The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (108 page)

At Cliff Burton’s funeral, the track ‘Orion’ – written mainly by the bassist – was played as the rest of the band offered their thoughts to the congregation. Burton’s cremated remains were scattered around some of his favoured San Francisco haunts. A new bassist arrived just forty-one days later: former Flotsam & Jetsam member Jason Newsted, who remained with the band until 2001, though Hetfield and Ulrich continued to use Burton’s material on later Metallica albums. In 2003, Hammett voiced the belief of the three longest-running members of Metallica that Burton could never be replaced: ‘We still haven’t got over the shock. We’re still trying.’

OCTOBER

Wednesday 1

Andy McVann

(Liverpool, 1965)

The Farm

Years before they became the briefest of baggy sensations, The Farm (originally Soul of Socialism) were a grafting band of Scouse dance-rockers, formed by unemployed singer Peter Hooton and his pals to avoid having to get a job: the Liverpool music scene was then buzzing from the success of bands like Echo & The Bunnymen, Dead Or Alive and Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Like Hooton, drummer Andy McVann held strong socialist beliefs and loved his football. The pair – along with Steve Grimes (guitar) and Phil Strongman (bass) – saw the band as an outlet for their views, soon utilizing a horn section much like left-wing contemporaries such as The Redskins. A flurry of independent singles made little headway, however.

For McVann it was a particularly shortlived venture: he died in a crash after attempting to outrun a police car near his Liverpool home. The rest of The Farm persevered (Roy Boulter took over the vacant drummer’s seat) until an unlikely breakthrough saw them enjoy major UK hits with ‘Groovy Train’ and ‘All Together Now’ (both 1990), as well as a number-one debut album issued eight years after the band’s inception.

Wednesday 22

Jane Dornacker

(California, 1 October 1947)

The Tubes

Leila & The Snakes

The contributor of one of
The Encyclopedias
most dramatic tales, tall, vivacious singer turned comedienne turned traffic reporter Jane Dornacker began her varied performing and broadcasting career by befriending singer/guitarist Fee Waybill (John Waldo) during the mid seventies. His band, The Tubes, were creating something of a stir in both the US and UK with their over-the-top concert behaviour – chainsaws and wheelchairs featured prominently – and the leggy Dornacker somehow fitted the group’s needs, both visually and vocally. She added the cod-seductive female voice to ‘Don’t Touch Me There’ (which she also co-wrote), a brilliant
Rocky Horror
-style ‘teen lust’ parody from the band’s 1977 hit EP,
White Punks on Dope.
At the same time, Dornacker was fronting Leila & The Snakes (as ‘Leila’), a San Francisco glam act that also featured TV Dunbar (guitars), Pamela Wood (bass) and Scott Free (drums). Without much further musical success, Dornacker took to stand-up comedy and became a fixture of the San Fran comedy scene for some years, also appearing in the 1983 movie
The Right Stuff.

Settling into a broadcasting career, Dornacker married and landed a job with New York’s WNBC (later WFAN) as traffic reporter on board the station’s N-Copter. Early in 1986, she and her pilot had survived a crash into New Jersey’s Hackensack River during such a broadcast, which might well have put some off the job for good. Dornacker, however, took the experience in her stride and was in position again with a different pilot, covering an afternoon accident slowing up New York’s traffic on 22 October. In the middle of her live report, as Dornacker described the scenes below her, listeners heard the helicopter’s engines strain dramatically; after a spine-chilling scream of ‘Hit the water!’, all sound went dead. Studio presenter Joey Reynold knew that something had gone badly wrong, but did his best to remain calm on air, suggesting that he and his audience ‘say a little prayer’. The helicopter, its rotors having ceased to function, fell just seventy-five feet, and hit a chain-link fence before plunging into twenty feet of murky Hudson water. While her pilot Bill Pate survived with injuries, Dornacker died en route to hospital – throwing Reynold and his colleagues into deep shock. Another grim discovery was that the helicopter had been repaired using a military aircraft clutch wholly inappropriate for civilian use. Dornacker’s daughter, Naomi, received $325K from the manufacturers as compensation.

