The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (377 page)

Matters seemed to proceed more smoothly with Fasano’s next band, prog-metallers Prophet, who signed with RCA, issuing an eponymous album in 1985. This time, however, Fasano had to share lead-singer duties with drummer Ted Poley, who went on to brief notoriety with Danger Danger. The nineties began a shade better for the seemingly ill-fated Fasano, the singer reuniting with Sambora for his solo outing
Stranger in this Town
(1991), and also providing back-up vocals for Jon Bon Jovi’s second solo album
Destination Anywhere
(1997). Although the singer remained in demand for session work, a further attempt to resurrect interest in Message – via both the earlier record and a new set,
Fine Line
(Escape, 1998) – fell largely on deaf ears (despite once again highlighting the singer’s fine voice).

Dean Fasano passed away from coronary artery disease at his home in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

Monday 14

Chris Feinstein

(Nashville, Tennessee, 26 May 1967)

Ryan Adams & The Cardinals

(Various acts)

Chris Feinstein – the revered bassist with Ryan Adams’s band, The Cardinals – made an early start to his music career, experiencing the rigours of touring with a variety of bands when just a rock-obsessed teenager. It was not until the bass guitarist moved to New York in the early nineties, however, that he was to turn his attention to the studio.

Feinstein teamed with producer/engineer Michael Tudor in East Village, the pair overseeing a series of well-received rock and alternative recordings, including releases by Jody Porter (ex-Fountains Of Wayne), Albert Hammond Jr (The Strokes) and Moby. Now a multi-instrumentalist, Feinstein also played on records by Neil Finn (ex-Crowded House), Patti Griffin and Minnie Driver. In 2006, the musician was headhunted by Ryan Adams to replace his original bassist, Catherine Popper. Feinstein – soon known as ‘Spacewolf’ – was to become a popular member of the group. He appeared on the records
Easy Tiger
(2007, Billboard Top Ten),
Follow the LightsEP
(2007) and
Cardinology
(2009), while also singing back-up vocals to Adams and, on the front man’s departure in March 2009, new bandleader, Gin Wigmore.

Chris Feinstein was found deceased at his Manhattan apartment on the morning of 14 December. Having suffered severe back pain issues over the past year, the musician had been prescribed medication, and it is believed that the combination of this, plus an over-the-counter remedy may have caused his death. According to his mother, Feinstein had been unable to summon help and his passing should not be viewed as suicide.

Sunday 20

Brittany Murphy

(Brittany Anne Bertolotti - Atlanta, Georgia, 10 November 1977)

(Blessed Soul)

Undoubtedly better known for her highprofile roles in movies such as
Clueless
(1995) and
8 Mile
(2002 – the acclaimed vehicle for rap giant Eminem), actress and singer Brittany Murphy was widely rated as a performer from her childhood, having landed key roles in television series at fourteen years old.

Murphy’s inclusion here is due to her time spent recording as a member of the Christian pop band Blessed Soul, with fellow actor Eric Balfour, whom she met while making the Sunday TV hour
Kids Incorporated
during the early nineties, and also due to her late collaboration with respected UK producer/DJ Paul Oakenfold. The latter’s punchy ‘Faster Kill Pussycat’ (2006) gave Murphy a Top Ten single in Britain and a US club number one. (In an acting capacity, Murphy also featured in promotional videos for Wheatus, Tears For Fears and Luscious Jackson.)

In December 2009, Brittany Murphy was discovered unconscious by firefighters at the Los Angeles home that she shared with her mother and her husband, the British screenwriter Simon Monjack. Attempts to resuscitate the performer failed and Murphy – having gone into cardiac arrest – was pronounced dead at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Not unlike Chris Feinstein under a week beforehand, Murphy was thought to have died from a lethal combination of four different prescription and over-the-counter medications. These were believed to have been taken to stave off cold symptoms or respiratory infection, however quite why so many drugs were prescribed her for such minor ailments remains uncertain.

Monjack’s sudden death at the same address just five months later (reportedly from anaemia and pneumonia) prompted a reassessment of Murphy’s death, with the late actress’s father requesting further independent tests early in 2012.

Golden Oldies #104

James Gurley

(Detroit, Michigan, 22 December 1939)

Big Brother & The Holding Company

(Red Robin & The Worms)

(Various acts)

His career may not have been the longest, but it was certainly eventful, and, at one time, among the most scandalous.

‘His ol’ lady comes marching into my bedroom with the kid and the dog. An embarrassing situation.’

Janis plays down her affair with Gurley

Later to tangle (in more than one sense) with bluesy firebrand Janis Joplin, Detroit-born James Gurley had learned all about ‘danger’ as a boy, often performing as a human ‘hood ornament’ and risking serious injury as his father’s stunt car hurtled through flaming hoops and the like. Suffice to say, this was probably good grounding for his young adult life. Music was Gurley’s first love, the young guitarist literally running away from the circus to San Francisco with his wife Nancy in 1962. The keen musician was to meet some gentle people there - and one or two perhaps not-so-gentle. Gurley honed his abilities with a number of coffee-circuit blues artists, answering enthusiastically when the call came from Big Brother & The Holding Company in 1965. When the irrepressible Janis joined the band the following year, Gurley -before now a dependable and dedicated husband and father - left Nancy to shack up with the soon-to-be-iconic singer as the group’s debut Columbia album
Cheap Thrills
(1968) topped the US charts. (As if this weren’t having one’s cake and eating it too already, Nancy - who was to nurture a close friendship with Joplin afterward - somehow forgave them both and eventually took Gurley back.)

Then tragedy struck in 1970 when Gurley saw the death of both of his leading women from heroin overdoses. While the now-solo Janis’s highprofile demise (
October 1970)
was a huge shock to all around her and the music world at large, Nancy’s demise saw Gurley face a protracted lawsuit surrounding his involvement as provider and administerer of her drugs.

Escaping a custodial sentence that at one stage appeared inevitable, Gurley remarried and eventually returned to music in the early eighties in an unlikely fashion: he collaborated with newwave act Red Robin & The Worms, which featured his and Nancy’s son Hongo on drums. The virtuoso musician - dubbed ‘the first guitarist in space’ by an admiring Janis Joplin - was in attendance with surviving members of Big Brother as they reunited to play together at her inauguration into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. The guitarist guested for several other acts in his later career. James Gurley passed away following a heart attack at his home in Palm Desert, California, on 20 December 2009 - just two days short of his 70th birthday.

Thursday 24

Tim Hart

(Lincoln, England, 9 January 1948)

Steeleye Span

(Rattfinks)

Despite UK success during the 1970s, it was always likely to be a bumpy path for Steeleye Span, a band viewed often as too ‘pop’ for the folk purist, and too parochial for any discerning rock listener. Respect was generally reserved, however, for the work of Tim Hart, a well-regarded singer and multi-instrumentalist whose diverse talents elevated the Span’s sound above that of their nearest rivals. In his distinguished time with the band, Hart contributed acoustic and electric guitar, dulcimer, organ, five-string banjo, mandolin, bells, tabor and spoons – as well as his voice.

Originally a member of Rattfinks while at school in St Albans, Hart met and, in 1966, began working with pure-voiced folkie Maddy Prior – a musical acquaintance of emerging star Donovan Leitch. The pair recorded a pair of traditional folk collections before forming the backbone of Steeleye Span (the group’s name deriving from a fictional character in a trad tune). While the band faltered in making itself known, Hart and Prior worked on
Summer Solstice
(1971), a better-received album of duets, aided by the input of arranger Robert Kirby (whom Hart survived by under three months (
October 2009
)).