The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (398 page)

Early on the morning of 9 November 1991, Wylie was parting company with drummer Joe McKechnie on Upper Parliament Street, Toxteth, when the railing upon which he leant gave way behind him. The singer fell some fifteen feet toward the cellar of his friend’s apartment, smashing six vertebrae and fracturing his sternum in the process: Wylie was lucky to escape with his life when fragmented chest bones narrowly missed his heart. As paramedics went through the routine of asking the prone singer whether he knew who he was, the quirky Wylie responded: ‘Never mind that, do
you
know who I am?’ However, the singer’s legendary humour dissipated somewhat after several months in the hospital followed by the necessitation of a full upper-torso plaster-cast.

Post-traumatic stress disorder was to cause no small amount of chaos in Wylie’s life, though disagreements with record labels and even the collapse of a relationship were likely considered by Wylie a small price to pay for his life …

Golden Oldies #123

Solomon Burke

(James Solomon McDonald
*
–West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 21 March 1940)

(The Gospel Cavaliers)

To some, he was ‘King Solomon’, to others ‘The Bishop of R & B’, or even ‘The Muhammad Ali of Soul’; but if the name of Solomon Burke remained only an occasional pleasure to the pop audience, this most demonstrative of orators possessed the spirit to express what many more accepted artists could not. And that vast frame made him quite a spectacle, too.

As with a lot of performers from soul’s nascent years, Burke was a former preacher (and also a mortician) who gained recognition once he transferred from gospel to the world of secular music. Although his grandmother Eleanor had misgivings about ‘the devil’s music’, she became one of the young man’s greatest backers; she was a fiercely devout woman whose prophesies about her grandson proved eerily accurate. Eleanor predicted his mass-acceptance as a singer, and many of the trappings that come with such fame, such as wealth and women–but also saw for him years of hardship. Sadly, the family’s matriarch didn’t live to see Burke succeed; she did get to hear his very first recording the day before she died though, in December 1954. Indeed, Burke’s touching performance at her funeral with The Gospel Cavaliers (the quartet he’d recently formed) was enough to prompt a number of bookings in itself. Within two years the now-solo Burke–clearly the main talent in the troupe–had provoked interest from Apollo, Triumph and, finally, Atlantic Records.

As a professional singer, Burke showed he’d maintained the dignity of delivery taught to him in church, and added to it a discipline learned from having recorded since his mid-teens. After a lengthy series of minor successes, the Philadelphia-native made a national breakthrough with the gentle ‘Just Out Of Reach (Of My Two Empty Arms)’ (1961, US Top Forty; US R & B Top Ten), a song that owed as much to country as it did R & B. It was followed by many great moments. The emotive Bert Russell standard ‘Cry To Me’ (1962, US R & B Top Five) bore more of the singer’s later hallmarks, in time becoming his signature hit. Burke’s growing talents then extended to writing his own material, and he achieved further pop hits with ‘Got To Get You Off My Mind’ (1965–the only Burke song to achieve US R & B number one) and ‘Tonight’s the Night’ (1965, US R & B number two). Somehow, the artist never saw any of his records breach Billboard’s Top Twenty, though many others recorded his tunes–the highestprofile recording probably being The Rolling Stones’ memorable cover of ‘Everybody Needs Somebody to Love’ (1965).

Even when his records weren’t selling, Burke was a must-see in concert; the singer often played up to the ‘King Solomon’ moniker given to him by his family by appearing on stage replete with crown and sceptre. (These were also conveniently close to hand when it was time for a photo shoot.) Burke toured extensively and recorded over thirty singles for Atlantic. He was fecund in other ways too: over the years, it is estimated that the singer fathered somewhere in the region of twenty-one children (at least thirteen with his second wife, Delores). Burke once said, ‘Girls came at me from every angle. I couldn’t love them all. But I tried.’

When time permitted, Solomon Burke worked and performed with many other artists from a wide spectrum of secular music: he was close friends with Sam Cooke and claimed to have eaten lunch with the late legend on the very day that he died (
Pre-1965).
In more recent years, he’d recorded with Italian singer Zucchero and British artists such as the ubiquitous Elvis Costello. Burke was still performing in 2006, although his obesity by now confined him to a wheelchair. At his heaviest, he was reckoned to weigh in excess of 300 lbs.

‘I’m a minister first, then an entertainer.’

