The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (69 page)

Having just formed his new act with Donna – the pair now wisely renamed Ghost – Keith Godchaux was killed when he lost control of his car in Marin County, California. Just like his predecessor, Godchaux died the year after leaving Grateful Dead. It was to continue to be a fated position in the band: his replacement, Brent Mydland, also died prematurely
(
July 1990),
as did Vince Welnick (
June 2006).

See also
Jerry Garcia (
August 1995); Owsley Stanley (
Golden Oldies #130). Ghost briefly featured celebrated guitarist John Cipollina, another to die ahead of his time (
May 1989).

John Bonham: Perhaps giving the bar staff his order?

SEPTEMBER

Thursday 25

John Bonham

(Redditch, Worcestershire, 31 May 1948)

Led Zeppelin

(Various acts)

If estimating the sales of the UK’s biggest rock band of its generation is tricky, hazarding a guess as to how many shots of vodka the UK’s biggest drummer, John ‘Bonzo’ Bonham, might have downed on his final night gives it a serious run for its money. Many believed that genial giant Bonham, a hell-raiser second perhaps only to good friend Keith Moon – whom he survived by just two years
(
September 1978)
– was always on course for an early grave.

Considered mature and good-natured, Bonham worked as a bricklayer before joining Birmingham-based act Terry & The Spiders at just sixteen years of age. With pub rockers The Band of Joy, he inadvertently teamed up for the first time with Led Zeppelin frontman-to-be Robert Plant. The classic line-up for Led Zep, though, only came together in 1968, virtuoso guitarist Jimmy Page recruiting the pair plus bass-player John Paul Jones to fashion a replacement roster for the defunct Yardbirds. (Page had originally wanted Procol Harum percussionist B J Wilson, who was unavailable, so Page had his manager, Peter Grant, inundate the phoneless Bonham’s local pub with telegrams until their man was secured!)

The rest is history: Led Zeppelin went on to crash sales and attendance records left, right and centre as they dominated the European and US rock-album markets for well over a decade. And not undeservedly – Zeppelin’s fusion of rock ‘n’ roll, blues, the ‘newer’ sound of heavy metal, plus good-time boogie, progressive and even (acceptable) stadium AOR, was not only innovative at the time, but brilliantly compelling and, needless to say, much copied since. With Page and Plant at the helm, the band could arguably boast rock’s most dynamic frontline. Meanwhile, Bonham’s primal drum style – occasionally playing with just his hands (see live solo ‘Moby Dick’) – coupled with Jones’s throbbing bass provided a powerful ‘engine’. Led Zeppelin’s early US tours were perhaps the most excessive rock music has ever witnessed: what began as innocent food fights in hotels degenerated into marathons of drink, drugs and rampant debauchery. Tales of young women ‘introduced’ to marine life proliferate, but although mountains of substances and girls were made available to the drummer, stories about Bonham tend to be more drink than drug- or sex-related. By the late seventies, however, it had all become far too easy and the novelty was fast wearing thin. Bonham had now developed a fairly hefty heroin habit and had, by his own admission, replaced practical jokes with belligerence when drunk. In 1977, he was seldom out of the papers – a charge of aggravated assault against a San Francisco security guard was followed by a car crash at his home that luckily resulted only in broken ribs.

In the late summer of 1980, a largely exhausted Zeppelin had, after a prolonged absence, begun writing new material. The previous album –
In through the Out Door
(1979) – had not been well received and relations in the Zep camp had turned sour. Jimmy Page, feeling it was high time to put things right and celebrate the band’s return from their hiatus, predictably decided to throw an impromptu bash at his new Windsor home, where Zeppelin had been rehearsing. Bonham chose to warm up by putting away four quadruple vodkas at a local inn. At Page’s place, he continued his relentless imbibing until, having passed out on a sofa, he was removed to a bedroom by one of the band’s assistants. By the following afternoon Bonham had still not emerged. It was only when John Paul Jones checked on him that Bonham’s lifeless body was discovered: he had died some time that morning. Coroners ruled the death accidental, caused by pulmonary oedema – a waterlogging of the lungs resulting from that customary rock-star nemesis, ‘inhalation of vomit’. Friends of Bonham maintain that his heroin problem accelerated the accident, while other Zeppelin members, despite explaining that his customary lack of sobriety made it hard to determine Bonham’s level of inebriation that night, found themselves accused of some measure of responsibility. It was later estimated that the drummer had probably consumed in excess of forty measures of vodka in the space of an evening.

John ‘Bonzo’ Bonham was cremated and buried a few days later near his home, in front of eight local fans who had braved the driving rain. It was, for now, the end of a legendary rock act. Two months later, Led Zeppelin broke their silence with this statement: ‘The loss of our dear friend and the sense of harmony felt by ourselves and our manager have led us to decide that we could not continue as we were.’

DEAD INTERESTING!

TAP INTO OBLIVION

In the hundreds of years since the dawn of history, no other rock institution has had such ill luck in the percussion department as Spinal Tap. The British metal behemoths have seen numerous members come and go, but the weirdest departures have been reserved for the guys at the drum kit.

1969: John ‘Stumpy’ Pepys