The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (102 page)

Kyu (pronounced ‘cue’) Sakamoto began in music as a jazz entertainer, playing Tokyo supper clubs before a transition to pop scored him hit records on the Japanese charts for Toshiba Records. The young singer’s life was changed for ever by a business trip made to Japan by Pye label president, Louis Benjamin – who fancied Sakamoto’s
‘Ue O Muite Arukó’
(‘I Look up When I Walk’) as a potential hit for one of his British acts. Renamed ‘Sukiyaki’, the record reached the UK Top Ten, in a somewhat trad arrangement by Kenny Ball & His Jazzmen. Sakamoto’s original then got airplay under the new title in the US, where it topped the charts for three weeks in June 1963 (similarly, the song once more climbed the UK charts, peaking at six). Like The Singing Nun, though, Sakamoto could not find a follow-up; his next single, ‘China Nights’, reached only fifty-eight in America, although mini classic ‘Sukiyaki’ achieved hit status again in 1981 for disco unit A Taste of Honey and later for R & B act 4PM.

At around 7 pm on 12 August 1985, Kyu Sakamoto was travelling to Osaka on Japan Airlines’ flight 123 when the 747 – improperly repaired seven years previously – suffered bulkhead failure at 24,000 feet, crashing into Mount Osutaka near Ueno Village. The accident is considered among the worst-ever in aviation history, claiming the lives of 520 of the 524 passengers on board, the highest death toll for a single-plane accident.

OCTOBER

Saturday 12

Ricky Wilson

(Athens, Georgia, 19 March 1953)

The B-52’s

(Black Narcissus)

From the musically fertile soils of Athens, Georgia, emerged the quirky, impertinent B-52’s, a newwave band with an enduring penchant for the kitsch and the flamboyant. The group was formed in essence by high-school pals Ricky Wilson (guitar) and Keith Strickland (drums), playing as Black Narcissus. On graduating, the pair travelled around Europe, after which they could only find work at a bus station – until a 1976 meeting with Kate Pierson (organ/vocals) and Fred Schneider (keys/vocals), late of local protest band The Sun-Donuts. The four joined forces – recruiting Wilson’s sister Cindy (guitar/vocals) – naming their distinctive band after the girls’ equally distinctive bouffant hairstyles. Quickly established as The B-52’s’ chief arranger, lead guitarist Wilson led the band to rapid success in their home town. A debut gig at New York’s fabled Max’s Kansas City was poorly attended, and only 2,000 copies of off-beat debut single ‘Rock Lobster’ were cut – but the group were making a loud enough noise to attract Chris Blackwell at Island Records. The reissued ‘Rock Lobster’ then caught sufficient attention to send a debut album into the charts on both sides of the Atlantic, the single making the UK Top Forty in 1979 on the back of a great deal of radio play (reissued again to Top Twenty success in 1986); rumour even has it that John Lennon was encouraged to record again after hearing the band. Fuelled by Wilson’s Dick Dale-esque guitar heroics, the group then put together a great second set in
Wild Planet
(1981), following this with
Mesopotamia
(1982) and
Whammy!
(1983). While recording the latter, though, Wilson made the distressing discovery that he was carrying the AIDS virus, and was forced into retirement during the sessions for The B-52’s’ largely ignored
Bouncing off the Satellites
album (1986).

By the time of Ricky Wilson’s sad death from an AIDS-related illness, he was confined to a New York hospital bed; he was interred in Athens five days later. Though devastated, Wilson’s surviving band rallied to score their biggest successes in the early nineties with international hits like ‘Love Shack’, ‘Roam’ and the ‘Meet the Flintstones’ theme.

Wednesday 23

Merle Watson

(Eddy Merle Watson - Deep Gap, North Carolina, 8 February 1949)

A huge fan of the blues, Merle Watson followed his father, Doc, into guitar-picking at the age of fifteen, touring the US with the country veteran, playing to packed houses. In more than twenty years as a duo, Doc and Merle Watson cut almost as many albums together, winning four Grammys along the way. By 1973 Watson had added slide guitar to his already impressive picking skills, giving the duo a further edge to their evocative country-tinged acoustic blues.

