The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (373 page)

Steve Ferguson was a guitarist with the influential NRBQ, forming the nucleus of the band in 1967 with Kentucky high-school friend and keyboardist Terry Adams. The pair had previously been members of a covers group known (somewhat glibly) as The Merseybeats, but it was on relocation to Miami, Florida, that Ferguson and Adams met former Seven of Us singer Frank Gadler, bassist Jody St Nicholas (New Yorker Joey Scampinato) and drummer Tom Staley.

The New Rhythm & Blues Quartet trimmed down their name to the more easily digestible NRBQ and headed to Brooklyn from where they became a major hit on the New York club scene: this included a memorable show at the Fillmore East, which was instrumental in securing the band a deal with Columbia. At this time, NRBQ were mixing original tunes with versions of older songs, many of which appeared on debut album
NRBQ
(1969). A band that was made for the live environment returned with the bouncy and acclaimed
Boppin’ the Blues
(1970), a collaboration with Carl Perkins. Insufficient sales, however, saw Columbia drop the band in 1971 – which was enough to see Ferguson leave for new pastures before the remainder of NRBQ signed to Kama Sutra as they continued a lengthy recording career.

After a quieter three decades, Ferguson rejoined his best-known act for a 35th anniversary blowout in 2004, and was thereafter diagnosed in early 2008 with the lung cancer that was to end his life. In his career, Steve Ferguson had also played with Eric Clapton, plus his own bands, The Midwest Creole Ensemble and Brother Stephen & The Humanitarians.

One-time NRBQ manager, wrestler Lou Albano, died just a week later at the age of seventy-six. The band’s later drummer, Tom Ardolino, died in January 2012.

Saturday 10

Stephen Gately

(Dublin, Ireland, 17 March 1976)

Boyzone

Just months before his popular group were due to return with a new album, the pop world instead fell into mourning over the sudden death, apparently in his sleep, of Boyzone singer Stephen Gately, following a night out on the Mediterranean island of Majorca.

Gately and his Boyzone pals – ‘singers’ Ronan Keating, Mikey Graham, Keith Duffy and Shane Lynch – had first gained attention in their homeland via a frankly bizarre (and non-singing) dance routine on the RTE television hour
The Late, Late Show
in 1993. Despite having been plainly selected by impresario Louis Walsh for their looks, as opposed to any particular ability, Boyzone nonetheless slowly began to outsell natural peers Take That, eventually usurping them as the United Kingdom’s top pop pin-ups. The quintet went on to chalk up a record-shattering sixteen consecutive UK Top Five singles – including six number ones – between 1994 and 2000. The biggest of these, ‘No Matter What’, became a 1998 million-seller – but such was the measure of Boyzone’s popularity that it really wouldn’t have mattered had they released an extract from James Joyce’s
Ulysses
to a production-line backbeat.

In 1999 – following several crass and protracted media revelations about his sexual persuasion – Gately left the group for a shortlived solo career, charting a Top Ten album,
New Beginning
(2000), and three subsequent hit singles, including the somewhat-pointed title cut.

The singer – who had taken to the West End stage before the inevitable Boyzone reunion – had entered into a civil partnership with businessman Andrew Cowles in 2006, and it was while staying with his partner at their holiday home that Gately suddenly passed away. Although it was apparent that he and Cowles, plus another guest, had consumed alcohol and cannabis on the previous evening, experts asserted that the thirty-three-year-old had died from an excess of fluid on his lungs (pulmonary oedema), while the singer’s family were quick to suggest that this was connected to a recurrence of a hereditary condition. Not everyone shared this view though, and even in death, Gately seemed unable to shake off trivialisation of his life: an ill-advised press article in which a
Daily Mail
columnist appeared to use the tragedy to question the morality of same-sex marriages was to generate a record number of complaints from all sectors of the public.

This, however, was in marked contrast to the heartfelt tributes paid to Stephen Gately by a variety of musicians from Elton John to U2 leader, Bono. Meanwhile, Boyzone returned with the number-one album
Brother
(2010), issued in tribute to their former colleague.

