saw in Bolin a natural successor to the departing Ritchie Blackmore, and the Iowa axeman became a permanent fixture for the band’s final year. Despite this success, Bolin was constantly strapped for cash, rumour suggesting he was profligate with his friends and those who worked for him; just as likely is that much of his considerable income at the time was disappearing in the direction of the liquor store and his dealers.

DEAD INTERESTING!

THE GRAVEYARD SHIFT …

Murders of disc jockeys have proved remarkably commonplace over the years - particularly in the US, where the job should perhaps carry with it a health warning.

As though completing the scenario begun in the Clint Eastwood flick
Play Misty for Me,
in August 1982, a crazed female fan gunned down Tucson jockey Bob Cooke in a nightclub car park. Fifteen years later, Michigan-based DJ and record-hound Tom Knight was bludgeoned to death by his brother-in-law during a dispute with his wife involving the presenter’s 60,000-strong collection. In 2001, Miami hip-hop jockey ‘Uncle’ Al Moss was shot on his own doorstep when mistaken for another DJ whose pirate broadcasts were interfering with a local rap station; later the same year Jamaican BBC Radio One reggae jockey Horace Pinnock (DJ Village) also died after he was ambushed by armed robbers at a London hotel. Two years later, New York’s Roger McCall - at the time, the longest-serving station DJ in the States - was shot dead in a Rochester robbery attempt. Similarly, Memphis DJ Rebecca Glahn (known as Madison) was found strangled following a random break-in at her home in April 2004. Finally, 72-year-old blues DJ and presenter Dee ‘Cap’n Pete’ Henderson was shot dead - allegedly by his own grandson - at his Memphis home in July 2008.

Close!

Jerry Lee Lewis/’Butch’ Owens

The success of rocker Jerry Lee Lewis may have endured for more than four decades, but his life has thrown up a relentless list of personal loss and close calls. For starters, there was a whole lotta head-shakin’ goin’ on at his birthday party on 29 September 1976, ‘The Killer’ very nearly validating his epithet after accidentally shooting his own bass-player, Norman ‘Butch’ Owens, in the chest. Twice. ‘Butch’ somehow survived - but there have been many associates of Jerry Lee who haven’t.

At three, he’d witnessed the death of his brother Elmo, killed by a truck. In 1962 and 1973, tragic accidents took his beloved sons Steve (drowned as a toddler) and Jerry Lee Jr (drummer in his father’s band who died at nineteen in a jeep crash). Of his many wives, Jaren Gunn Pate also mysteriously drowned in a swimming pool (1982), while Shawn Michelle Stevens died from a methadone overdose a year on, in which Lewis was briefly implicated. A prolific drinker, Jerry Lee himself twice narrowly escaped death from stomach haemorrhaging, though alcohol accounted for his early session-musician Charlie ‘Redman’ Free-man in 1972.

‘He was innocent to a fault - like a charming little kid. People just let him have what he wanted. If they didn’t give it to him, then he’d find someone who would.’

Karen Ulibarri, Bolin’s ex-girlfriend

When Deep Purple finally called it a day in 1976, the guitarist saw it as a chance to found his own band. Although more often than not ‘out of it’, Bolin recorded two albums in just over a year (both of which scraped into the Billboard Hot 100), impressing both his label and admirer Jeff Beck, a hero of Bolin’s, who invited him to open his Jai-Alai Fronton Club gig in Miami on 3 December. Bolin was delighted and the set went well, putting him in the mood to hang with Beck and other friends after the show. Bolin and a number of colleagues retired to the Newport Hotel, where, having exhausted the bar, some of them headed to his room. The guitarist then disappeared to a bathroom with long-time friend Phillip Tolemini (apparently to discuss a limo service for the musician) and a man believed to be a supplier. Back in the main room, Bolin’s behaviour grew erratic – until he slumped over in the middle of a phone conversation. Hugely concerned, companions – including Bolin’s new girlfriend, Valeria Monseglio – placed him in a shower, before putting him to bed. Although he rallied long enough to utter a few words, by 7 am, Monseglio was unable to find any sign of his pulse.

It was an unfortunate but increasingly familiar scenario: rocker shoots junk, rocker passes out, rocker comes to, rocker dies. Had an ambulance been called earlier, Tommy Bolin may well have survived; the likelihood is, though, that there were one or two in attendance who wanted to keep the authorities at bay. In the event, a Dade County coroner stated that the musician’s death was caused by a massive ingestion of alcohol, cocaine, lidocaine and morphine. Bolin’s accidental death followed those of two of Deep Purple’s road crew the previous tour.

See also
Candy Givens (
January 1984)