Merle Watson’s untimely death was the result of a combination of bizarre accidents. Rather oddly deciding to embark on some woodwork in the middle of the night, the guitarist suffered a bad muscle gash when a giant splinter spun off his bandsaw and embedded itself in his arm. Watson rapidly lost blood as he raced to a neighbour’s home in his tractor. Safely patched up with the splinter removed, Watson – weakened but relieved – began the return journey. But as he negotiated a steep incline, the tractor’s brakes froze, the vehicle flipped over and crushed him beneath it – killing him instantly. Doc Watson maintains that his son probably suffered a blackout or stroke at the wheel, the result of an inoperable brain tumour.

Friday 25

Gary Holton

(London, September 1952)

The Heavy Metal Kids

(The Damned)

They weren’t especially ‘heavy metal’ – and the majority of them certainly weren’t ‘kids’ – but pumped-up, over-amplified urchins The Heavy Metal Kids were, very briefly, one of London’s hottest rock tickets. And about 80 per cent of their appeal was dynamic leader, Gary Holton, a singer who didn’t need to be a star to lead a seriously rock ‘n’ roll life.

Holton had long desired to be an actor: he had already joined the Sadler’s Wells theatre company by the time he left his Westminster public school, and later joined the Old Vic and Royal Shakespeare companies. His first performance break, however, was with The Heavy Metal Kids – Holton (vocals), Mick Waller (guitar), Danny Peyronel (keyboards), Ronnie Thomas (bass) and Keith Boyce (drums) – when they were discovered by former singer Dave Dee. The band was formed when Holton was just twenty, securing a deal with Atlantic more for their onstage bravado than for any musical prowess. The nearest to a hit single the band managed was ‘She’s No Angel’ (1976), which saw a shambling appearance on
Tóp óf the Póps,
but they were something of a tonic live. The Kids were regulars at London’s Speakeasy, and secured support slots for major acts: a 1975 show with Alice Cooper was memorable for Holton’s stage-diving antics (in which he broke a leg), and the singer then won a £500 bet by sleeping with twenty-six girls in four weeks of a European tour. On top of all this, Holton was a keen imbiber of substances, taking pills to sleep, more pills to wake up, and harbouring a disturbing drink habit. Holton paid little heed to any warnings – not when he was believed dead after ‘overdoing it’, nor even when a girlfriend choked on her own vomit in 1977. The following year, the singer – whose behaviour had become erratic to say the least – was sacked and, even though he returned, the onset of punk meant that The Kids’ moment had passed. Holton later spent a short time with The Damned, but he effectively left the music industry after The Heavy Metal Kids’ split. He made a good name for himself, however, as a serious actor, winning parts on popular British television series such as
Shoestring
and rock-culture movies
Quadrophenia
and
Breaking Glass
before clinching the role for which he is best remembered: Wayne Norris in the massive ITV hit
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet.

Gary Holton: Braced himself for a rough ride

‘In the mid seventies, the only thing I remember listening to was The Heavy Metal Kids.’

Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones

Although he had beaten an addiction to heroin, the press rounded on Holton – now, after all, a public figure – splashing tales of his former habit and bizarre private life (it transpired that Holton was living in a threesome with his lover, Jahnet McIllewan, and her boyfriend) across the front pages. The damage the revelations were doing to his son, Red, tore the actor apart. Desperate and confused, Holton – who also had spiralling debts – spent his last few weeks seeking solace with friends, one of whom, Paul Witta, invited the star to spend the night of 24 October at his Wembley flat. In the early hours of the morning, Gary Holton’s body was discovered by McIllewan: a pathologist revealed that Holton had been drinking just half an hour before he died (his alcohol level was 199 mg), but was likely rendered unconscious by a shot of morphine – though no evidence of heroin use could be found. It was also believed by officials that his death had not been through misadventure. Although Holton had lately fallen out with most of the cast of
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet,
they all attended his funeral – and with the latest series incomplete, a standin was used for distant shots.

DECEMBER

Thursday 12

Ian Stewart

(Pittenween, Scotland, 18 July 1938)

The Rolling Stones

(Rocket 88)