The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (409 page)

Mike Starr was detained during February 2011 for the possession of the controlled substances Opana and Xanax, and during his arrest the musician apparently attempted the ‘do you know who I am?’ routine. Despite being bailed out of jail, Starr’s time had run out: in a scenario that echoed spookily the death of his former friend, Starr’s body was found at his Salt Lake City residence – he had overdosed on under-the-counter painkillers.

Golden Oldies #131

Bernard St Clair Lee

(Bernard St Clair Lee Calhoun Henderson - San Francisco, California, 24 April 1944)

The Hues Corporation

Bernard St Clair Lee was the original baritone vocalist with early soul/disco stars, The Hues Corporation. This vocal troupe - Lee, Hubert Ann Kelly (soprano) and Fleming Williams (tenor) - was put together by manager Waldo Holmes, who also composed the group’s worldwide-smash ‘Rock the Boat’ (1974, US number one; UK Top Ten). This enormous dance hit put The Hues Corporation (briefly) at the centre of all things ‘disco’, the group having already cemented their status with an appearance in the movie
Blacula
(1972). They then completed a decent couple of years with a Top Twenty album and a further hit in ‘Rockin’ Soul’ (1974, US Top Twenty; US R & B Top Ten; UK Top Forty). But later recordings, such as the weaker ‘Love Corporation’ (1975, US Hot 100), suggested that the group’s novelty was not going to last. Live appearances kept The Hues Corporation breathing until the
Saturday Night
Fever-boom of 1978 saw the trio effectively blown out of the disco pond for good.

On 8 March 2011, Bernard Lee - who had recently been performing with a new line-up of the group - died from natural causes. He is reunited with Williams, who is believed to have passed away back in 1992. Kelly, who had become a minister, read the eulogy at the former singer’s memorial.

Golden Oldies #132

Owsley Stanley

(Augustus Owsley Stanley - Kentucky, 19 January 1935)

The Grateful Dead

Augustus Owsley Stanley III earns a small plot here in
The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars
not so much for his musical contributions, but for his connections to hippydom’s most infamous band -and for some extremely ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ achievements of his own.

During the late sixties and seventies, Stanley split his time between working as a sound engineer for The Grateful Dead and cooking up LSD - pastimes that were probably not 100% mutually exclusive. Originally employed as a professional dancer, Stanley got into acid while working as a television technician. If rumours are to be believed, he remains the only person to have beaten police charges following a raid, then successfully suing for the return of his ‘cooking equipment’. (This tale is partially recounted in the 1976 Steely Dan song, ‘Kid Charlemagne’.) Stanley began working with The Dead in 1966, designing the band’s ‘Steal Your Face’ logo, and engineering much of their work from 1973 while - somehow - also working also as the band’s financier. He became known for his live ‘sonic journals’ of other counterculture bands, such as Big Brother & The Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Taj Mahal.

Owsley Stanley - who retired to the Australian Bush during the nineties - was recovering from cancer treatment when he was killed in an automobile crash in Queensland on 13 March 2011.

See also
‘Pigpen’ McKernan (
March 1973); Keith Godchaux (
July 1980); BrentMydland (
July 1990); Jerry Garcia (
August 1995); Vince Welnick (
June 2006)

Monday 14

Todd Cerney

(Detroit, Michigan, 8 August 1953)

He was known to many as ‘the rock doctor’ – the man whose skills could turn any draft into a great song – yet, ultimately there were no physicians able to prevent Todd Cerney’s early death.

Having moved to Nashville as a young man, Cerney’s work always retained the country hues with which he surrounded himself as a sound engineer. It was clear from his songwriting, however, that the guitarist had more to offer than mere technical assistance, and by the mid-eighties, he was lending his compositional talents to a host of artists and writers. Cerney secured his first country hit, albeit a minor one, with The Kendalls’ ‘Too Late’ (a 1986 collaboration with Nancy Montgomery), but didn’t have to wait long for his first gold record – Restless Heart’s ‘I’ll Still Be Loving You’ (1987, US Country number one; US Top Forty), which became ASCAP’s Country Song of the Year. There was also considerable interest in Cerney’s skills in the rock world, too, stadium-friendly acts such as Cheap Trick, Loverboy and Bad English all recording Cerney co-compositions. His biggest-ever hit, however, was another country chart-topper in Steve Holy’s ‘Good Morning Beautiful’, a co-write with Zack Lyle that again secured the ASCAP award in 2001. The ubiquitous Cerney later brought the pairing of Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers back into the studio for the first time in twenty-five years to record his ‘Tell Me That You Love Me’ (2009).

Todd Cerney – whose songs were also recorded by The Four Tops, Etta James and Aretha Franklin – died in Nashville from melanoma, the disease first diagnosed after he suffered a brain tumour at the end of 2010.

Tuesday 15

Smiley Culture

(David Victor Emmanuel - South London, England, 10 February 1963)