The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (145 page)

2 ‘Dust Storm Disaster’

Woody Guthrie (1936)

The first folk figurehead and daddy of the ‘devastation ditty’ was surely Guthrie, who in his time wrote many songs dealing with dust blizzards, plus various others documenting massacres, plane wrecks and floods. In this truly choking piece of work, Arlo’s dad tells of the Great Plains dust storm of 1935 that swept from Oklahoma to the Rio Grande, destroying hundreds of homes, lives and acres of cropland as it wended its perilous way.

3 ‘Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’

Gordon Lightfoot (1976)

Gifted Canadian writer Gordon Lightfoot emerged with this tale of watery peril via his deceptively cheery-sounding 1976 album
Summertime Dream.
In its lyrics, Lightfoot commemorated the twenty-nine brave men lost on Lake Superior the previous November, when their 26,600-tonne freighter came a cropper in severe gales. Lightfoot himself was made of far sturdier stuff : in 2002, he survived a coma brought on by abdominal haemorrhaging - and then topped even that by chancing an appearance on
Canadian Idol.

4 ‘When the Levee Breaks’

Led Zeppelin (1971)

Blues-obsessives Led Zep updated this Memphis Minnie/Kansas Joe 1929 flood epic for their fourth album, layering it with as much ooze and sexual innuendo as they could muster. (Well, as much as a blues dirge describing the homeless migrant workers’ struggle to escape catastrophe could take before it was submerged completely.) Appropriately, John Bonham recorded his drum part down in a well.

5 ‘Black Diamond Bay’

Bob Dylan (1976)

‘Black Diamond Bay’ was the venue for Bob Dylan’s surreal tale of natural disaster, inspired by a Joseph Conrad novel. A volcano, it seemed, had belched forth lava and fire, engulfing a hotel and leaving nothing but a Panama hat and a pair of shoes. Luckily for Zimmy, he wasn’t there: he’d heard about it via a Walter Kronkite news report and hadn’t wanted to go there anyway. For Dylan’s closest shave with Ma Nature, try the truly baffling ‘Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues’ (1961).

6 ‘The Lubbock Tornado’

Terry Allen (1980)

Much-respected contemporary roots/ country singer Terry Allen recalled the force 5 tornado that swept through the late Buddy Holly’s home town - Lubbock, Texas - in May 1970, killing twenty-six and injuring over fifteen hundred. In the long run, Allen himself did better out of it than most: he’s now enjoying a belated career resurgence with alt-country fans while signed to the highly credible Sugar Hill label.

7 ‘St Francis Dam Disaster’

Frank Black & The Catholics (2000)

The former Pixies leader always had a penchant for songs about those who suffered. From his
Dog in the Sand
album, this track documented a tragic event that had occurred in Los Angeles nearly four decades before he was born. The dam in question had been completed only two years before the calamity; when it burst in 1928 under the pressure of 12 billion gallons of water, there were nearly 500 human casualties. Engineer William Mulholland escaped a manslaughter charge - but human remains were still being unearthed well into the fifties.

8 ‘America’s Still Standing Tall Tonight’

The Front Porch Country Band (2001)

No prizes for guessing the theme here: The FPCB were among the quickest off the mark with their tribute to those who survived 9/11 - the lead track from an EP of three songs dedicated to the tragedy. The otherwise little-known Front Porchers piledrive their way into our Top Ten by also having released a song about the meteorite that struck north-east America earlier the same year.

9 ‘Fifteen Feet of Pure White Snow’

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (2001)

It’s barely a surprise that Australia’s Bard of the Scarred might feature here either. In this upbeat tune, Cave calls out for Mona, Mary, Michael - well, a whole host of characters whose names begin with ‘M’ - as an avalanche covers the area and everyone, it seems, bar the singer. With all this death around him, Nick can think only of the icicles hanging from his knees and the fact that there’s nothing worth stealing in the house.

10 ‘Black Hole Sun’

Soundgarden (1994)

This sneaks in on the ‘speculative’ ticket. ‘Black Hole Sun’ - like the band’s name -references a Seattle sculpture. Chris Cornell and his band of doom-mongers were never far from talk of impending disaster and this huge transatlantic hit was arguably the definitive word in post-grunge apocalypsos. What’s more, it was accompanied by a Howard Greenhalgh promo of grinning rednecks being sucked up into the sky.

1992

JANUARY

Tuesday 14

Jerry Nolan

(Brooklyn, New York, 7 May 1946)

The New York Dolls

(Johnny Thunders &) The Heartbreakers

(Various acts)

Just nine months after the death of figurehead guitarist Johnny Thunders (
April 1991),
a third New York Doll was to go unexpectedly. An avid rock ‘n’ roll fan as a kid, Jerry Nolan was taught drums by a serviceman (his father was in the military), going on to play with a varied array of acts that included Cradle (featuring a pre-UK-success Suzi Quatro) and transsexual schlock artiste Wayne County. Finally, the death by misadventure of sticksman Billy Murcia (
November 1972)
– who had been using Nolan’s kit – created an opening for him within the US’s most talked-about glam act, The New York Dolls. Nolan was in the chair as The Dolls were signed to Mercury in March 1973, his distinctive powerhouse drumming pulling their two albums above the mundane, but it was all about attitude with this group – and Nolan possessed it in spades. Although the sound of the band was liberating, they did not shift units as anticipated, soon finding themselves dropped by the label and under Malcolm McLaren’s charge by 1974. The band’s image-change under the future Sex Pistols manager – to Red Chinese-styled leather garb – was not to Nolan or Thunders’s taste, and the pair cut loose from singer David Johansen and guitarist Syl Sylvain during a 1975 tour of Japan. The departing twosome formed possibly the druggiest of all protopunk bands, The Heartbreakers. With this classic group, Nolan and Thunders opened for The Sex Pistols (at the time of his death
(
February 1979),
Sid Vicious had been living at Nolan’s apartment) and cut a great debut in
LAMF
(1977) – but they had always had a love-hate relationship and split the year after.

Nolan nonetheless crossed paths many times with the guitarist in his subsequent work, and he was visibly shattered by Thunders’s death. Nolan was already unwell and receiving treatment for bacterial meningitis by the time he played his last gig, a tribute to Thunders, late in 1991. Suffering a stroke, the drummer fell into a coma, spending his final weeks on life support.

See also
Arthur ‘Killed Kane (
July 2004).

Wednesday 15

Dee Murray

(David Murray Oates - Gillingham, Kent, 3 April 1946)

The Spencer Davis Group

The Elton John Band

(Various acts)