In 2007, Crosstown Traffic guitarist and KNXV news reporter Craig Smith was amongfour killed in Phoenix, Arizona when two helicopters collided while covering a car chase.

‘Hit the water, hit the water,
hit the water!’

Jane Dornacker’s last words, heard by thousands of radio listeners

Thursday 23

Esquerita

(Eskew Reeder - Greenville, South Carolina, 20 November 1935)

Those who feel Little Richard was the real deal as far as rock ‘n’ roll is concerned might have done a double-take had they clapped eyes on Esquerita. The flamboyant pianist and singer predated the better-known artist’s look by several years, but the resemblance is uncanny. A self-taught musician, Eskew Reeder was brought up in a God-fearing community, a near-neighbour of Jesse Jackson. Reeder gained his first singing experience with gospel troupe The Heavenly Echoes, cutting ‘Didn’t It Rain?’ with them in 1953. He became ‘Esquerita’ when he signed as a solo artist with Capitol, prompted by fan Gene Vincent. On some of his early sides, Esquerita was accompanied by Vincent’s Blue Caps and also the much-in-demand Jordanaires (for a time Elvis’s backing band). Without much commercial success, however, the singer/pianist was reduced to label- and name-hopping for much of the next twenty-or-so years. (At one point, Esquerita – greatly under-appreciated while he was alive – was employed to augment the keyboard sound of some of Little Richard’s records, which must have hurt.)

Little is known about Esquerita beyond his ostentatious stage persona, although he spent some years in jail at Riker’s Island during the early eighties. His death from AIDS in 1986 went largely unnoticed.

Esquerita: The real deal

NOVEMBER

Wednesday 5

Bobby Nunn

(Ulysses Robert Nunn – Birmingham, Alabama, 20 September 1925)

The Coasters

The Robins

Eager-to-please Bobby Nunn was an ambitious youngster set to become the full-throated, bluesy bass-baritone whose vocal illuminated the earliest work of The Coasters. In order to land his place in the group, Nunn (a former boxer) undertook odd jobs around the famous Barrelhouse Club in Watts, Los Angeles, which belonged to Johnny Otis. An opportunity to perform with Otis’s A-Sharp Trio followed – this group was an embryonic version of the highly popular Robins. In 1951, The Robins split from Otis to work with Esther Phillips (Nunn had also issued solo records by this time) and then songwriting wizards Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller – who set before them a series of great songs including Spark releases ‘Framed’ and ‘Smokey Joe’s Cafe’ (1955). Nunn, along with tenor Carl Gardner, was encouraged by Leiber and Stoller to join them at Atlantic, where the writers were instrumental in creating The Coasters – the two former Robins vocalists now joined by Leon Hughes (tenor), Billy Guy (baritone lead, formerly of Bip & Bop) and Adolph Jacobs (guitar). There were to be many line-up changes as The Coasters became a sensation, with seemingly limitless variations to their comic/serious shtick.

Although he’d enjoyed a US Top Five pop hit with ‘Searchin’’ (1957 – the flipside to which, ‘Youngblood’, also independently gained Top Ten status), the now-married Nunn had tired of the touring that took up most of The Coasters’ time, and he retired from the band. (His replacement, Will ‘Dub’ Jones, supplied the distinctive deadpan on massive hits like ‘Yakety Yak’ and ‘Charlie Brown’ the following year.) Bobby Nunn did, however, return to tour with a nostalgia version of the band (of which there were several) in the mid seventies, and he released two solo compilations albums before his premature death from a heart attack.

See also
King Curtis (
August 1971); Nathaniel Wilson (
April 1980); Cornell Gunter (
February 1990); Carl Gardner (
Golden Oldies #137). ‘Dub’ Jones died in 2000, as did touring singer Bob B Soxx (
November 2000). Billy Guy died in near-destitution two years later.