The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (70 page)

The original Thamesmen drummer died the most infamous death in rock history, succumbing to a ‘bizarre gardening accident’ that authorities felt was ‘best left unsolved’.

1974: Eric ‘Stumpy Joe’ Childs

Pepys’s replacement choked on vomit five years later: in this case, there were no facilities to determine whose vomit it was.

1977: Peter ‘James’ Bond

Bond had joined Buddahead for an appearance at the isle of Lucy Jazz & Blues Festival when he spontaneously combusted, leaving nought but a ‘green stain’ on his drum stool.

1992: Mick Shrimpton

Later sticksman Mick Shrimpton disappeared, never to be seen again, but was replaced by his brother Ric. (According to head Tap-man David St Hubbins, a further percussionist vanished after being packed into luggage ahead of a US tour.)

Friday 26

Auburn ‘Pat’ Hare

(Cherry Valley, Arkansas, 20 December 1930)

The Teen Kings

Born Auburn Hare to parents with a creative imagination, the aggressive blues musician took the name Pat in order to allay the frequent ribbing he received from colleagues. Hare was not one with whom to mess, however, his scorching fuzz-driven tone equally matched by his fiery temper. Working with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf in 1948, he became a player rivalled only by Wolf’s ‘other’ guitarist, Willie Johnson. Throughout his early career, Hare insisted on using the mail-order amp which he’d used when learning to play in his teens and which lent much to his trademark sound. His style was noted by Sun Records (yet again), who signed him for session work, notably his 1953 contributions to James Cotton’s records, before running off a number of rough ‘n’ ready blues releases of his own. One of these – ‘I’m Gonna Murder My Baby’ (1954) – was to have a startling resonance a few years later: Hare’s drink problem led to his ultimate fall from grace, when, in 1962, he actually
was
convicted of murdering his girlfriend (and an intervening policeman for good measure) by gunshot following a drunken domestic dispute. Pat Hare was imprisoned for life, which – it turned out – meant exactly that. His world in tatters, Hare died of cancer while still incarcerated in St Paul, Minnesota.

OCTOBER

Wednesday 15

Bobby Lester

(Robert Dallas - Louisville, Kentucky, 13 January 1930)

The Moonglows

(The Moonlighters)

(The Flamingos)

Bobby Lester was just twenty when he became tenor lead with Cleveland vocal troupe The Moonglows (originally The Crazy Sounds). The band – in its best incarnation, Lester, Harvey Fuqua (baritone lead/spokesman), Alexander ‘Pete’ Graves (tenor), Prentiss Barnes (bass) and Billy Johnson (guitar) – first recorded with Champagne (the label belonging to influential Ohio DJ Alan Freed), then with Chance. A flurry of singles was released over the next two years, though only ‘I Just Can’t Tell You No Lie’ (1952) and ‘I Was Wrong’ (1954) were minor hits. Waiting for his payment, Lester worked by day in a coal yard, until the fortunes of The Moonglows – also recording as The Moonlighters – improved with a move to the Chess label. Several records placed on the Billboard charts, including ‘Sincerely’ (1955) and ‘See Saw’ (1956), though not Lester’s own foray into songwriting, ‘The Beating of My Heart’ (1957). Money was still an issue. Lester believed that, as lead, he should earn more than his fellow singers; this could not be resolved, and he left the band soon after, Fuqua replacing him as permanent lead. In 1970, Lester – who now managed a nightclub – returned to the stage with The New Moonglows and reformed Flamingos – but ten years later he was dead, having contracted lung cancer and pneumonia. He passed away in a Louisville hospital after a two-month stay.

See also
Billy Johnson (
April 1987); Harvey Fuqua (
Golden Oldies #115). Marvin Gaye (
April 1984) was also briefly in The Moonglows, while no fewer than six Flamingos have since died, beginning with Nathaniel Nelson (
June 1984). Original Moonglows Barnes and Graves both passed on in 2006 – as did sometime drummer Clifton James.

Monday 27

Steve Peregrin Took

(Stephen Porter - Eltham, London, 28 July 1949)

Tyrannosaurus Rex

(Shagrat)

(The Pink Fairies)

Although he had left before they hit commercial paydirt as T Rex, bongo-player/backing vocalist Steve Took was an original member of Marc Bolan’s band, and was in situ as they began gathering critical plaudits at the end of the sixties. Took was persuaded to adopt his enhanced name to fit the group’s image: it was, naturally, the star’s idea – Marc Bolan was at that time influenced by
Lord of the Rings-type
imagery, effectively displayed in flowery Tyrannosaurus Rex hits like ‘King of the Rumbling Spires’ (1969). With the psychedelic reference points came the appropriate drugs, and Took was soon au fait with acid and was a heavy user by the time he left the band to elope with an American fan. It was not a good move: as T Rex reached the very top, the drummer’s brief stints with The Pink Fairies and Shagrat were only marginally more successful than an attempted solo career under Bolan’s manager, Tony Secunda.

When Secunda finally did manage to help Took in some way, it was to have tragic consequences. By 1980 the manager had somehow retrieved Tyrannosaurus Rex royalties believed lost for good. When the money came through, Took – still living the star lifestyle despite having fallen into relative obscurity – decided to blow a large proportion of it on drugs and drink. After the resulting party, his mouth numbed following a large intake of morphine and magic mushrooms, Steve Peregrin Took choked to death on the pit of a cocktail cherry in the early hours of the morning.

See also
Marc Bolan (
September 1977) plus the accompanying Dead Interesting! for a list of T Rex associates who have since died. Many other musical cohorts of Steve Took’s have also passed on, includingformer Pink Fairies Dave Bidwell (1977) and Mick Wayne (
June 1994).