The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (99 page)

1 ‘Ode To Billy-Joe’

Bobbie Gentry (1968)

The chilling yarn of Billy-Joe’s leap from the Talahatchee Bridge - and the subsequent collapse of the narrator’s family - took folk artist Bobbie Gentry all the way to number one in America. This classic song is also one of the few hits that prompted the making of a movie around its lyrics (Kenny Rogers’s ‘Coward of the County’ being another).

2 ‘Suicide Is Painless (Theme From ‘M*A*S*H’)’

The Mash (1980)

Already for many years the title theme of a popular US sitcom, ‘Suicide Is Painless’ became a UK number one when it was finally issued as a single in 1980. Radio stations across the country spent the best part of two months fretting over whether they could legitimately play a ballad openly suggesting that death by one’s own hand might be better than continuing a pointless war.

3 ‘Emma’

Hot Chocolate (1974)

The British pop/soul act’s biggest hit at the time, ‘Emma’ told the tragic tale of a wannabe movie starlet who, despite everybody’s belief in her, just couldn’t get a break. Singer Errol Brown’s shriek of despair as the record climaxes must rank as one of the rawest ever pieces of emotion on a hit record.

4 ‘Moody River’

Pat Boone (1961)

Perhaps the first ‘suicide’ ballad to become a major-league hit, Boone’s tearjerker told the tale of a cheatin’ girl who made the ultimate sacrifice to ‘set her lover free’. Which was all very noble, but the only thing her shattered boyfriend got out of it was one glove. (Useful only had he been friendly with Def Leppard’s Rik Allen.)

5 ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’

Elton John (1975)

From Elton’s mega-selling
Captain Fantastic
& The Brown Dirt Cowboy
(1975) came this touching Bernie Taupin-penned account of intercepting the singer’s somewhat flawed suicide attempt some years before. Confused about his sexuality, John had chosen to place his head in an oven rather than break off an engagement. What he hadn’t realized was that the fumes wouldn’t have been toxic anyway. Plus he’d left the kitchen window open.

6 ‘Jeremy’

Pearl Jam (1992)

Allegedly (loosely) based on vocalist Eddie Vedder’s own troubled childhood, this Top Twenty single from the band’s multiplatinum debut album
Ten
tells of a student outsider who kills his classmates and then takes his own life with his dad’s gun. Like, heavy, dude.

7 ‘Asleep’

The Smiths (1985)

Well, it could only be a matter of time before Morrissey weighed in with his take on the deed. The song, a near-lullaby that makes eternity seem like a warm bath, was one of many great Smiths B-sides (in this case, to ‘The Boy with the Thorn in His Side’). Asked his opinion on Kurt Cobain’s suicide
(
April 1994),
The Smiths’ singer surprised few by admitting he felt both ‘sad and envious’.

8 ‘Dagenham Dave’

The Stranglers (1977)

Not
to be confused with the Morrissey track of the same name, this tribute was released via the
No More Heroes
album, commemorating a hardcore fan of the black-clad newwave artisans who chose to throw himself off a bridge.

9 ‘Teenage Suicide (Don’t Do It)’

Don Dixon (1989)

Originally performed for the movie
Heathers,
this was the former REM-producer turned songwriter’s only notable recording. The song was so dreadful that Dixon procured no further hits, and graduated to playing with Hootie & The Blowfish. Which sort of figures, really.

10 ‘Don’t Jump off the Roof, Dad’

Tommy Cooper (1961)

Surely the most chilling suicide song of them all, Cooper’s lament told the harrowing tale of domestic tension overspilling into frustration and finally desperation, as the father - badly neglected by his botanically obsessed wife and scornful children - took that last fateful walk to the highest point of the house. Or something.

DEAD INTERESTING!

VINYL SOLUTION?

