The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (396 page)

With fifteen studio albums to their name, the Wilsons kept laying down the anthems into the millennium, although Charlie was by now focusing on a solo career. (In truth, The Gap Band were by the end of the century considered a nostalgia act anyway.) Robert Wilson’s death–following a massive heart attack at his Los Angeles home–finally brought an end to The Gap Band after more than forty years in the industry.

Country/rock drummer Harrell ‘Buddy’ Jones–a key writer and producer of The Gap Band’s debut album–died just six months later in Oklahoma.

Golden Oldies #121

Mac Tontoh

(Kweku Adabanka Tonto–Ashanti, Ghana, 25 December 1940)

Osibisa

The birthplace of expatriate Afro-Caribbean pop/dance unit Osibisa can be pinpointed to 1950s Ghana. Here, a clutch of highlife musicians began a musical legacy that was to last over half a century. At the centre was saxophonist Teddy Osei, who invited his younger brother Mac Tontoh (trumpet) to play in a group called The Comets (formerly The Star Gazers): this embryonic line-up managed an African hit with ‘Pete, Pete’ (1958). The group unfortunately stagnated after this early success.

The young Tontoh looked up to Osei, and in 1964 he was excited when Osei invited him to London where he’d been sent on a music scholarship. Osei had plans for another new act, initially called Cat’s Paw. With the influx of a number of new faces, this band finally became Osibisa. Dozens of musicians were to come and go during the band’s long existence, but among the earliest names were Sol Amarfio (a Ghanaian drummer from the previous acts), Lasisi Amao (tenor sax/percussion), plus a clutch of West Indian musicians including Spartacus R (Roy Bedeau–bass/vocals), Wendell Richardson (lead guitar) and Robert Bailey (keyboard). And the group’s exciting fusion of world, highlife, pop and soul was to catch on, Osibisa finding success in Britain and America, where their 1971 albums
Osibisa
and
Woyaya
performed well. In 1976, Osibisa saw their much-played ‘Sunshine Day’ and ‘Dance the Body Music’ cuts become Top Forty hits in Britain, although many diehard fans felt that these chart-friendly recordings were compromising the group’s ‘African’ sound. Despite the purists’ doubts, audiences turned out in droves–particularly in Africa and Australasia, where Osibisa were demigods. Dramatic cultural changes in the Western market saw a decline in sales in the UK and US, however, and Osibisa finally returned to their roots in Ghana, where they put much of their experience and wealth back into promoting young African artists.

Osibisa underwent many changes in line-up, but issued over thirty studio albums of expansive and varied music in a three-decade career. Mac Tontoh– who also went by the nickname Kwaku Bronya–died in an Accra hospital on 16 August 2010 from complications of diabetes. His death came just over two weeks after the passing of Spartacus R, from acute myeloid leukaemia.

Other members of Osibisa to have passed away include guitarist Paul Golly (1977), percussionistDarko Adams ‘Potato’ (1995) and keyboardist Kiki Djan (2004).

Wednesday 18

Kenny Edwards

(Santa Monica, California, 10 February 1946)

The Stone Poneys

Bryndle

Budding musician Kenny Edwards was a keen and natural student of music, and thus fortunate to be brought up in an environment epicen-tric to a fusion of sounds and styles during the sixties and seventies. But the industry was not always kind to this talented guitarist.

Soaked in folk, rock ‘n’ roll and bluegrass, Edwards found a kindred spirit in Californian newcomer Bobby Kimmel, an Arizona-born rhythm guitarist he’d befriended in 1964. Kimmel, in turn, knew photogenic and powerful-voiced Linda Ronstadt, the trio soon performing as rock/blues unit The Stone Poneys. The group quickly became the toast of the Los Angeles club scene, Ronstadt catching the eye with her barefoot performances and the two guitarists gradually gaining some renown as songwriters. Matters changed considerably after The Stone Poneys were signed with Capitol in 1966, however. Despite Kimmel and Edwards’s composing prowess, it was to be for Mike Nesmith’s ‘Different Drum’ (1967, Billboard/Cash Box Top Twenty) that the group were to be most readily associated. With their label taking a firm position, the song was arranged inhouse and without any of Edwards and Kimmel’s input: this eventuality occurred more than once–and on occasion without the musicians being notified. So, even though records were now starting to shift, Edwards and Kimmel’s biggest problem had become the maelstrom of interest surrounding Ronstadt–and a complete lack of respect for their abilities. As one could have predicted, Ronstadt was gradually pushed to the forefront, and then, finally, away from the The Stone Poneys. With further creative progress thereby stalling, Edwards sensed the end and left for India during the recording of the band’s last album. Ronstadt, inevitably, went on to a solo career–and massive success–during the 1970s. She and Edwards remained on good terms, the guitarist touring and recording with Ronstadt several times during the seventies. (There was to be further poor treatment, however, with Edwards’s and Kimmel’s compositions latterly credited to the rhythm guitarist only–although with Capitol’s direction, it is already hard to determine who was responsible for what.)