Solomon Burke

Solomon Burke died from a suspected heart attack at Schiphol Airport, Netherlands, on 10 October 2010. The singer’s flight from LAX had just touched down ahead of a public appearance. In tribute, Atlantic boss Jerry Wexler described his charge as ‘the best soul singer of all time.’

*
Burke only adopted the ‘official’ name ‘Solomon McDonald Vincent Burke’ in adulthood.

Golden Oldies#124

General Norman Johnson

(Norfolk, Virginia, 23 May 1941)

Chairmen of the Board

(The Showmen)

Just three days later, another fabled voice crafted in the church was to bid us farewell. Born plain old ‘Norman’, General Johnson was given
his
unusual nickname by his father–and encouraged to reincorporate it once he became lead singer of distinctive R & B act Chairmen of the Board.

Johnson was already familiar with the limelight, having enjoyed a radio hit with ‘It Will Stand’ (1961, US number sixty-one) as an effusive eighteen-year-old fronting doo-wop act The Showmen. Johnson learned well from this experience, becoming Detroit-based Chairmen of the Board’s principle singer upon leaving The Showmen in 1968. Signed to Edward Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland’s new Invictus label, he was given free reign by the ex-Motown producers/writers to recruit fellow vocalists Danny Woods (ex-The Showmen), Eddie Custis (ex-Huey Smith & The Clowns), and Harrison Kennedy (ex-Stone Soul Children)–all of whom tried out as lead before Johnson’s characteristic ‘stuttering’ style earned him the place. And those idiosyncratic vocals lit up a series of fine hit records, beginning with the biggest, Holland/Dozier/Holland’s ‘Give Me Just a Little More Time’ (1969-70, US/UK number three), which earned Chairmen of the Board a gold disc. Then came the similar-sounding but nonetheless enjoyable ‘You’ve Got Me Dangling On a String’ (US Top Forty; UK Top Five) and ‘Everything’s Tuesday’ (US Top Forty; UK Top Twenty). The Chairmen’s last Top Twenty hit was the Johnson-penned ‘Pay to the Piper’ (1971), although the quartet’s popularity seemed more sustainable in Britain, where ‘Try On My Love For Size,’ ‘Elmo James’, ‘I’m On My Way to a Better Place’ and ‘Finders Keepers’ (US R & B Top Ten) gave them further chart entries between 1971 and 1973.

Among other songs composed by Johnson were the muchloved–and Grammy-winning–’Patches’ by Clarence Carter (1970, US/UK Top Five) and the charttopping ‘Want Ads’ by Honey Cone (1971). Johnson also penned several tunes for labelmate Freda Payne.

After the Chairmen split in the late seventies, General Johnson reignited his solo career, which–while not spawning a raft of further hits–continued to offer him a live profile for several decades and a solid following on the East Coast ‘beach’ circuit. That plaintive-yet-urgent voice had lost little of its
frisson
over the years and an ‘echo’ could even be heard faintly in early recordings by British band Dexys Midnight Runners. Johnson died at home in Atlanta on 13 October 2010: the singer had succumbed to complications of lung cancer.

Wednesday 20

Ari Up

(Ariane Forster-Munich, Germany, 17 January 1962)

The Slits

The New Age Steppers

(Various acts)

Ari Up’s stock was quite something in its eclecticism: her grandfather was a German newspaper magnate
(Der Spiegel
), while her mother Nora was a maverick musician who opened her home to waifs and strays of the punk movement. (One of these was Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten, who was later to marry Up’s mother.) It’s for her own groundbreak-ing contributions that Up is first recalled, however, an expressive artist who earned renown as the quirky, DIY front woman of groundbreak-ing newwavers, The Slits.

Fourteen-year-old Ari learned rudimentary guitar from The Clash’s Joe Strummer and formed The Slits in 1976 with fellow experimentalists Palmolive (Paloma Romero, ex-Flowers of Romance–drums), Kate Korus (guitar–shortly replaced by Viv Albertine, ex-Flowers of Romance) and Suzy Gutsy (bass–replaced by Tessa Pollitt). The Slits’ style was basic, to say the least, but their sparse collision of rock and dub reggae made them stand out in a UK scene that was fast becoming generic, and earned them a tour with The Clash. Along with The Raincoats, the group was by now flying a flag for all-girl postpunk units: at their core was Up, whose unusual dialect–a hybrid of German, cockney and patois–made for an intriguing listen.