The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (142 page)

Starting out as an occasional journalist (his credits include style-over-content culture magazine
The Face),
distinctive singer Vaughn Toulouse began to forge a small name for himself with Guns For Hire. The London ska combo’s debut single, the intriguingly titled ‘I’m Gonna Rough My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend up Tonight’, was issued by Korova in 1979. Performing this and a number of other songs by Toulouse and co-writer/guitarist Mike Herbage, GFH became an open industry secret long before their name change to Department S (after the cult sixties television series) in 1980. Under the new guise, Toulouse seemed to be heading for star status with the rerelease of fan favourite ‘Is Vic There?’ by RCA in April 1981. This unusual record – the B-side was a ludicrous cover of T Rex’s ‘Solid Gold Easy Action’ with the then-unknown Bananarama – was played to the max on national radio and made UK number twenty-two, placing the band on
Top of the Pops
and threatening a complete album for Department S. But, with the next pair of singles, ‘Going Left Right’ and ‘I Want’, failing to deliver a similar impact, RCA shelved the project. Aside from a period signed to Paul Weller’s Respond label, Toulouse’s only other claim to notoriety was saying ‘bollocks’ to TV presenter/DJ Gary Crowley (formerly his manager) – a move that saw the latter sacked from his Saturday morning kids show.

Vaughn Toulouse died from an AIDS-related illness. His wake took place at London’s Wag Club, which he had co-founded some years before.

SEPTEMBER

Wednesday 4

Dottie West

(Dorothy Marie Marsh - McMinnville, Tennessee, 11 October 1932)

Abject poverty, hunger, mental cruelty and sexual abuse – all staples for some solid C & W songwriting, but dayto-day reality for Dottie West, growing up in Tennessee, one of several children born to a workshy alcoholic who mistreated his family. The horror and anguish lingered around her into adulthood, but by then she had found an outlet for the torment. When her father was eventually imprisoned, Marsh (as she was born) and her family were able to thrive: her mother ran a couple of successful restaurants; Marsh herself became a singing sensation. But, with the cold sting of a country lyric pay-off, her life culminated in heartbreak and tragedy.

Marrying her college fiancé, Bill West (and taking his name), the singer found her way on to the books of Nashville’s Starday Records, who cut her first single, ‘Angel On Paper’, within a week of meeting her. The record was a radio smash and put West on to the Grand Ole Opry. She befriended Patsy Cline and Jim Reeves (having advised Cline against flying beforehand, she then had to endure their remarkably similar deaths (
Pre-1965))
and, with her distinctive flamered hair, became a part of the country glitterati within a year or so. Over three decades West would write and record more than 400 songs, the late sixties and early seventies especially good to her. Her records all showed strongly on the country listings, perhaps the best known being ‘Country Sunshine’, a tune picked up by Coca Cola for a lucrative jingle deal. She also recorded a duet album with the top male star of the day, Kenny Rogers, and when the pair played live, attendances were known to exceed 100,000. So where did it all go wrong? Despite a career that had embraced music, film and television, West publicly declared herself bankrupt in August 1990, with debts exceeding $3.5 million and a second divorce pending. After break-ing down on a national talk show, the singer looked to religion as she attempted to piece together a world her now-extravagant lifestyle had destroyed. With an eerie prescience, she then told her pastor that ‘Satan had come to steal happiness from her’ and that she ‘wanted to sing and dance with the angels’. Within months fate saw to it that she realized this wish.

On 30 August 1991, made late for a rare appearance at the Grand Ole Opry by her stalled car (a gift from Rogers), West flagged down a neighbour to drive her. 81-year-old George Thackston obliged, revving up to 55 mph (in a 25 mph zone) in an attempt to make the date – and lost control of his 1982 Plymouth. The car left the ground, remaining airborne for 75 feet and smashing into the Opryland exit ramp. The elderly Thackston somehow received just back and leg injuries while West suffered massive internal damage. She spent five days in intensive care, but as the hours marched on it became more and more apparent that the 58-year-old was not going to pull through. At 9.43 am on 4 September, Dottie West died from severe liver and spleen damage. Her Nashville funeral was attended by hundreds, with Rogers among those who offered words of tribute. West was portrayed by actress Michele Lee in the TV biopic
Big Dreams and Broken Hearts
(1995).

