The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (319 page)

By the latter album’s much-delayed release, however, Hughie Thomasson was no more. The mercurial guitarist had returned from a meal with his wife to his home in Brooksville, Florida to watch NFL coverage on television: he sank into his favourite armchair, dozed off, and died from a heart attack as he slept.

See also
Cassie Gaines (
October 1977); Steve Gaines (
October 1977); Ronnie Van Zant (
October 1977); Allen Collins (
January 1990); Leon Wilkeson (
July 2001); Billy Powell (
January 2009); Ean Evans (
May 2009). Terry ‘Topper’ Price (d 2007) was an occasional singer/harmonicaplayer with Skynyrd, while backing vocalist Deborah ‘Jo Jo’ Billingsley died in 2010.

Golden Oldies #55

Bobby Byrd

(Toccoa, Georgia, 15 August 1934)

James Brown & The Famous Flames

(The Avons)

Robert Howard Byrd, a God-fearing young man whose voice lit up The Gospel Starlighters vocal group, was brought up on worship music. But with their community denying them the opportunity to sing secular music, The Starlighters had to reinvent themselves as The Avons, a soulful conglomerate in which Byrd provided vocals, piano and organ.

In 1952, Byrd met James Brown while the future Godfather of Soul was in youth detention for armed robbery -and a friendship that was to last for over half a century began with Byrd’s family petitioning for Brown’s parole. Byrd persuaded the renegade singer to join his group, who then morphed into jump-blues legends The Flames, and finally The Famous Flames, as Brown took centre stage. Beginning with the US R & B Top Five hit ‘Please, Please, Please’ (1956, as The Flames), the group - via a few inevitable rifts and arguments - grew into the dynamic pioneers of funk who are still revered today. (The enduring battle cry of ‘get on up!’ was Byrd’s inspiration.)

However, with Brown choosing to employ his own instrumentalists (The J C Davis group) for The Flames’ live performances, there was less work for Byrd, who was also wearying of the lack of credit he received for his input. This pushed the musician into a solo career by the turn of the seventies: on his own, Byrd experienced more moderate success, but issued such classic cuts as ‘I Know You Got Soul’ (1971) - a track that almost singlehandedly carried hip-hop out of the eighties, sampled by Eric B & Rakim, Public Enemy, LL Cool J and A Tribe Called Quest, among others.

His later career saw Bobby Byrd tour the European rare-groove circuit with his wife of many years, former Famous Flames singer Vicki Anderson. The musician passed away on 12 September 2007 after a battle with cancer -surviving his old sparring partner by just nine months
(
December 2006).

Tuesday 18

Pepsi Tate

(Huw Justin Smith - Cardiff, Wales, 10 March 1965)

Tigertailz

The village of Dinas Powys isn’t especially known as a breeding ground for rock legends, but it did at least give the world Pepsi Tate, the versatile glam-metal bassist and backing vocalist with Tigertailz.

Tate – or Huw Justin Smith, as he was known to his family (his father was the late television actor Ray Smith of
Dempsey & Makepeace
fame) – was a founding member of a group that sought to emulate US hair metal in the British provinces. And fairly successful at it they were. With the irrepressible Steevi Jaimz on vocals, Tigertailz bagged a UK Top 40 album with second release
Be%erk
(1990), a record that added melody to their already-renowned volume. The singles, MTV-staple ‘Love Bomb Baby’ (1989) and ‘Heaven’ (1991), both made the UK Top 75, but it was as a live unit that this band worked best.

With grunge replacing glam-metal as hard rock’s market leader, Tigertailz saw their fortunes wilt, but Tate (under his real name) pursued a successful career in television production, specialising in political programming. In the mid-2000s, Pepsi Tate was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, marrying his partner, Welsh opera singer Shan Cothi, just a month before his death at a Penarth hospice. Tigertailz – still a going concern – dedicated a posthumous album,
Thrill Pistol,
to the memory of their bassist.