The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (206 page)

Roland Alphonso suffered a second stroke as he played with The Skatalites at The Key Club, West Hollywood - a blood vessel in his neck burst during his performance. This time, though, the hospital-bound sax-player fell into a coma some two weeks later, and died on 20 November 1998. Now considered something of a legend, Alphonso was one of four select musicians to be awarded the Jamaican government’s Order of Merit - the others being Dodd, McCook and, of course, Bob Marley.

See also
Don Drummond (
May 1969); Jackie Mittoo (
December 1990); Lloyd Knibb (
Golden Oldies #136). Original Skatalites vocalist Jackie Opel (Dalton Bishop) died in a 1970 car crash in Barbados. Singer Vic Taylor (2003), guitarist Jah Jerry Haynes (2007) and trumpeter Johnny ‘Dizzy’ Moore (2008) have also since passed on.

Friday 27

Barbara Acklin

(Oakland, California, 28 February 1943)

(The Chi-Lites)

Leaving her Baptist choir beginnings, Barbara Acklin – having moved to Illinois at the age of five – studied classical music at Dunbar Vocational High before her cousin, keyboardist/arranger Monk Higgins, helped place her as a secretary at St Lawrence Records, where her melodic voice was heard for the first time. Guided by Higgins, Acklin moved to Chess, where she sang back-up to the likes of Fontella Bass and Etta James. A budding songwriter, Acklin penned ‘Whispers (Gettin’ Louder)’, a big hit for Jackie Wilson in 1966; her own singing career was slow, however, and though a few songs would trouble the R & B charts, only one record, ‘Love Makes a Woman’ (1968), gave her a crossover hit. Moving labels several times, Acklin wound up at Chi-Sound, where she married Eugene Record, lead vocalist with The Chi-Lites. Her own hits having dried up, she co-wrote a pair of the group’s standards, ‘Stoned Out of My Mind’ and the enduring ‘Have You Seen Her?’

Barbara Acklin had long retired from music by the time of her death in 1998. From her home in Omaha, Nebraska, the singer had been interviewed by a Chicago cable television station – and had complained of contracting a bad cold. One week later, Acklin was rushed to hospital as she visited a friend for Thanksgiving. There, she was diagnosed with pneumonia, from which she died shortly thereafter.

See also
Eugene Record (
July 2005); Robert ‘Squirrel’ Lester (
Golden Oldies #105)

DECEMBER

Friday 11

Lynn Strait

(James Lynn Strait - Manhasset, New York, 7 August 1968)

Snot

(Lethal Dose)

The media-baiting LA hardcore rock band Snot was formed by singer Lynn Strait in 1995, after his original band, Lethal Dose, split. Amazingly, Snot drew the attention of Geffen Records, who signed the band up for a debut album,
Get Some
(1997). (The singer had not been able to sign his contract in person, as he was serving a thirty-day jail sentence at the time.) Strait then incurred the wrath of his prestigious label after some onstage sexual activity with a dancer at the 1998 Ozzfest. Snot ‘got blown’ for a second time when the label then dropped them. Lynn Strait was on his way from his home in Santa Barbara to Los Angeles when his Ford Tempo struck another vehicle, resulting in a three-car pile-up on Freeway 101. Strait – who was discovered to be dosed up on cocaine at the time – died at the scene, as did his faithful dog, Dobbs, a mascot who’d graced the cover of Snot’s debut album.

Tuesday 15

Orion

(Jimmy Hodges Ellis - 26 February 1945)

An even more curious performer was Jimmy ‘Orion’ Hodges, one of the few tribute acts to feature in
The Encyclopedia.
Originally performing under his own name as an early sixties rock ‘n’ roll hopeful, Hodges reemerged as Orion in 1978, an Elvis-impressionist second to none. His act was considered so convincing that, after Presley’s death
(
August 1977),
Orion not only performed (masked) at least once with The Jordanaires, but his vocals were used on a series of Jerry Lee Lewis sides in order that the gullible might believe them to be genuine duets.

Back to being plain old Jimmy Ellis, the former ‘star’ died in very dramatic circumstances at the pawn store he ran with his former wife, Elaine Thompson, in Salma, Alabama. Confronted by desperate smalltime criminal Jeffrey James Lee, both Ellis and Thompson were killed, blasted at pointblank range by the assailant’s sawn-off shotgun; store assistant Helen King was left injured. Lee and two teenage accomplices were later charged with the double murder.

Tuesday 22

Chris Galvin