The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (422 page)

Leonard Dillon

(Port Antonio, Jamaica, 9 December 1942)

The Ethiopians

(Various acts)

Singer Leonard Dillon was the founder of influential Jamaican ska/rocksteady combo, The Ethiopians. Always a larger-than-life character - and a very active political figure - Dillon originally recorded mento and calypso roots (often under the pseudonym of ‘Jack Sparrow’). He eschewed these roots, however, to pursue more fashionable styles of music with his fellow Ethiopians, Stephen Taylor and guitarist Aston Morris. Brought up as a Christian, Dillon also developed strong Rastafarian ties in adulthood.

Under the guidance of the ubiquitous Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd, The Ethiopians became one of the leading new groups out of Jamaica, scoring an international hit with ‘Train to Skaville’ (1967, UK Top Forty), by which time Morris had been replaced by Albert Griffiths. The group worked with a number of other big-name producers including Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry and Duke Reid, recording other dynamic hits such as ‘The Whip’ (1967) and ‘Engine 54’ (1968), both of which charted well in Jamaica. The death of Taylor in a 1975 traffic accident saw a temporary end to The Ethiopians, Dillon taking a hiatus from the music industry, though reforming the group with Harold Bishop and Neville Duncan during the eighties.

An all-new (and mixed-gender) line-up also appeared at the turn of the millennium with the highly praised
Tuffer Than Stone
album (1999). Leonard Dillon died from a combination of prostate cancer and a brain tumour at his daughter’s home in Kingston, Jamaica, on 28 September 2011.

Golden Oldies #149

Sylvia Robinson

(Sylvia Vanderpool - New York City, 6 March 1936)

A serious mover and shaker who straddled the worlds of R & B and hip-hop, Sylvia Robinson is also remembered for her work as a singer, writer and as one of popular music’s first and foremost female producers.

Robinson recorded from the age of fourteen, claiming her first hit record with guitar tutor, MacHouston Baker (as Mickey & Sylvia) - the catchy ‘Love is Strange’ (1956, US Top Twenty; US R & B number one). Although highly active in the music industry (she founded the All Platinum label in 1968 with husband Joe Robinson), as a singer she did not chart again for almost two decades. The thirty-seven-year-old Sylvia - under her first name once more - returned with one of that ear’s most notable hits, the brilliantly seductive ‘Pillow Talk’ (1973, US Top Three; US R & B number one; UK Top Twenty), on which she also played guitar. This song had been rejected by Al Green as being too risqué, and Robinson’s rendition had to be carefully edited for its ‘moaning’; unlike Donna Summer’s similarly provocative ‘Love To Love You Baby’ almost three years later, ‘Pillow Talk’ never received a radio ban.

When her own hits dried up (for the want of a better expression), Robinson wrote and oversaw key tunes for Shirley Goodman - ‘Shame, Shame, Shame’ (1975, US Top Twenty; UK Top Ten; US R & B/Germany number one) - The Moments and Donnie Elbert, among many other artists. In her forties, Robinson survived lawsuits and litigation to become something of a pioneer in rap, she and her husband founding the groundbreak-ing Sugar Hill Records. This label, of course, issued what is widely regarded as the first hip-hop crossover hit, The Sugarhill Gang’s Chic-sampling ‘Rapper’s Delight’ (1979, US Top Forty; US R & B/UK Top Five; Netherlands number one). (The record has since shifted some eight million units worldwide.) Robinson is similarly credited as a guiding force behind the success of rap’s first ‘conscience’ hit, her signings Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five’s ‘The Message’ (1982, UK Top Ten). Sugar Hill folded in the late eighties, and Robinson went on to form a new label Bon Ami, to more moderate success.

On 29 September 2011, Sylvia Robinson died from congestive heart failure in Secaucus, New Jersey, having survived her former husband by eleven years.