Tuesday 17

Rob Tyner

(Robert Derminer - Detroit, Michigan, 12 December 1944)

The MC5

(The Rob Tyner Band)

(Fireworks)

Involved with the band in a management capacity in the early sixties, Rob Tyner became singer with The MC5 (Motor City 5) in 1965, driving them from a cohesive covers unit into one of the most talked-about garagerock acts in Detroit. The band’s roster then featured the brilliant double-guitar assault of Wayne Kramer and Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith, with bassist Michael Davis and drummer Dennis Thompson providing the engine. Tyner was a politically driven performer – rare in rock music at the time – his lyrics and stage performance powerfully anti-government; the singer’s other selling point (not that The MC5 ‘sold’ at all) was his extravagant afro, which set MC5 even further apart from their contemporaries. The band became even more confrontational with the addition of the manifesto of new manager John Sinclair, a writer with radical White Panther party connections who believed in bringing the underground ‘overground’. As a result, The MC5 found it hard to get their records either played or even stocked – the astonishing
Kick out the Jams
(1969) was banned by most stores/ radio stations, who hadn’t heard the word ‘motherfucker’ on a rock ‘n’ roll record until then.

But the MC5’s anarchy spilled over to intra-band problems and, after two more albums, they called it a day in 1972. Tyner formed a couple of bands of his own during the decade (occasionally reviving the name of his best-remembered group). After the demise of his Rob Tyner Band in 1978, the singer spent some time promoting a host of newwave bands (who all admitted a debt to The MC5), including Britain’s Eddie & The Hot Rods, with whom he cut a record. He was still involved in solo work at the time of his death from a heart attack: Tyner was found at the wheel of his car, and passed away after removal to hospital in Michigan.

See also
Fred ‘Sonic’ Smith (
November 1994)

Golden Oldies #3

Miles Davis

(Miles Dewey Davis III - Alton, Illinois, 25 May 1926)

A giant of the jazz trumpet, Miles Davis is included here for his undoubted influence over many soul and funk musicians - Prince, Herbie Hancock and Quincy Jones among them - who appeared in his wake. This was not merely as a musician, but as a modal composer and arranger of supreme innovation - and also as a presence.

Three years after stepping into the breach as a teenager with Billy Eckstine’s band, Davis majored in theory at New York’s Julliard, only to jack in his studies and move in with Charlie Parker. The upside was that Parker took him on in his quintet; the downside that Davis adopted his mentor’s penchant for heroin. In partnership with arranger Gil Evans, Davis gave the world
Birth of the Cool
(1950) - because the musician was already regarded as an
enfant terrible
in the industry, the record was ignored until years later. Less so,
Kind of Blue
(1959), a set seen even then as a milestone in not just jazz but contemporary music per se. Davis issued countless long-players over the years, many with his world-famous quintet, many more under his own steam. By the seventies Davis was alienating some of his purist crowd by incorporating R & B and rock ‘n’ roll into his already eclectic sound.

In his personal life, Davis was seldom far from controversy: it is believed that for many years he was confused about his sexual orientation - despite the fact that he had countless affairs and fathered four children by different partners, tying the knot on at least three occasions. Seen sometimes as a difficult figure, Davis was also known for his outspoken opinions, occasionally bad-mouthing contemporaries in the press. His ‘transfer’ from heroin to cocaine left him in poor health; diagnosis of diabetes caused a five-year hiatus from playing. Around this time, Davis was at odds with the law - he was once beaten by racist New York police officers who tried to charge him with loitering. Written off as a has-been, the mercurial musician returned in 1981 with a series of innovative new recordings.