The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (83 page)

JULY

Tuesday 6

Abrim Tilmon

(Little Rock, Arkansas, 12 January 1945)

The Detroit Emeralds

The Tilmon brothers – Abrim, Ivory, Cliophus and the rather less lyrically named Raymond – formed the silky-smooth Detroit Emeralds around 1968, the name surprising because they were all from Arkansas. The Emeralds – who’d trimmed to a three-piece by 1970 – rehearsed carefully executed singing and finely honed dance routines, distinguishing features of the records they placed on the US and UK charts two years on. Former postal worker Abrim ‘Abe’ Tilmon, with his gospel-trained voice, was clearly the group’s leader; an accomplished musician, he wrote most of their material, including the excellent and much-covered ‘Feel the Need in Me’ (1973). This record punctured the UK Top Five, becoming by some way the biggest hit The Emeralds were to score. Various singers came and went (including future members of kitsch one-hit wonders The Floaters) until, in the eighties, two versions of The Detroit Emeralds started playing the clubs. Tilmon seemed happiest at this time to return to his gospel roots and sing in church once again.

Just ahead of a reunion tour, Abrim Tilmon collapsed and died from a heart attack at his home in Southfield, Michigan, having condensed both his life and career into an unusually brief period of time – he was just thirty-seven when he passed away. Tilmon is survived by his widow, two children and at least three grandchildren.

Tuesday 27

Daniel Beard

(4 November 1949)

The 5th Dimension

Long after their impressive run of hits – ‘Aquarius’, ‘Wedding Bell Blues’ (both 1969), ‘One Less Bell to Answer’ (1970) – had dried up, The 5th Dimension drafted in Daniel Beard to replace the popular Billy Davis Jr, who, with the band’s female singer Marilyn McCoo, had moved on to work as a duet. Their moment clearly having passed, The 5th Dimension under Beard’s leadership only managed one minor 1976 chart entry with ‘Love Hangover’ (which was utterly swamped by Diana Ross’s hit version released at the same time). On Motown’s payroll, though, the group went on to become a popular dinnerclub act. Beard also made a small living as a studio engineer and had aspirations to become an actor.

Daniel Beard was in his sixth-storey (ie, top-floor) New York apartment one evening when a fire broke out – apparently started deliberately. The singer made it only as far as the fourth floor before being fatally overcome by smoke; his roommate survived by climbing on to the roof. The arsonist was never caught.

Wednesday 28

Keith Green

(Brooklyn, New York, 21 October 1953)

A leading voice in the world of contemporary Christian rock, the distinctive, bearded Keith Green began his career in the secular world, despite having been born into a highly devout family – he was in his twenties when he was ‘born again’. Aged eleven, Green had been the youngest-ever member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), landing a simultaneous deal with Decca. He became a minister during the seventies, preaching the word on television as well as at the customary church meetings, while maintaining a career as a house songwriter (of both religious and secular songs) for CBS, where he met his wife, Melody. The pair founded the radical Last Days Ministries, through which they implored followers to purge themselves of all anti-Christian impurity. By the mid seventies Green was enjoying a successful solo career (in Christian rock terms), even attracting the born-again Bob Dylan to play harmonica on his ‘So You Wanna Go Back to Egypt?’ (1980).

Just two years after this career high, Keith Green died when the heavily overloaded Cessna 414 carrying him and eleven others nosedived shortly after take-off from an airfield in Lindale, Texas. Among the other fatalities were two of Green’s four young children: Josiah, three, and Bethany, two.

AUGUST

Friday 13

Joe Tex

(Joseph Arrington Jr - Rogers, Texas, 8 August 1933)

At twenty-one, Joe Arrington was the landslide winner of an Apollo Theater talent contest, beginning in deceptively innocent fashion a career that would eventually see him blueprint funky, sleazy R & B. It took a while before the Joe Tex shtick caught on: his early releases with the King, Ace and Anna labels were not astounding. But it all worked out with maturity: as Joe Tex toured more and more, his voice took on a sandpaper rasp that was to set him apart from his contemporaries, and the huge R & B hit ‘Baby You’re Right’ pretty much saved the singer’s livelihood in 1962. (This self-penned number was also a substantial seller for James Brown.) Nevertheless, it was not until 1965 that a few crossover hits emerged, when ‘Hold What You’ve Got’ gave Tex a Top Five US placing. Changing his given name to Yussuf Hazziez, Tex was to spend time lecturing as a Muslim minister. Simultaneously, he nurtured a ‘preaching’ style in his music, which often appeared to be promoting traditional values (as in 1965’s ‘A Woman (Can Change a Man)’), but by the next decade he was adopting a more flippant tone. The US Top Ten ‘Skinny Legs and All’ (1967) presaged a series of songs with less ‘correct’ values. 1972’s millionselling ‘I Gotcha’ was a saucy though massively popular number, as was his final hit, ‘Ain’t Gonna Bump No More (with No Big Fat Woman)’. The latter took Tex as close as he would get to a pop chart-topper in another major market: it peaked at UK number two in 1977 and was his only British hit.

By now mainly dedicated to Islam, pro-football and his ranch home in Navasota, Texas, Joe Tex was by 1982 touring the oldies circuit with Wilson Pickett and Solomon Burke. He died at home from a heart attack less than a week before his forty-ninth birthday.

NOVEMBER

Friday 12

Patrick J Cowley

(Buffalo, New York, 19 October 1950)

Patrick Cowley began his love affair with music while still a student at the University of Buffalo, drifting from band to band until he met the outlandish Sylvester James – best known by his first name – who saw in Cowley’s innovative synthesizer work something to which he could marry his band’s funk-drenched songs. It took a few years before disco really began to kick in, but, during the explosion of mid 1978, Cowley and Sylvester’s ‘You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)’ became one of the genre’s early classics, with its pounding rhythm and cyclical chorus. (The single was a much bigger hit in the UK, where it made the Top Ten.) This formula was to be repeated on a series of similar-feeling records, including ‘Do You Wanna Funk?’, a cut that charted just two months before Cowley’s untimely death. Cowley – also co-founder of Megatone Records – made several solo albums and teamed up briefly with cult dance hero Paul Parker.

Patrick Cowley is thought to be the first-known major entertainer to have died from AIDS. His close friend and music partner Sylvester sadly died the same way just a few years later
(
December 1988).

DECEMBER

Thursday 2

David Blue

(Stuart David Cohen - Providence, Rhode Island, 18 February 1941)

Country Joe & The Fish

(Blues Project)