Golden Oldies #150

Marv Tarplin

(Atlanta, Georgia, 13 June 1941)

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles

Completing three days that had marked the demise of three very contrasting but influential figures, Marv Tarplin also bade us farewell. Tarplin was, for some fifteen years, the main guitarist with Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, and regarded as one of the key players in Motown’s recording history.

Robinson first spotted Tarplin playing with The Primettes (later, of course, The Supremes), but managed to lure him away to join The Miracles in 1958. Tarplin contributed to most of the group’s hits, starting with their fourth release, ‘Shop Around’ (1961, US number two; US R & B number one) - which gave Motown its first million-selling record. The guitarist co-composed a number of key Miracles recordings, including the Top Twenty ‘The Tracks of My Tears’ (1965, US R & B number two; UK Top Ten) and ‘Going to a Go-Go’ (1965, US R & B number two). Tarplin, continuing his fertile relationship with Robinson, also co-wrote many of Marvin Gaye’s Motown hits, among them the R & B chart-toppers ‘I’ll Be Doggone’ (1965, US Top Ten) and ‘Ain’t That Peculiar’ (1965, US Top Ten), plus ‘One More Heartache’ (1966, US Top Forty; US R & B Top Five), the latter upon which he also contributed his distinctive guitar. Tarplin remained loyal to Robinson after the latter’s 1973 split from The Miracles, playing on the gold-certified ‘Cruisin’’ (1979, US/US R & B Top Five) and the worldwide smash ‘Bein’ With You’ (1981, US number two; US R & B/UK number one). He also remained a part of Robinson’s tour ensemble into the millennium.

Marv Tarplin - a multiple BMI award-winner - died on 30 September 2011 after a brief illness at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada.

See also
Ronnie White (
August 1995)

OCTOBER

Sunday 2

Mikko Laine

(Finland, 10 June 1981)

The Sole Remedy

One of the year’s most bizarre and unfortunate accidents occurred at the ProgPower Europe Festival in Baarlo, Holland, at the start of October 2011.

The Sole Remedy were accomplished exponents of ‘melancholic’ prog-metal, and in Mikko Laine boasted a guitarist with real stage presence and control. The Finnish band had been together for more than a dozen years by the time they’d issued a second album,
Apoptosis,
in 2010. TSR had toured the album tirelessly during 2011, and a performance at ProgPower on 1 October had been well-attended and rapturously received by the group’s fans.

However, disaster struck at 1.30 am – some hours after the band’s performance – when Laine inexplicably decided to get some rest behind a parked equipment truck backstage. The guitarist reportedly fell asleep between the wheels of the vehicle, and was thus not visible to anyone: with a sickening predictability, the truck’s driver pulled away with Laine still asleep beneath the rig. The musician is thought to have died without ever having awakened.

Golden Oldies #151

Bert Jansch

(Herbert Jansch - Glasgow, Scotland, 3 November 1943)

Pentangle

(Various acts)

Noted for his ‘clawhammer’ style, guitarist Bert Jansch made his name in the London venues during the folk revival of the 1960s, having begun playing as a teenager at local Glasgow music clubs.

At the age of twenty-five, Jansch returned from travelling around Europe with his guitar to sell a tape of original material to Transatlantic Records in London. The resultant eponymous album (1965) shifted a remarkable 150,000 copies, and was thus quickly followed by further releases. At this stage in his career, Jansch was rubbing shoulders with a number of musical luminaries, including Davey Graham, Roy Harper, Paul Simon and - most significantly, perhaps - John Renbourn, with whom he shared a flat and frequently recorded. The pair formed the band Pentangle in 1967, recruiting Jacqui McShee (vocals), Danny Thompson (double-bass) and Terry Cox (drums). This highly respected group played its first sellout concert at the Royal Albert Hall and issued a debut, charting album with
The Pentangle
(1968). More successful still was the follow-up
Basket of Light
(1969, UK Albums Top Five), a now-classic recording on which Jansch also contributed dulcimer and vocals. However, the band’s decision to include extensive versions of traditional folk tunes in their following releases ultimately proved to be their commercial undoing.