Edwards enjoyed patchy success with his next project, Bryndle, a similarly styled group featuring singer Karla Bonoff and soon-to-be-successful songwriter Andrew Gold that recorded one album for A&M. Edwards had a far lower profile career thereafter, playing mainly as a session man, although Bryndle reemerged in the early nineties for a selection of dates.

Just eight years after the issue of his long-awaited eponymous solo album–and one year after its follow-up
Resurrection Road
(2009)–Kenny Edwards passed away from the blood disorder TTP.

See also
Andrew Gold (e June 2011)

Thursday 19

Michael Been

(Oklahoma City, 17 March 1950)

The Call

Although they were never to enjoy a US or UK Top Forty hit, The Call were a popular eighties rock band, consistently selling out live dates and often in rotation on MTV. Lead singer, guitarist and founder was Michael Been, an Oklahoma native determined to see his band succeed. Fans of the UK music scene, the Santa Cruz-based group recorded their debut album in Britain and, fittingly, it was UK figurehead Peter Gabriel who decided to book them as support during his 1982 tour. The Call’s biggest single was ‘Let the Day Begin’ (1989, US number fifty-one; US Mainstream number one; UK Top Fifty). The group went on to find favour with U2 front man Bono, who contributed to other Call tracks.

Michael Been’s son Robert Levon Been has experienced comparable success with his own rock band, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. It was in his capacity as the soundman to his son’s group that Been Sr passed away from a heart attack at the Pukkelpop Festival in Hasselt, Belgium: he was sixty years old.

Just twenty-four hours later, Pukkelpop witnessed another, unrelated tragedy when Charles Haddon–singer with rated British synthpop band Ou Est Le Swimming Pool-–died after plungingfrom a telecoms mast following his band’s performance.

SEPTEMBER

Friday 3

Mike Edwards

(Ealing, London, England, 31 May 1948)

Electric Light Orchestra

(Various acts)

For the group’s first three-to-four years of existence, Mike Edwards was an important live performer with the Electric Light Orchestra. The Royal Academy-trained cellist hadn’t considered rock ‘n’ roll as a musical option until the Jeff Lynne-led unit became the first–and most consistently successful–act to blend pop with classical styles. And although Edwards’s time with ELO was not long (he left the band of his own volition in 1975), it encompassed their rise to international stardom.

Edwards contributed a great deal to
ELOII
(1972), which featured the band’s popular cover of ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ (1973, UK Top Ten). The cellist was also present for its follow-up album,
On the Third Day,
which contained the British hits ‘Showdown’ (1973) and ‘MaMa-Ma-Belle’ (1974–featuring Marc Bolan on guitar). Edwards’s final contribution to ELO’s recorded work was on the first of the group’s many concept albums,
Eldorado
(1975), which finally provided an American Top Ten hit in ‘Can’t Get It Out of My Head’ (1975). As befitting the era, extravagant costumes and props (including his exploding cello) accompanied live performances, but Edwards soon grew tired of touring and left ELO, to be replaced by Melvyn Gale.

Mike Edwards–who had changed his name to Swami Deva Pramada (having joined the Rajneesh faith)– died in circumstances almost created for inclusion in
The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars.
The musician was apparently driving a van along the A381 close to his home in Totnes, Devon, when a six-hundred kilogram bale of hay was diverted into his path, hitting the vehicle’s roof and causing Edwards to crash into an oncoming car. The cellist–having suffered a fractured skull and spine–died instantly, although the other driver escaped without injury. The tragedy represents perhaps music’s strangest ‘rural’ death since Merle Watson (
October 1985).