The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (295 page)

MAY

Monday 1

Big Hawk

(John Edward Hawkins - Houston, Texas, 15 November 1969)

Screwed Up Click

(DEA)

Another rap shooting: peaceful living John Hawkins – also known as HAWK or Five Star General – was one of the biggest stars of the Southern rap scene. In the early nineties he’d left his insurance company job to collaborate with brother Fat Pat (Patrick Hawkins) and pals KK, Koldjack and the innovative DJ Screw (Robert Earl Davis) as the unit DEA, named after the ‘dead end’ block where they grew up. Although successful with their unique brand of ‘screw’ music (not as unpleasant as it sounds, this involves the ‘screwing down’ and slowing of backing samples), it seemed that the entire group of associates was set for a doomed future.

The Screwed Up Click was a baffling assortment of Houston-based rappers assembled by Screw, but featuring Big Hawk very much as centrepiece. Despite recording his own albums – his second,
HAWK
(2002), made a respectable showing on Billboard’s rap listings – Hawk guested on mix tapes by many of the other artists involved, Lil’ Keke (Marcus Edwards) in particular.

However, after the deaths and incarcerations of many of his immediate collaborators, it was Hawk who was to keep the name of SUC alive – that is, until his own death. By May 2006,
all
of the three main protagonists had passed on. Big Hawk first suffered the loss of his brother to a shooting in February 1998, after Fat Pat had gone to collect an appearance fee from a promoter’s apartment. Then, in November 2000, thirty-year-old DJ Screw fell to a codeine overdose as he worked in the studio. Finally, in what is believed to have been a case of mistaken identity, Hawk was ambushed and shot in downtown Houston as he waited on a friend. The artist left a wife – whom he’d married just one month prior to his murder – and two young sons.

Golden Oldies #34

Johnny Paris

(John M Pocisk - Walbridge, Ohio, 29 August 1940)

Johnny & The Hurricanes

Johnny & The Hurricanes - led by Johnny Paris (an American musician of Polish descent) - made a name for themselves originally as The Orbits, then as a backing band to rockabilly singer Mack Vickery, and finally as a distinctive instrumental group in their own right. With Paris taking up saxophone, the quintet was completed by Paul Tesluk (organ), Dave Yorko (guitar), Lionel ‘Butch’ Mattice (bass) and Bo Savich (drums - replacing original sticksman Tony Kaye). Perhaps best known for their international smash, ‘Red River Rock’ (1959 - US/UK Top Five), The Hurricanes actually became more popular in pre-Beatles Britain, where they racked up further Top Ten hits with ‘Beatnik Fly’, ‘Down Yonder’ and ‘Rockin’ Goose’ in 1960. The latter - the group’s first original tune - became The Hurricanes’ best seller in Europe thanks in part to Paris’s unique squawking sax break. One major fan was, evidently, Merseyside musician Rory Storm (Alan Caldwell), who subsequently named his own band The Hurricanes and his home ‘Stormsville’ after one of Paris’s albums.

With hits and tours a distant memory, John Pocisk returned to a more straightforward lifestyle selling antiques and vending machines in his home state. He was in the process of penning an autobiography at the time of his death from natural causes on 1 May 2006.

Saturday 6

Grant McLennan

(Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, 12 February 1958)

The Go-Betweens

(Jack Frost)

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Grant McLennan had no ambitions of music stardom as a boy and only picked up the bass guitar on the suggestion of his friend Robert Forster. True, the duo weren’t to experience massive record sales, though over thirty-or-so years they put together an enviable canon of work. McLennan lost his father at just four years of age, developing into a sensitive and studious young man; the observations he made in his youth would bode well for his professional career with The Go-Betweens.

