The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (111 page)

Working in collaboration with the Salsoul label, Harris (who started his own Gold Mind imprint in 1979) made records of his own, but these were significantly lower key. He was still producing at the time of his death, from a heart attack at forty-nine.

See also
Roland Chambers (
May 2002). Ronnie Baker died just three years after Harris.

Dino Martin

(Dean Paul Martin Jr - Santa Monica, California, 17 November 1951)

Dino, Desi & Billy

On the same afternoon, tragedy struck for one of America’s favourite entertainers, Dean Martin, with the sudden death of his first son, Dean Jr – better known as Dino. It was a blow from which the former Rat Pack star never recovered.

As a teen, Dino Martin was a regular guest on his father’s NBC variety show, and the close relationship Martin Sr had with Frank Sinatra proved helpful when Dino inevitably branched out into his own showbusiness career. Ol’ Blue Eyes had been quick to have Martin – one-third of pop trio Dino, Desi & Billy – signed to his Reprise label in 1964. It couldn’t fail, particularly as Desi was the son of another showbiz institution, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. But the boys were not without talent, writing and producing their own material, some of which favoured The Beach Boys and The Byrds in sound. The only major surprise was that they were not more successful: only 1965’s ‘I’m a Fool’, ‘Not the Lovin’ Kind’ and ‘Tell Someone You Love Them’ impacted significantly on the Billboard Hot 100.

Martin’s career was hampered by a 1974 arrest for the possession (and attempted sale) of two machine guns, but he continued in entertainment. He appeared sporadically in low-level television series and movies, including
Players
and
Made in USA
(the latter released after his death). By the eighties, however, Martin – who had gained his pilot’s licence at just sixteen – was dedicating more time to the Canadian Air National Guard, and regularly offered to take his father flying. But Dean Martin Sr had never been entirely happy with his son’s change of career and always refused. On the fateful day in March 1987, the on-duty Martin was making a near-vertical take-off climb in his F-4C Phantom jet fighter when heavy cloud caused him to lose bearings in mid-air. The craft – travelling in excess of 550 mph – slammed against the snow-covered granite wall of Mount San Gorgonio on California’s San Bernardino range, killing Martin and his co-pilot, Ramon Ortiz. The wreckage was not found for five days.

APRIL

Friday 17

Carlton Barrett

( Kingston, Jamaica, 17 December 1950)

(Bob Marley &) The Wailers

The Upsetters

The self-styled ‘Field Marshal’ of the one-drop rhythm (emphasis on the fourth beat), Carlton Barrett, with his older bass-playing brother, Aston ‘Family Man’, provided the generator that was to keep The Wailers’ machine rocking steady. Fascinated as a kid by the playing of The Skatalites’ Lloyd Knibb, Barrett constructed his own drum kit from a number of empty paint cans. In only a few years, the brothers impressed the Kingston clubs as The Upsetters (originally The Hippy Boys). Under the guidance of Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, the group released the massive international hit ‘Return Of Django’ (1969), a national number one and, significantly, Top Five in a Britain suddenly very hip to new Jamaican sounds. More success came as The Upsetters teamed with Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Neville ‘Bunny’ Livingston – The Wailers – who had been established for a good few years by then. With the departure of Tosh and Livingston in 1973, the Barretts remained with Marley (in the drummer’s case, until his frontman’s death (
May 1981)),
laying down a solid foundation as The Wailers graduated from an open secret to one of the biggest touring bands in the world, in any given genre. Carlton Barrett’s skills as a songwriter are evident on the songs ‘Talkin’ Blues’ and ‘Them Belly Full’ from The Wailers’
Natty
Dread
(1974).

After Marley’s death, Barrett found himself in legal wranglings with Rita Marley over the use of the ‘Wailers’ name. In 1987, this looked to be no nearer resolution, and the stress of this was compounded by the fast disintegration of his marriage. On Good Friday that year, as Barrett strolled innocently out of his house on an errand to his local grocery store, he was hit twice in the head by gunshots from a car. Barrett died at his own front gate; his estranged wife, Albertine, and her cab-driver lover, Glenroy Carter, were charged with hiring hitmen.

See also
Peter Tosh (
September 1987); Junior Braithwaite (
June 1999); Olive ‘Senya’ Grant (
April 2001) - all of whom were similarly murdered in Kingston.

Tuesday 28

Billy Johnson

(Hartford, Connecticut, 20 August 1928)

The Moonglows

In his mid twenties, versatile guitarist Billy Johnson – a former student of Hartford’s Conservatory of Music – played behind Chicago R & B bandleader Sonny Thompson, before joining Louisville’s Harvey Fuqua-led Moonglows in 1954. As the key musician among vocalists Fuqua (baritone lead), Bobby Lester (tenor lead), Alexander Graves (tenor) and Prentiss Barnes (bass), Johnson realized most success with The Moonglows’ releases for Chess Records. Their biggest crossover was 1955’s ‘Sincerely’, though a number of other records also became pop hits. On ‘Ten Commandments of Love’ (1958), Johnson can even be heard as a ‘voice’.

Billy Johnson’s post-Moonglows career included stints as a musician for Jackie Wilson, Brook Benton and even The Four Tops. He also spent time as a television producer before his death from heart failure in a Los Angeles hospital.