The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (279 page)

See also
‘Lonesome’ Dave Peverett (
February 2000)

Paul Hester: Simply crowded out?

Saturday 26

Paul Hester

(Melbourne, 8 January 1959)

Crowded House

Split Enz

(Various acts)

His mother a jazz drummer, Paul Hester didn’t need much encouragement to pick up the sticks himself. Disillusioned by the menial work he felt he’d never escape, Hester began his own band, Cheks (later Deckchairs Overboard), within which he began to receive recognition in his native Australian music scene. It was Midnight Oil drummer Robert Hirst who suggested Hester to Neil and Tim Finn of the internationally successful New Zealand band Split Enz in 1983, the percussionist then remaining with the brothers as from the dying embers of this band rose the better-known Crowded House. The group scored an immediate hit with an eponymous debut record that spawned the international smash ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ (1987, US number two), which has since become a semi-standard, and covered by many artists. Although their second album had a more modest reception, Crowded House nonetheless became one of Europe’s biggest draws with their third,
Woodface
(1991), and its clutch of hits, including ‘Fall at Your Feet’ and the catchy ‘Weather With You’ (the band’s biggest UK seller). But, following the
Together Alone
set (1993), Hester felt increasingly uncomfortable in a set-up now largely under the guidance of Neil Finn, and abandoned a US tour to spend time with his baby daughter.

Paul Hester found post-House work with bands such as Tarmac Adam, but became far better known as a music presenter on television back in Australia. Despite a successful career, though, the musician had, for many years, hidden a painful battle with depression from his family and colleagues. Tragically, this secret was to be revealed in the most shocking manner when the former star’s body was found in a Melbourne park early one Saturday morning: Hester had apparently taken his own life by hanging.

APRIL

Monday 11

Junior Delgado

(Oscar Hibbert - Kingston, Jamaica, 25 August 1958)

(Time Unlimited)

The young singer of Jamaican harmony sensations Time Unlimited, Junior Hibbert – as he was known – formally adopted his nickname ‘Delgado’ (Spanish for ‘skinny’) once it became apparent he’d not be able to shake it. Delgado had been a frequent prizewinner in talent showcases (Lee Perry then producing Time Unlimited’s early recordings) before the singer decided to turn solo while still a teenager. Delgado was immediately in demand with some of the great names in reggae, including Bunny Lee, ‘skanga’ maestro Rupie Edwards in his heyday, and Dennis Brown, whose ‘Tition’ he was to record in 1975 – a song that presaged the thought-provoking, conscience-stirring work of Delgado’s later career. At the age of twenty, Delgado issued the solo set
Taste of the Young Heart
(1978), his ‘low-moan’ delivery a definite selling-point. Further albums, the limited-edition
Dance a Dub
(1978) and
Effort
(1979), brought ‘Jooks’ (as he was also affectionately known) to the attention of producers such as Augustus Pablo and, most significantly, Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, with whom he worked closely in the early eighties. In 1981 Delgado enjoyed a Jamaican chart smash with the Dunbar/Shakespeare-produced ‘Merry-Go-Round’; but within a year, the singer was arrested following a drugs bust and imprisoned for eighteen months.

On his release, Delgado split his time equally between his homeland and Britain, where he had a loyal following. Here he wrote ‘Broadwater Farm’, his prescient diatribe against the crime-ridden north London estate that was then to make front-page news after the murder of a police constable there in 1985 (when the record was banned as a matter of sensitivity). Another area of political interest to Delgado was apartheid in South Africa, a subject featuring on his
Ragga-muffin Year
album (1986), his most successful record. Later releases in a hugely prolific career included 1998’s
Fearless
(featuring, among many collaborators from across the pop world, Faithless’s Maxi Jazz and former Special, Jerry Dammers) and Delgado’s tribute to a late friend,
Sings Dennis Brown
(2000)
(
July 1999).
Junior Delgado himself received numerous tributes from fellow artists following his death from natural causes.

Golden Oldies #24

Johnnie Johnson

(Fairmont, West Virginia, 8 July 1924)

One of the great blues/rock ‘n’ roll pianists, Johnnie Johnson apparently learned musical timing by listening for trains from his room; later, he honed his craft in the company of musicians from Count Basie and Lionel Hampton’s jazz bands while serving with the Marine Corps. Though he was subsequently to play with names such as Eric Clapton, Bo Diddley and Buddy Guy, it was Johnson’s work with Chuck Berry that is most readily recalled. Such was his impact upon Berry (whose ‘Maybellene’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ and ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’ were just three Johnson collaborations) that the singer was inspired to compose the standard ‘Johnnie B Goode’. Despite this, Johnson spent the best part of his career as a relative unknown, credits seldom offered to ‘backline’ musicians in pop music’s early years.

Although he clearly had a very strong case, there was to be no remuneration for Johnson when, in 2002, authorities threw out a 2-year-old royalty claim by the pianist on the grounds that too much time had elapsed since his contributions to the hits of Berry and others. Johnnie Johnson died from natural causes at his home in St Louis, Missouri, on 13 April 2005.

‘It is a gift from God almighty!’

Johnnie Johnson’s mother, upon hearing her son play for the first time in 1928

Friday 15

John Fred

(John Fred Gourrier - Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 8 May 1941)

John Fred & His Playboy Band

Perceived as the classic US one-hit wonder, John Fred actually fronted his first band, The Playboys, as early as 1956, the hyperactive frontman scoring a US number eighty-two ‘smash’ with ‘Shirley’ (1958) – and in those days, 100,000 or so copies would have been required to achieve that status. The record performed admirably given that no one had heard of Fred, its success perhaps down to the fact that The Playboys were none other than Fats Domino’s backing group. The Playboy
Band,
on the other hand, issued six flop singles before conquering all about them with the number one ‘Judy In Disguise’ (1967). The song – which also made the UK Top Five – was a semi-successful parody of Lennon & McCartney’s ‘Lucy causes. in the Sky with Diamonds’, but hit through its own catchiness as opposed to the wit of its lyrics. The irony was complete when Fred and his cohorts supplanted The Beatles themselves at the top of the US charts – but, aside from the near-hit ‘Hey Hey Bunny’ (1968), they were not to trouble the stat men again. Instead, the musician tried his hand, very successfully, at producing, going on to become vice-president at RCS Records.