On many occasions in US rock history, metal bands have been accused of having driven young listeners to commit atrocities on themselves - whether one played their records backwards, forwards or sideways. Way before those faintly ludicrous suggestions that Marilyn Manson’s act might have prompted the 1999 Columbine massacre, a couple of cases involving suicidal British metallers caught the attention of
National Enquirer
readers across America.

Hard these days to envisage the patriarch of TV’s least functional family putting out such challenging work as ‘Suicide Solution’ (1980), a cut from Ozzy Osbourne’s debut album dealing with depression and alcoholism and reportedly about his friend Bon Scott of AC/DC
(
February 1980).
However, in 1986 the former dove-muncher was unsuccessfully sued by the parents of Californian youth John McCollum, who had taken it upon himself to end his own life two years earlier, having played the track to, well, death.

Further charges of subliminal messaging were levelled at Spinal Tap-inspiring leather-lovers Judas Priest, whose
Stained Class
album (1978) - particularly the song ‘Better by You, Better by Me’ - was claimed to have provoked two Nevada youngsters into a suicide pact in 1985. The pair had felt driven to put shotguns to their heads: 18-year-old Raymond Belknapp died at the scene, while his 20-year-old friend James Vance was permanently disfigured, and died later from an overdose of medication. As for The Priest, they were found not guilty at the 1991 trial: in light of the violent previous histories of the two victims (one had attempted to choke his own mother), justice was seen to be done.

Lest We Forget

Other notable deaths that occurred sometime during 1984:

John Angelos
(US rock/R & B singer/bassist with a host of Motor City bands including The Amboy Dukes and The Torpedos; born Detroit, Michigan, 1956; carbon monoxide poisoning, 24/11)

Eddie ‘Bongo’ Brown
(US percussionist with the legendary Funk Brothers; born 1932; heart problems, 28/12)

Tommy Evans
(US R & B/doo-wop vocalist who served with both The Drifters and The Ravens; born Wayne County, Michigan, 1/9/1927; illness, New York, 9/1984)

Rev C F Franklin
(US gospel giant and father of Aretha Franklin; born Clarence LeVaughn Franklin, 22/1/1915; shot in the groin by burglars in June 1979, he lay comatose until he died of heart failure, 27/7)

Luke Kelly
(Irish singer/banjoplayer/founder of folk band The Dubliners; born Dublin (obviously), 17/11/1940; complications following a brain tumour, 30/1)

Wells Kelly
(US drummer with rock band Orleans who also played with Meat Loaf, Bonnie Raitt and Ian Hunter; born 1949; choked on his own vomit, 29/10)

Patrick McAuley
(Irish drummer/keyboardist with Them, later with Kim Fowley and rock band The Belfast Gypsies; born 17/3/1944; drowned in Co. Donegal)

Whispering Moses Smith
(US blues singer/harmonica player who worked with Lightnin’ Slim; born Mississippi, 25/1/1932; natural causes, Louisiana, 28/4)

Ron Tabak
(Canadian singer with rock act Prism; born 25/9/1953; mugged the previous week, he was sideswiped by a car as he cycled to a friend’s home - dying from a blood clot two days later, 26/12)

‘Big Mama’ Thornton
(formidable US blues/R & B singer - the first to perform ‘Hound Dog’ - who was witness to the death of Johnny Ace; born Willie Mae Thornton, 11/12/1926; heart and liver problems, 25/7)

Jack Vaughn
(US guitarist with The Norman Petty Trio - whose leader survived him by just three months - who also worked with Buddy Holly in 1957; unknown, 20/5)

Sonny Woods
(US bass with vocal groups The Four Falcons, The Royals and The Midnighters who later moved into A & R work; heart attack)

Doug Wray
(US rock drummer with country turned rock band The Raymen - brother of Link and the late Vernon Wray; born North Carolina, 4/7/1933; heart attack, 4/1984)

1985

JANUARY

Wednesday 9

Paul Hewson

(Auckland, New Zealand, 25 October 1952)

Dragon

Cruise Lane

(Various acts)