The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (197 page)

(Enid, Oklahoma, 31 December 1953)

Michael Hedges was a virtuoso guitarist who described his music as ‘violent acoustic’, ‘new edge’ or ‘heavy mental’, so infused was it with different influences. Hedges was classically trained, having also learned cello and piano, but discovered in rock music the space for the experimentation he craved. Employing a two-handed picking style, Hedges – who recorded eight albums for his own Windham Hill label, including the Grammy-nominated
Taproot
(1990) – became renowned for his highly original techniques and sound. He worked with Crosby, Stills & Nash, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and Frank Zappa, among many, many others.

On the night of 28 November 1997, Michael Bridges was travelling home to Mendocino, San Francisco, following a Thanksgiving visit with his girlfriend in New York, when his car spun out of control and rolled down an embankment on Highway 128, near Boonville. The guitarist’s body lay undiscovered in the wreckage for four days.

DECEMBER

Sunday 14

Kurt Winter

(Winnipeg, Manitoba, 2 April 1946)

The Guess Who

(Brother)

The Guess Who were already the biggest pop band to have emerged from Canada by the time Brother guitarist Kurt Winter stepped into the breach left by Randy Bachman, who departed to form Bachman Turner Overdrive in 1970. Soon after he joined the band, Winter was chuffed to see his composition ‘Hand Me Down World’ become The Guess Who’s latest hit. He went on to contribute to three albums by the band, co-composing other hits including the Top Ten ‘Clap for the Wolfman’ (1974), a song featuring the vocals of disc jockey Wolfman Jack.

Known as ‘The Walrus’, the moustachioed Winter developed a liking for the indulgences of the day – which was to have a devastating effect on his system in later years. Sacked from The Guess Who in late 1974, he died from combined liver failure and a bleeding ulcer at a hospital in his home town of Winnipeg. Sometime guitarist Domenic Troiano – who also played with The James Gang and Bush (not the British band) – died of prostate cancer in 2005.

Thursday 18

Nicolette Larson

(Helena, Montana, 17 July 1952)

Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen

(Various acts)

Diminutive singer/guitarist Nicolette Larson developed her unique singing and playing styles as a girl, her family constantly on the road because of her father’s work commitments with the US Treasury. A move to San Francisco after some difficult high-school years put Larson into the vibrant musical environment that she craved, and she attracted the attention of Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen. Leader Cody (aka George Frayne) employed Larson as a singer, the celebrated good-time band suddenly massively popular after a major hit with ‘Hot Rod Lincoln’ (1972). Adding her touch to a number of the band’s records over the next three years, Larson also played with Hoyt Axton and Emmylou Harris, whose guitarist, Hank DeVito, she briefly married. The contacts she made established Larson as a solo act, and she scored a Top Ten Billboard hit with Neil Young’s ‘Lotta Love’ (1978). Her subsequent debut,
Nicolette,
sold well for Warner Brothers, and Larson went on to show her remarkable diversity by also singing with Young, Linda Ronstadt, The Doobie Brothers and even Van Halen. But despite a Country Music Award for Best New Act (oddly, as late as 1984), Larson couldn’t repeat the success of her debut album. A move to MCA, then to CGD, didn’t alter her fortunes greatly, spawning only one major country hit with ‘That’s How You Know When Love’s Right’ (1986).

Nicolette Larson maintained a reasonable media profile with occasional record releases and a number of movie roles during the late eighties and nineties (including a part in the 1989 comedy
Twins);
she also married drummer Russ Kunkel and gave birth to a daughter, Elsie May. Her unexpected death following complications from a cerebral oedema stunned many in the pop, country and film industries.

Sunday 21

Amie Comeaux

(Brusly, Louisiana, 4 December 19T6)

If Nicolette Larson’s death was a blow to the world of country music, the tragically young passing of singer Amie Comeaux came as an even greater shock. Clearly a gifted performer, with a golden-girl image, Comeaux issued
Moving Out,
her debut album for Polydor, in 1994. In the next couple of years, the young prodigy toured Europe and prepared for her second album, but the Polygram organization dropped her before its issue. The record, though, became a tribute release: travelling from Nashville to her parents’ home near Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Amie Comeaux’s Dodge Avenger skidded off a wet road, slamming her into a tree. While her passengers – her grandmother and a god-daughter – survived the crash, the singer was killed outright.

Wednesday 31

Floyd Cramer

(Shreveport, Louisiana, 27 October 1933)

An inductee into both Rock ‘n’ Roll and Country Halls of Fame, Floyd Cramer was a self-taught pianist who made his name initially on the popular
Louisiana Hayride
radio shows, where he was often placed alongside huge stars such as Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves and Hank Williams Sr. Moving to Nashville – the home of country music – Cramer diversified to play sessions with up-and-coming popular stars such as The Everly Brothers, Roy Orbison and a young Elvis Presley, whom he accompanied on the singer’s first classic sides. Cramer was no stranger to chart success himself, either. A trio of his records made the US pop Top Ten, one of which, ‘On the Rebound’ (1961), gave him a surprise UK number one. Perhaps his biggest payday, though, came with his recording of the theme for the enormously popular television soap
Dallas
in the late seventies. Passing away from lung cancer at a relatively young age, Floyd Cramer nonetheless survived almost every one of the great stars he accompanied.

Lest We Forget

Other notable deaths that occurred sometime during 1997:

Stig Anderson
(Swedish songwriter, label honcho and manager who gave the world Abba; born Stig Andersson, Hova, 25/1/1931; heart attack, 12/9)

LaVern Baker
(revered US R & B diva; born Delores Williams, Illinois, 11/11/1929; diabetes, 10/4)

Richard Berry
(US doo-wop vocalist with The Flairs and Robins who finally earned writing royalties on his greatest composition, ‘Louie Louie’, just before his death; born Louisiana, 11/4/1935; aneurysm, 23/1)

Jo Bruce
(UK keyboardist with world music mavericks The Afro-Celt Sound System - son of Cream’s Jack Bruce; born 9/2/1969; asthma attack, 8/10)

Chris Burmeister
(Danish guitarist with rock band The Bushpilots; born 1969; shot by a Palestinian gunman while visiting the Empire State Building - US singer Matt Gross survived the attack - 23/2)

Keith Ferguson
(US bluesrock bassist with the hugely popular Fabulous Thunderbirds, who finally went Top Ten with 1986’s ‘Tuff Enuff’; born Texas, 23/7/1946; liver failure promoted by drug abuse, 27/4)

Louis ‘Tony’ McCall
(US drummer with mighty funk unit Con Funk Shun; born California, 28/12/51; shot by an intruder at a friend’s Stone Mountain home, 25/6 - the case was still unsolved in 2006)

Ben Raleigh
(US songwriter who penned mawk classic ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’ and, uh, the
Scooby Doo
theme; born New York, 16/6/1913; he died in a kitchen fire after his bathrobe caught alight, 26/2)

Jimmy Rogers
(celebrated Chicago-blues guitarist who played with Sunnyland Slim, Otis Spann, Muddy Waters and all the best guys; born Mississippi, 3/6/1924; emphysema/colon cancer, 19/12)

Wally Whyton
(UK leader of skiffle band The Vipers, who scored two Top Ten hits in 1957 - later a popular BBC radio and TV broadcaster; born London, 23/9/1929; cancer, 22/1)