The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (243 page)

Marc Moreland
(right)
with Wall Of Voodoo: The ‘mess’ was calculated

An acrimonious split with singer Connolly in 1979 was a crippling blow from which The Sweet were not to recover. Relations became so bad that two versions of the band toured the nostalgia circuit during the mid nineties.

But, with Priest now a session player in the United States, Scott continues to use The Sweet’s name, some years after Connolly’s tragic death (
February 1997)
and now that of Mick Tucker. Always the quiet one, Tucker passed away after fighting leukaemia for some years and in spite of a bone-marrow transplant it was hoped might save him. In the words of Priest – in a piece of overstatement that might just have caused his friend of thirty years to blush – ‘He was the best drummer England ever produced.’

March

Friday 1

Do’reen

(Doreen Waddell - Southend, Essex, 10 July 1965)

Soul II Soul

The KLF

Around 1990, all looked rosy for young British soul singer Doreen Waddell – better known in the music world as Do’reen. The vocalist had been plucked from relative obscurity to work with two of the UK’s biggest-selling acts. With the Jazzy B-led London dance collective Soul II Soul, Do’reen shared lead vocals with Caron Wheeler on the international charttopping album
Club Classics Volume 1
(1989), although it was Wheeler who sang on the number-one single ‘Back To Life’. Then there was The KLF, the Bill Drummond/Jimmy Cauty project that spawned a number of huge hits worldwide, including ‘Justified and Ancient’ (1991) – the album version of which also featured Do’reen’s voice.

Doreen Waddell – who had reverted to her given name – was to experience harder times, however, the vocal sessions having dried up as mainstream tastes moved away from the club sound during the nineties. On the morning of 1 March 2002, the former star was apprehended at a Sussex branch of Tesco on suspicion of shoplifting: Waddell panicked and ran from the supermarket’s fire exit on to the A27 Shoreham bypass where she was struck three times by speeding vehicles. The singer died that afternoon in hospital, but it took a further three days before her body could be identified. Goods from the store, including clothes intended for Waddell’s 4-year-old son, were found strewn across the tarmac.

Another Soul II Soul singer, Lamya Al-Mugheiry, died from a heart attack in 2009.

Wednesday 13

Marc Moreland

(West Covina, California, 8 January 1958)

Wall Of Voodoo

(Marc Moreland Mess)

(Various acts)

Marc Moreland was a child of rock’s sexual revolution; he loved Alice Cooper and Iggy Pop with their giant, spiked hair and extravagant makeup. That he was also a damn fine guitarist as well was a bonus to all those who loved his look as he stalked about on stage. Moreland had played in a number of California schlock bands before he and his bass-playing brother Bruce formed the near-legendary Wall Of Voodoo with equally charismatic singer/keyboardist Stan Ridgway, Charles Gray (synth) and Joe Nanini (drums – who died in December 2000). Over the course of a decade, the band released several studio albums for IRS, but never quite achieved the impact they deserved, despite coming mighty close with
Call of the West
(1982): the 1983 hit single ‘Mexican Radio’ was a Moreland composition. WOV disbanded in 1989.

A big fan of Johnny Cash, Moreland emulated more than just his hero’s guitar-playing. According to his brother, the musician drank heavily throughout his life, enjoying the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle to the full: ‘Everyone thought/was going to die, but I came through – and Mark just continued drinking …’ Eventually, the guitarist required a liver transplant, but the operation was not successful: without health insurance, he had travelled to Paris in order to seek treatment, but his body rejected the liver soon after, shutting down five days later. By the end of his life, Moreland had been recording again (his own solo album, as Marc Moreland Mess), his Fender Flying ‘V’ never far from his side.

Friday 15

Marshall Leib

(Marshall Leibovitz - Northridge, California, 26 January 1939)

The Teddy Bears

The Hollywood Argyles

The Moondogs

It requires a stern constitution to take on Phil Spector, as many have found to their cost over the years: Marshall Leib was one of the few who came away successfully. Back in the fifties, the athletic, good-looking Leib – formerly a member of shortlived rock ‘n’ rollers The Moondogs – was the guitarist with teen-pop fly-by-nights The Teddy Bears, along with Phil Spector (multiple instruments) and singers Carol Connors (Annette Kleinbard) and Harvey Goldstein. Inspired by the epitaph on Spector’s father’s gravestone, the group came up with ‘To Know Him is to Love Him’ (1958), funding the recording themselves. Astonishingly, the record was picked up by the Dore label, and rocketed to the top of the charts. By Christmas, it had sold over a million copies. Due to contractual failings The Teddy Bears issued only two more records with Dore, but it was revealed years later that Leib and Connors (by then a successful songwriter) were owed a great deal of money in royalties by Spector. They sued him in 1996 – and won.

Leib had gone on to play with The Hollywood Argyles (the band hastily formed by singer Gary Paxton when his ‘Alley Oop’ hit number one in 1960) and also recorded with Duane Eddy before setting up his own Marsh label. He died from a heart attack at the age of sixty-three.

Tuesday 26

Randy Castillo

(Albuquerque, New Mexico, 18 December 1950)

Ozzy Osbourne

Motley Criie

(Various acts)

Motley Criie’s worst days of excess were well behind them by the time drummer Randy Castillo joined the ranks in 1999. The departure of Tommy Lee (and his huge kit) may have ended an era for a band synonymous with mayhem, but there were still notorious Vince Neil (vocals), Mick Mars (guitar) and the legendary Nikki Sixx (bass) to hold the fort for all things debauched. Castillo offered something more spiritual to the band, although he could hammer out a rhythm or two as well, having served time with Crue’s natural mentor Ozzy Osbourne for eight years – Lee having introduced the pair in 1985. Castillo played with many other hard-rock acts, including The Wumblies (his first group), The Motels and also the band of former Runaway Lita Ford. Crue had just issued their first album in some time,
New Tattoo
(2000), when Castillo fell seriously ill with a stomach complaint and had to pull out of a major tour. While the band promoted the album without him, Castillo began working on a project with Alice In Chains bassist Mike Inez. As this began to gain momentum, the drummer started to experience swellings and pain in his neck: he was diagnosed with a carcinoma, from which he was not to recover. Despite aggressive radiotherapy, Randy Castillo went into relapse: he died in his sleep at the Cedars-Sinai Hospital.

See also
Razzle Dingley (
December 1984)

Joe Schermie