The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (191 page)

A former piano student, Jermaine Stewart – owing a small debt to Michael Jackson – developed his dance and vocal style on arriving at the ‘happening’ scene in Chicago. As a dancer, he toured with The Chi-Lites and Staple Singers, joining successful disco unit Shalamar in 1980. But, with few opportunities to be much more than a shadow to the group’s obvious star, Jeffrey Daniels, Stewart became disillusioned and left for a solo career. His break came at the hands of Culture Club – the British pop group used the singer’s backing vocals on the US hit ‘Miss Me Blind’ (1984); bassist Mikey Craig then financed Stewart’s own demo, and solo recognition was at last on its way. Stewart scored his biggest hit with the club singalong ‘We Don’t Have to Take Our Clothes Off’, a record that made the Top Five on both sides of the Atlantic, becoming the UK’s fourteenth-biggest hit of 1986. Generally speaking, he was a bigger star in Europe than at home: the single ‘Say It Again’ gave him another UK Top Ten hit in February 1988, while ‘Don’t Talk Dirty to Me’ was a million-seller in Germany the same year. But his distinctly eighties performances appeared dated by the start of the next decade: Stewart had a much lower profile and slower record sales. Unbeknownst to his loyal fanbase, he was also battling AIDS – the disease that cost him his life in 1997. Some sources cite liver cancer as the cause of Stewart’s death, though this was probably a complication.

Monday 24

Harold Melvin

(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 25 June 1939)

Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes

The father of smooth Philly soul began his journey to legend as the teenage singer of impromptu ‘street corner’ ballads; at sixteen, he was already fronting The Blue Notes, at that time a fairly uncomplicated doo-wop ensemble. But until 1970 – ie, for a very long time after the group’s foundation – they had to make do with revenue from live performances, their records for some reason largely failing to register with R & B consumers. Then, Melvin (who had steered his troupe – Roosevelt Brodie, Jesse Gillis Jr, Franklin Peaker and Bernard Williams – thus far) hit upon the idea of employing a second lead voice – that of soul schmoozer Teddy Pendergrass, who’d also played drums with The Blue Notes. The latter, under the guidance of Melvin and the essential songwriting team of Kenneth Gamble and Leon Huff, created a timeless, near-forlorn sound that at last made an impact. After one or two chart flirtations, the group enjoyed its biggest worldwide hit with ‘If You Don’t Know Me by Now’ (1972), following this with a sequence of similar-paced tearjerkers such as ‘The Love I Lost’ (1973) and ‘Don’t Leave Me This Way’ (1977) – The Blue Notes’ biggest UK hit. When Pendergrass left to pursue a solo career in 1976, Melvin employed other lead singers, but the Blue Notes’ moment appeared to have passed. Throughout his career, Melvin had also guided other noted vocalists such as mid-period Bluenote Billy Paul, and also Sharon Paige, whom he’d employed on the group’s studio work.

Harold Melvin continued to perform until his death: the singer suffered a series of strokes, dying in his sleep at home in Mount Airy, Pennsylvania. The Blue Notes carried on, keeping the name alive in tribute to the man at the helm.

See also
Lawrence Brown (
April 2008); Teddy Pendergrass (
January 2010). The curse of the Blue Notes continued with the deaths of singers Franklin Peaker (2006), Roosevelt Brodie and Bernard Wilson (both 2010). Former leads John Atkins and David Ebo have also passed on.

APRIL

Tuesday 8

Laura Nyro

(Laura Nigro - The Bronx, New York, 18 October 1947)

Her father being a jazz trumpeter and her mother an opera aficionado was unfortunately still not enough to lift Laura Nyro to the heights that she had hoped for as a young girl. Nyro proved herself time and time again to be a talented songwriter, but found little success with her own recordings. Debuting at the Monterey Pop Festival as a 19-year-old, she was barracked mercilessly by the crowd, who were there to see and hear The Byrds, The Grateful Dead, Hendrix, Joplin and The Who – Nyro’s odd choice of an ‘angel’ outfit also did her few favours. This was a shame, as her debut album,
More Than a New Discovery
(1966), contained some nice moments, not least ‘Stoney End’ – later a Top Ten hit for Barbra Streisand. Others to have recorded her songs include Blood, Sweat & Tears, Peter, Paul & Mary (both recorded ‘And When I Die’), Three Dog Night (‘Eli’s Coming’) and The Fifth Dimension, whose cover of Nyro’s ‘Stoned Soul Picnic’ was a 2-million seller in 1968. Despite management by a young David Geffen, Nyro failed to make a commercial breakthrough, and retired from performing at just twenty-four;

she nonetheless continued to put out sporadic albums.

Although touring once more during the late eighties (to great acclaim), staunch pacifist Laura Nyro was happier with more domestic pursuits, such as bringing up her son, Gil. Diagnosed with ovarian cancer, she died just short of her fiftieth birthday.

Saturday 19

El Duce

(Eldon Hoke - Seattle, Washington, 24 March 1958)

The Mentors

The notorious beer-loving drummer and (if one stretches one’s imagination) singer with schlock-rockers The Mentors, El Duce will always be better recalled as the man who claimed Courtney Love offered him money to kill Kurt Cobain just before the latter’s death (
April 1994).
Alongside guitarist Eric Carlson (aka ‘Sickie Wifebeater’), Hoke had fronted The Mentors since 1978, their repertoire coming up against moral crusaders with its themes of sexual proclivity, drinking and violence (indeed, the recital of some of Hoke’s ludicrous poetry caused hoots of laughter at the Tipper Gore-led Congressional Hearings in 1985). Fast-forward twelve years: El Duce famously told film-maker Nick Broomfield that Love had, in 1993, offered him $50K (and a blow job, which he turned down, if other sources are to be believed) outside a Hollywood record shop to blow her husband’s head off. He concluded that someone else had actually carried out the deed; in 1996, a polygraph lie-detector test astonishingly suggested he was telling the truth.

Although few were likely to miss his music, Eldon Hoke’s death just a week after the interview was shot came as a shock to a lot of people – not least to the Cobain murder theorists. Hoke’s body was found by a railway track in Riverside, Los Angeles; authorities – having ascertained the high volume of alcohol in his blood – put his death down to ‘misadventure’. Hoke’s friend and music journalist Al Bowman said, ‘[El Duce] was excited about his upcoming tour – he didn’t kill himself. I’m convinced this has something to do with Kurt Cobain.’ And so the conspiracy theories proliferated.

MAY

Friday 23

Tim Taylor

(Dayton, Ohio, 20 July 1968)

Brainiac