Monday 12

Dickie Peterson

(Grand Forks, North Dakota, 12 September 1946)

Blue Cheer

(Various acts)

Blue Cheer – the celebrated cult band from California – are often cited as the fathers of heavy metal, although, in truth, their music had its roots in blues and psychedelia. The band – apparently named after street slang for LSD – have been heavily endorsed by many, including rock musicians as far-reaching as Jim Morrison (The Doors) and Geddy Lee (Rush).

The lead singer and bass guitarist was Dickie Peterson, a boy from a musical family who’d previously fronted The Oxford Circle and wanted to make it in rock ‘n’ roll more than anything else in the world. With Blue Cheer gaining 1968 press-column inches for sounding more extreme than anything that had come before, it looked as though he was going to realise this dream. The band – dreamed up by Peterson’s Davis, California, friends Eric Albronda (drums, initial financing) and Jerry Russell (more initial financing) – relocated them selves to San Francisco. The move wasn’t purely for professional reasons; Peterson very quickly immersed himself into the city’s acid scene, moving on to heroin by the end of the decade.

Blue Cheer, now a power trio of Peterson, Leigh Stephens (guitar) and Paul Whaley (drums), scored their first and only Billboard chart hit with a rocked-up version of Eddie Cochran’s ‘Summertime Blues’ (1968, US Top Twenty) from their decent-selling debut album
Vincebus Eruptum.
Meanwhile, The Cheer’s live show soon established itself as the loudest in rock’s all-new ‘decibels’ game – The Who then deliberately upping
their
game to regain their position at the top of the dial. Others – like British newcomers Led Zeppelin – were to join in the fun, as rock went stadium-sized. (Peterson and company’s sonic groundbreak-ing was to prove more beneficial to the bands that followed them.)

A second record,
Outside Inside
(1968), surprisingly failed to monopolise on Blue Cheer’s good start, perhaps because of their perceived over-reliance on standards; however, the band’s lack of continued commercial success was probably as much due to the vast number of line-up changes they were to undergo throughout their career. Thus, Blue Cheer continued to ‘be’, though their presence was fairly anonymous after the third album. Several members, including Peterson, made a stirring nineties comeback with Blue Cheer, the door reopened by the patronage of a variety of grunge figureheads. Blue Cheer – who had toured on-and-off for over four decades – cut a final album (paradoxically) entitled
What Doesn’t Kill You…
(2007), just before the singer’s death. Dickie Peterson passed on from liver cancer at a hospital in Erkelenz, Germany.

Blue Cheer founder Jerry Russell died of MDS in 2005.

Saturday 17

Kazuhiko Kato

(Kyoto, Japan, 21 March 1947)

The Sadistic Mika Band

(Various acts)

Kazuhiko Kato was a popular face in Japanese electronic music from the late sixties onwards; his Sadistic Mika Band were one of the few far-Eastern popular music acts to achieve international recognition during the mid-seventies. With four other university friends, Kato had originally formed The Folk Crusaders, a band that developed a cult following from 1967. But it’s for his work with The Sadistic Mika Band that Kato is most widely recognised. This group was reportedly named after the ‘unapologetic humour’ of his distinctive first wife, singer Mika Fukui, who co-founded the project with him.

The Sadistic Mika Band had noted success in the west, particularly with the albums
Kurofune
(1974) and
Hot! Menu
(1975), which saw them become the first-ever Japanese band to tour Europe (as guests of Roxy Music). They also made a rare television appearance on BBC prog-showcase,
The Old Grey Whistle Test.
Fukui clearly developed a taste for both the menu and the novel surroundings, as she shortly thereafter divorced Kato to become a television chef in Britain. The band then briefly became The Sadistics before break-ing apart in 1980. Kato continued to enjoy success at home, issuing many albums and working with the likes of Ryuichi Sakamoto. In recent years, he had formed a new band, Vitamin-Q, while also producing music for a variety of media, including movies and computer games.

Kazuhiko Kato suffered increasingly from depression as he grew older. His second wife, lyricist Kazumi Yasui, had died prematurely from lung cancer in 1994, and the musician himself felt that his own declining health made him less capable of making the music he loved. Shockingly, Kato was found hanged in a Nagano hotel, along with suicide notes to his friends.

Tuesday 20

Liam Maher

(Camden, London, 17 July 1968)

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