McLennan and Forster first crossed paths in 1977, by which time the former was a disenfranchised student at the University of Queensland. Australia’s Able Label was the first to issue a Go-Betweens record – and it proved something of a classic: ‘Lee Remick’ (1978) was one of Forster’s tunes, but it (and follow-up ‘People Say’) created sufficient interest to get the band a deal with Scottish label Postcard as The Go-Betweens travelled to London via Glasgow. The band’s line-up was inconsistent at this time, though most tend to look at the roster of McLennan (guitar/vocals), Forster (guitar/vocals), Robert Vickers (bass) and Lindy Morrison (drums) as the definitive Go-Betweens. On the first pair of albums
Send Me a Lullaby
(1981) and
Before Hollywood
(1983) – by which time the band was signed to Rough Trade – it had become clear that McLennan was the real songwriting force. (The latter album contained a touching paean to his late father in ‘Dusty in Here’.) A lack of stability with both line-up and record labels could have cost The Go-Betweens, with the band signing to Sire for 1984’s
Spring Hill Fair
and Beggar’s Banquet for
Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express
(1986). However, the latter was seen by many critics as the group’s finest hour and almost presented McLennan with an unlikely hit single in the chirpy ‘Spring Rain’. Similarly, 1988’s ‘Streets of Your Town’ (from the highly commercial
16 Lovers Lane)
fell short of adequate airplay thanks to a lyric touching on domestic violence. At this time, the group was augmented by violinist Amanda Brown (who for some years was also love interest for McLennan), but both main protagonists – now back in Aus – felt it was time to flex some solo muscle, and The Go-Betweens split in 1989.

After a brief project called Jack Frost (with musician Steve Kilbey of The Church), McLennan put out the first of four solo albums during a productive decade (1991’s
Watershed).
Go-Betweens fans were delighted to see him reunite with Forster for three brand new albums during the early part of the new millennium: the best of this splendid and unexpected burst of creativity was
Bright Yellow Bright Orange
(2003), which stood up against the recordings of yore. The final, 2005’s
Oceans Apart,
at last saw The Go-Betweens rewarded with an Australian Recording Industry Award.

One year after this, however, the seemingly unthinkable happened. In apparently good health, Grant McLennan was found dead in his bedroom, having suffered a heart attack as he prepared to host a party. Over a thousand attended his funeral, among them Forster and legendary Australian singer/guitarist Ed Kuepper.

Saturday 13

Johnnie Wilder

(Dayton, Ohio, 3 July 1949)

Heatwave

(The Noblemen)

No seventies act could claim to be as ‘international’ as funk/soul big-hitters Heatwave. The original line-up boasted members from the UK (keyboardist/writer Rod Temperton and guitarist Roy Carter), Jamaica (guitarist Eric Johns), Spain (bassist Mario Manzer) and Czechoslovakia (drummer Ernest Berger). Even singing American brothers Johnnie and Keith Wilder had been based in Germany for three years on military duty when Heatwave were founded.

Working the London circuit during the mid seventies, the group stood out for eschewing the standard predisco sound for a (mainly) black act, preferring to lace their music with a US-style funk bed. The result was a deal with GTO and a strong first single in ‘Ain’t No Half Stepping’ (1976). Heatwave were to suffer in that first big year, though, losing original guitarist Jesse Whitten to a shocking and mysterious stabbing in Chicago as they began to promote second single ‘Boogie Nights’. One of 1977’s biggest international hits, ‘Boogie Nights’ took Heatwave into the record-buying public’s consciousness and to within an ace of topping both the US and UK charts. A debut album
Too Hot to Handle
gathered up these cuts with a healthy dose of other tunes – including another great single in the title track – and established Heatwave as a serious dance force as it offloaded three million worldwide units.

Johnnie Wilder’s personal tale stands out on its own, however. As Heatwave worked on a third album, he found himself leader for the first time following the resignation of band fulcrum Temperton, who had left to write Michael Jackson’s
Off the Wall.
Bassist Manzer also quit after he, too, was assaulted in London. Then, the biggest blow of all: as Wilder was getting to grips with his suddenly increased responsibilities, he was himself seriously injured when his car was hit by a careening van in Dayton as he visited relatives. For a while, there were fears for the singer’s life. As it was, he was left paralysed and in hospital for a year, unable to perform. Wilder then had little alternative than to oversee production duties as Heatwave created the fourth record
Candles
(1980). Sadly, all the upheaval had taken its toll on sales, and Wilder’s position was not to generate the wave of support one might have expected. The record wasn’t considered ‘essential’ by a UK fanbase who – despite placing the single ‘Gangsters of the Groove’ in the Top Twenty – were largely moving over to ‘lesser’ funk/soul acts like Linx and Imagination. A further record,
Current
(1982), barely registered on either side of the Atlantic.