The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (65 page)

Tillman’s health started to decline in the mid sixties; she married Contours singer Billy Gordon and left the spotlight to become a secretary at Motown. She died in Detroit, a victim of sickle cell anaemia and lupus.

See also
Gladys Horton (
Golden Oldies #125)

Monday 7

Carl White

(Los Angeles, California, 21 June 1932)

The Rivingtons (The Limelighters)

Carl White was, with Rocky Wilson, the co-composer of punchy pop classics ‘Papa Oom Mow Mow’ (1962, recorded by artists as diverse as The Crystals and Gary Glitter) and ‘The Bird is the Word’ (1963) – both of which were hits for his knockabout vocal troupe, The Rivingtons, an R & B act that drew much the same audience as The Coasters. White had found success with a number of incarnations of the band during the late fifties, initially as The Limelighters – fronted by charismatic lead singer Thurston Harris. Upon his departure, White took over lead duties (to lesser effect), fronting the band when it hit the revival circuit. Never a particularly healthy individual, Carl White died aged forty-seven of acute tonsillitis at his Los Angeles home. Another Rivingtons singer, Al Frazier, died in 2005.

FEBRUARY

Tuesday 19

Bon Scott

(Ronald Belford Scott - Forfar, Scotland, 9 July 1946)

AC/DC

(Fraternity)

(The Valentines)

(The Spectors)

A former struggling musician briefly turned wild-living chauffeur to Australian rockers AC/DC, Bon Scott could have been the result of a comic writer’s imagination, so regularly and with such panache did he role-play the lifestyle of a consummate rock ‘n’ roll frontman. With his new employers, Scott rapidly cemented a hard-drinking, womanizing reputation. So much so, that by 1974 (just a year into the band’s career) he genuinely
had
replaced original singer Dave Evans – a performer considered too glam for the band’s image. Scott was the ideal foil to fellow Scot guitarist Malcolm Young and his school-uniform-sporting brother Angus (lead guitar), as AC/DC’s burlesque-infused rock ‘n’ roll took them from Aussie pubs to the world’s stadia within the space of four years. Once a bagpiper with his father’s band, the incendiary vocalist had fronted a variety of Australian poprock outfits since the early sixties (his family had relocated in the fifties), the best-known of which was perhaps The Valentines, who hit the Australian charts with 1969’s ‘My Old Man’s a Groovy Old Man’ and 1970’s ‘Juliette’. In 1973, a serious motorbike crash appeared to have curbed the singer’s career in music. Not so: Bon Scott’s ceaseless input into AC/DC’s sound and songwriting, not to mention his own performance, was set to turn the band into one of the biggest-grossing rock acts by the end of the seventies. Piledriving albums
High Voltage
and
TNT
(1975),
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
(1976),
Let There be Rock
(1977) and
Powerage
(1978) were to enjoy ever-increasing international sales as the decade ended. By 1980 the AC/DC juggernaut hit the USA.

Bon Scott: His destiny was in his hands

Earlier in his music career, Scott and his Valentines bandmates had been arrested for possession of drugs – a heavily publicized event that coloured his reputation for the rest of his life and beyond. By the time AC/DC became a marketable concern, Scott was regularly indulging in many of the rock world’s other forbidden pleasures. The singer’s lyrics for group standards like ‘Go Down’ and ‘Whole Lotta Rosie’ (both 1977) were not written from imagination: the former was inspired by a groupie known only as ‘Ruby Lips’, the latter a paean to a vast Tasmanian woman with whom Scott had frolicked in Melbourne. (Running into ‘Rosie’ again some time later, Scott was said to have been somewhat disappointed that she had slimmed down considerably from her former ‘42–39–56’ dimensions.)

‘It’s like losing a member of your family - that’s the only way to describe it.’

Angus Young, AC/DC

While the moral majority may have objected to these apparently misogynistic lyrics, fans saw the humour and lapped up AC/DC live; they achieved Billboard Top Twenty status for 1979’s
Highway To Hell
as a result. With metal and hard rock enjoying something of a renaissance in the UK as well, the band found themselves sucked into a relentless schedule of touring and recording that further encouraged the drink/drug binges that had become synonymous with the band – and particularly Bon Scott. AC/DC were back in Britain in February 1980, celebrating
Highway to Hell
having been certified platinum. On the evening of the 19th, the unpredictable Scott eschewed his band’s plans and sought instead the company of old friend and drinking buddy Alistair Kennear, the pair setting off on a bender to end all benders in London’s Camden Town. Somehow finding their way back to Kennear’s home in Dulwich, the pair continued the binge into the night, Scott eventually collapsing unconscious in his car. Believing his friend would sleep it off overnight, Kennear – in no fit state himself to take further responsibility – made the mistake of leaving Scott outside in his vehicle, where the temperature descended rapidly. The following morning, Kennear awoke to find Scott still apparently paralytic and, now fearing for his safety, drove him to hospital. It was to no avail – Bon Scott was pronounced dead on arrival, believed to have died of alcohol poisoning – having ‘drunk himself to death’ according to a coroner’s report. It was later proved, however, that not only had he twisted his neck in his sleep, asphyxiating himself, he had also inhaled his own vomit while unconscious. It was a fittingly rock ‘n’ roll death for a man who had lived the most rock ‘n’ roll life imaginable. Scott was flown home to his adopted city of Fremantle, Australia, where he was buried on 1 March 1980. (For its part,
Top of the Pops
– finger ever on the pulse – managed to play a tape of the band’s recent performance of ‘Touch Too Much’ without mentioning the singer’s death.)

Far from calling it a day, AC/DC called upon the services of singer Brian Johnson, formerly of British pub-rock hitmakers Geordie. He was no Bon Scott, but Johnson possessed a definite stage presence, and, like his predecessor, a voice that could strip paint at a hundred paces. He has fronted the band ever since, seeing world sales for AC/DC’s albums exceed 150 million – the biggest seller by far being Johnson’s first album,
Back In Black
(1980), a set dedicated to Scott’s memory.

Thursday 21

Janet Vogel Rapp

(Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 10 June 1942)

The Skyliners

For many years a manic depressive, Janet Vogel Rapp committed suicide by carbon-monoxide poisoning at her home, leaving a husband and young family. The R & B harmony vocalist had enjoyed a measure of success with The Skyliners, for whom she’d registered a number of minor Billboard pop hits including ‘Since I Don’t Have You’ (1959) – a record that reached number one in her home town. The track had a more far-reaching impact in that Phil Spector cited it as a major influence on his ‘wall of sound’ production style during the sixties. Vogel – an original member of The El Rios before her time with The Skyliners – played little part in popular music after her second group disbanded.

Skyliners vocalist Joe VerScharen died in November 2007.

Saturday 23

Jacob ‘Killer’ Miller

(Mandeville, Jamaica, 4 May 1952)

Inner Circle