The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (397 page)

See also
Kelly Groucutt (
February 2009)

Wednesday 8

Rich Cronin

(West Roxbury, Massachusetts, 30 August 1974)

LFO

(Lyte Funkie Ones)

Richard Cronin was the founder of pop/rap hybrids LFO (aka Lyte Funkie Ones), a group that had originally broken on the German BMG label during the mid-nineties. By the end of the decade, a reinvented and revitalised Cronin–plus cohorts Brad Fischetti and Devin Lima (replacing Brian ‘Brizz’ Gillis)–were being touted as America’s ‘Next Big Thing’.

And, for a while, it appeared the hype was accurate: the teen-friendly LFO scored successive US Top Ten hits with the platinum ‘Summer Girls’ (1999, UK Top Twenty) and also ‘Girl On TV’ (2000, UK Top Ten), both extracted from their million-selling debut album. However, within the short time span before the release of their second record
Life Is Good
(2001), LFO lost ground to ‘harder’ pop/rap hybrids like Crazy Town, The Bloodhound Gang and O Town (the latter, ironically, managed by Cronin’s brother). Although another single ‘Every Other Time’ (2001, UK Top Forty) just about kept the trio afloat, it wasn’t long before LFO ceased to be.

As so often occurs within the industry, none of the former-members’ follow-up projects proved a striking success. In an attempt to shake off the ‘boy-band’ mantle, Cronin appeared on VH1 reality show
Mission: Man Band
in 2007; given that other contestants included members of N’Sync and Color Me Badd, it’s debatable how successful this move was. The following year, he released a solo collection
Billion Dollar Sound
(which failed to live up to the promise of its title) and had also formed the duo Loose Cannons with Doug Ray (ex-New York rap/rock act Bad Ronald). An attempt to reform LFO collapsed in 2009–although this was in no small part due to Cronin’s failing health.

Unbeknown to many, Rich Cronin’s complaints of severe headaches had been diagnosed as acute myelogenous leukaemia as long ago as 2005. The singer had been in remission since 2006, but he suffered a fatal stroke four years later.

Golden Oldies #122

John Fraga

(Detroit, Michigan, 1 July 1941)

The Rockets

(Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels)

When Mitch Ryder’s seminal garage act The Detroit Wheels hit the skids in 1972, former members Johnny ‘Bee’ Badanjek (vocals/drums/songwriting) and Jim McCarty (lead guitar) were fast to put together a similarly paced rock band called The Rockets: Marc Marcato soon joined on keyboards, with robust bassist John Fraga not far behind.

Progress was steady until the introduction of dynamic vocalist and front man David Gilbert (ex-Ted Nugent & The Amboy Dukes) in 1976. The reinvigorated Rockets thereupon released an excellent debut album,
Love Transfusion
(1977), which finally gained attention for the band beyond the boundaries of Michigan. The major national breakthrough came with
Turn Up the Radio
(1979), an airplay-friendlier collection that sprung an unlikely Top Forty hit with the band’s sprightly take on Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Oh Well’. During the recording of this album, however, Fraga–and ‘Fred’, his trusty Fender–was replaced by Muscle Shoal ‘Swamper’ David Hood, who played bass on several cuts.

Little is known of John Fraga’s history after he left The Rockets, but he is believed to have played with several Michigan bands, while remaining a willing tutor to local musicians keen to learn his method. The bassist–who is widely recalled for his robust playing style– passed away on 27 September 2010 following a heart attack.

Another Rockets bass player, Bobby Haralson, died during the nineties, while vocalist Gilbert passed on in 2001.

OCTOBER

Tuesday 5

Steve Lee

(Stefan Alois Lee–Zurich, Switzerland, 5 August 1963)

Gotthard

(Ayreon)

Anglo-Swiss singer Steve Lee was the front man of hard-rock exponents Gotthard, a band that had been stomping the boards for almost twenty years until his untimely death at just forty-seven years old.

Lee founded Gotthard (initially Forsale) with former Krokus bassist Chris von Ruhr during 1992; Lee was responsible for much of the songwriting on the band’s debut record that year–which sold 30,000 indigenous units to turn platinum. Their popularity saw Gotthard issue eight further albums between 1994 and 2009, each topping the Swiss rock charts. The band also opened frequently for major names such as AC/DC and Deep Purple. Such was his reputation that Lee was contacted to record vocals on
01011001
(2007)–the seventh album from ongoing prog-rock project Ayreon.

In August 2010, Steve Lee survived a car crash while vacationing in Italy: just weeks later, the singer’s luck ran out. Lee was killed instantly while motorcycling in Nevada–the similarities of both incidents coming as a huge shock to those around him. The front man died when his bike was clipped by another that had been hit by a semi-trailer between Las Vegas and Mesquite. His girlfriend Brigitte Voss-Balzarini and Gotthard bassist Marc Lynn survived the incident.

William Shakespeare

(John Stanley Cave-Sydney, Australia, 19 November 1948)

(The Amazons)

Nope, not that one. This Australian glamrock variant was a performer only, though given the subsequent collapse of his career, he may well have regretted not writing his own sonnets. In short, William Shakespeare’s story was the archetypal ‘rags to riches to rags’ rock star tale.

Under his own less-flamboyant name, John Cave had been the singer with sixties pop also-rans The Amazons, a group that showcased the vocalist’s extraordinary falsetto. Picked up by songwriters and producers Harry Vanda and George Young (themselves formerly of Aussie exports, The Easybeats), Cave was removed from his band and recast as ‘William Shakespeare’. The singer was then drastically restyled and relaunched as an Alvin Stardust/Gary Glitter-styled glam vocalist by the duo, who had recently returned from the UK where such ostentatious pop was at its peak. (At one point, the pair even saw their protégé as a potential lead for AC/DC–ie, the hard-rock act recently started by Young’s brothers, Malcolm and Angus.)

Shakespeare looked like he had everything that was required to make the perfect teen-bait. Although the singer had shown interest in writing his own material, Vanda and Young took control of compositions (and pretty much everything else), writing his singles ‘Can’t Stop Myself From Loving You’ (1974, Australia number two) and ‘My Little Angel’ (1975, Australia number one), both of which earned him silver discs at home. (The singer’s success did not translate internationally.) However, with the Australian music industry seemingly conquered, Shakespeare’s career faltered dramatically when he was found guilty of having slept with a fifteen-year-old fan. The titles of his previous hits thus developed something of a pallor to them and the singer–suddenly a pariah within the industry–saw his following 45s tank outside the Top Fifty. Shakespeare was subsequently dropped by his label.

Despite an attempted comeback as ‘Billy Shake’ in 1990, audiences were not to be fooled by the further change in identity. By the end of the decade, the singer was near-destitute and living in a ticket kiosk at a rugby club. Shakespeare’s life would likely have been a great deal shorter had he not been ‘rescued’ by former Go-Betweens drummer Lindy Morrison, who ran a charity concerned with assisting artists who had fallen on hard times. As it was, William Shakespeare–who had issues with alcohol and depression throughout his life–passed away suddenly at his Sydney home from a heart attack, on the same day as Steve Lee.

Close…

Pete Wylie

(Wah!)

A writer of cracking postpunk pop tunes he may have been, but British singer Pete Wylie has had a few scrapes in his personal life. The Wah! stalwart earned a decent footnote in pop history for anthemic hits like ‘Story of the Blues’ (1982), ‘Come Back’ (1984) and ‘Sinful’ (1986), although he almost didn’t survive the first couple of years of the nineties after a near-fatal accident in his beloved hometown of Liverpool.