The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (195 page)

John Denver: Left us on a jet plane

Sunday 19

Glen Buxton

(Akron, Ohio, 10 November 1947)

Alice Cooper

In 1965, few thought that The Spiders – a high-school band fronted by a preacher’s son – had much of a future. But when lead singer Vincent Furnier adopted the alias ‘Alice Cooper’ (the identity was unearthed during a Ouija-board session), fortunes changed for ever for him and his band. Furnier’s henchman, guitarist Glen Buxton (aka ‘The Blond Bomber’) was almost as essential to the group as the leader. As Alice Cooper the band, they – plus Mike Bruce (guitar), Dennis Dunaway (bass) and Neal Smith (drums) – set about ‘driving a stake through the heart of the Love Generation’, signing to Frank Zappa’s Straight label and effectively inventing the shock-rock genre. Critical acclaim was decidedly muted until 1971, however, when their theatrical, riff-heavy music started to make sense to a US audience coming to terms with metal and glam. Although they hit first in America (‘I’m Eighteen’, 1971), Alice Cooper became a bigger act in Britain, where the great ‘School’s Out’ was a number-one single in 1972. Touring back-to-back gold albums in
School’s Out
(1972) and
Billion Dollar Babies
(1973), Cooper, Buxton et al employed dolls, snakes, chickens, guillotines – you name it – as one of the world’s hottest live acts.

Although the hits continued (particularly in the UK), Alice Cooper (the singer) fired the entire band in 1974. This was a huge blow to Buxton, who attempted projects of his own to lesser effect. (Interestingly, Cooper’s star likewise faded considerably without Buxton – at least for a while.) The guitarist began to indulge heavily in drugs and alcohol and is believed to have attempted suicide at least once as he struggled to maintain anything like a career. Although he eventually made a living teaching music, Buxton – who had moved to a ranch in Iowa – died from pneumonia ineffectually combated by his damaged immune system.

Close!

John Denver

The boyish country star could, it seems, have met his maker a decade previously. Apparently desperate to become the first civilian in space, John Denver took NASA’s physical and mental examination, passing convincingly, and then lobbied the administration to include him on the space-shuttle programme in 1985 - only to be refused. The shuttle met with disaster on 28 January the following year; all seven on board were killed. As a tribute, Denver penned the song ‘Flying For Me’, dedicated to those who perished.

Monday 20

Henry ‘Sunflower’ Vestine

(Washington, DC, 25 December 1944)

Canned Heat The Mothers of Invention

(Various acts)

The last survivor of Canned Heat’s great triumvirate, Henry ‘Sunflower’ Vestine found his spiritual home when he joined the band shortly after their 1966 creation by fellow blues aficionados Al ‘Blind Owl’ Wilson (guitar/harmonica) and Bob ‘The Bear’ Hite (vocals/harmonica). A former guitarist with Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention, Vestine was also fairly adept on the accordion, an instrument he’d been encouraged to learn as a child. Canned Heat were something of a revelation to white rock audiences: after an eye-opening performance at Monterey in 1967, their hits ‘On the Road Again’ and ‘Going Up Country’ (both 1968) cemented them as the band that would popularize blues-boogie. The Heat underwent their share of tragedies, though, notably the deaths of Wilson
(
September 1970)
and Hite (
April 1981).
The group was never much more than a name after these losses, but continued manfully with Vestine still in the line-up, the guitarist also playing with a series of local bands in his adopted home of Oregon.

It was in Paris, at the end of a Canned Heat tour, that Henry Vestine was found dead by his bandmates as they prepared to check out of their hotel: after celebrating into the night, Vestine’s body had apparently given out; the guitarist passed away from respiratory failure. The band continue to record and perform.

See also
Frank Zappa (
December 1993)

Friday 31

John Dougherty

(Oakland, California, 20 April 1961)

Flipper

Their undoubted resonance at odds with any commercial success, San Francisco punks Flipper carried out their own sonic crusade against the music of the early eighties. Spectacularly crude live, Flipper purveyed what they called PET Rock, warning audiences that this was ‘not a joke, and if it were it wouldn’t be funny’. Prime mover Will Shatter’s death from a heroin overdose (
December 1987)
did not halt the band’s progress. Bassplayer John Dougherty was a later member of a group of alumni that was eventually to read like a battle memorial. He joined Flipper around 1991, the band having been reformed at the behest of Def American head Rick Rubin; within a (largely unsuccessful) year, however, sometime singer Ricky Williams had died from a rare disease
(
November 1992)
while long-term bassist/vocalist Bruce Loose was lucky to suffer only vertebrae damage after a car crash. Emulating Shatter, Dougherty was later found dead from a heroin overdose at his home. His band had nonetheless proved a great influence on others: Concrete Blonde, The Melvins, Mudhoney and Sebadoh have all covered their music, while late grunge icon Kurt Cobain wears a Flipper T-shirt on Nirvana’s
In Utero
packaging.

NOVEMBER