The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (73 page)

Monday 29

Tim Hardin

(Eugene Hardin - New Jersey, 23 December 1941)

Like many of his contemporaries, American folk-rock singer Tim Hardin only really received the recognition he deserved posthumously. Eugene Hardin was brought up in Eugene, Oregon, where he had moved at an early age with his parents (both classically trained musicians). After giving up on performing arts, Hardin became a regular of Greenwich Village’s burgeoning folk-rock scene during 1964, having served two years in the US marines.

Hardin’s reputation was to soar following international hit versions of his now-classic song ‘If I were a Carpenter’ by Bobby Darin (1966) and the Four Tops (1968), though the singer had nurtured a drug habit from his early days (he had been a former roommate of comedian Lenny Bruce, who was a heavy user at the time) and proved unreliable in the studio. Hardin was also deeply dissatisfied with his own recordings: according to reports, he was so unhappy with his first album that he broke down on hearing the master tape. Although his songs continued to be covered by names like Rod Stewart (‘Reason To Believe’) and Scott Walker (‘Lady Came from Baltimore’ – about Hardin’s wife, actress Susan Moehr), the songwriter seemed constantly beset by health and psychological problems, developing drink and drug habits that not only consumed much of his income but culminated in his death – from an overdose of heroin and morphine in Hollywood, California.

Lest We Forget

Other notable deaths that occurred sometime during 1980:

Ray Cawley
(US rock bassist with Nick Nasto then Bill Haley’s Comets during the early seventies; car crash, which also killed his wife)

General Echo
(Jamaican ‘Slacker’ DJ; mysteriously shot dead by the police - an incident recalled on Clint Eastwood & General Saint’s
Two Bad DJ
album)

Bert Kaempfert
(German bandleader and the first producer of The Beatles; born Hamburg, 1924; unknown, 21/6)

Bernie Mackey
(US vocalist with The Ink Spots; born 29/7/1909; unknown, 5/3)

Mantovani
(Italian orchestra leader/easy-listening giant; born Annunzio Paolo Mantovani, Venice 15/11/1905; unknown, 29/3)

Louis Neefs
(Belgian pop singer who finished 7th in 1969’s Eurovision Song Contest; born Ludwig Neefs, 1937; car crash, which also killed his wife, 25/12)

Jannie Pought
(US soprano with vocal group The Bobbettes; born New York, 1941; stabbed on a New Jersey street by a complete stranger)

Professor Longhair (US blues/boogie-woogie pianist/ vocalist - the ‘grandfather of rock ‘n roll’; born Henry Roland Byrd, Louisiana, 19/12/1918; natural causes, 30/1)

Les Prior
(UK singer with notorious snuff-rockers Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias of ‘Heads Down, No Nonsense, Mindless Boogie’ fame; leukaemia, 31/1)

Carl Radle
(US bass virtuoso who played with Eric Clapton/Derek & The Dominoes, Joe Cocker and George Harrison; born Oklahoma, 18/6/1942; kidney shutdown after years of alcoholism, 30/5)

David Whitfield
(British pre-rock crooner who, during the fifties, managed 11 UK Top Ten hits, including tt1s with ‘Answer Me’ and ‘Cara Mia’; born Hull, 2/2/1925; died in Australia, 16/1)

… and one who didn’t:

Martyn ‘Segovia’ Smith
(British bassist with punk act UK Decay, was alleged to have died during the recording of his band’s debut album: Smith is still alive, well and currently lives in Luton)

1981

JANUARY

Friday 2

David Lynch

(St Louis, Missouri, 3 July 1929)

The Platters

Of the myriad black vocal bands working the circuit during the fifties, the most popular by some way was The Platters. Founder member David Lynch possessed a strong tenor, noticed while he was still at school in Los Angeles. Forming an embryonic version of The Platters (the name was then current slang for ‘records’), Lynch entered endless talent contests before Svengali Buck Ram stepped in as both manager and voice tutor, signing them to Federal in 1953. The hits really started to come when The Platters – Tony Williams (lead tenor), Lynch (second tenor), Paul Robi (baritone), Herbert Reed (bass) and Zola Taylor (alto, and one of the few female singers in doo-wop) – moved to Mercury. No fewer than four of their singles – including the classics ‘The Great Pretender’ (1955) and ‘Smoke Gets in Your Eyes’ (1958, also a chart-topper in Britain) – took them to Billboard number one.

The bubble only burst for The Platters in 1959, when the group’s males, including Lynch, were accused of having sexual relations with underage white girls in a hotel room. (Taylor wasn’t much more innocent herself, admitting years later to a 1956 relationship with 13-year-old Frankie Lymon of The Teenagers.) At a time of segregation, the public was outraged and the group struggled to place further records in the Top Ten. Powerful Platters lead Williams announced his plan to record solo in 1961; the group rallied with Sonny Turner as live lead until 1966, while the label continued to issue old Williams-fronted songs on record. David Lynch contracted cancer during the seventies, and succumbed to the disease at the age of fifty-one.

See also
Nathaniel Nelson (
June 1984); Paul Robi (
February 1989); Tony Williams (
August 1992). Zola Taylor passed away in April 2007. Completists may care to add early Platters Cornell Gunter (
February 1990) and Elsbeary Hobbs (
May 1996) who have since also passed on, plus manager/producer Buck Ram (1991) and later singer Randy Jones (2002).