The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (292 page)

Cowsill reemerged in the eighties with his (admittedly very accomplished) band The Blue Shadows, a harmony group formed in Vancouver. The front man’s increased drinking, however, put an end to his work with the group, as Cowsill spent time in and out of detox programmes for a while thereafter. Although he was to work with other acts like Blue Northern and popular country quartet The Co-Dependents, the musician’s health was getting the better of him. Bill Cowsill battled combined symptoms of osteoporosis, emphysema and the blood disorder Cushing’s syndrome, dying at his home in Calgary, Alberta. Cowsill family members already in mourning promptly organised another service to remember him.

See also
Barbara Cowsill ((January 1985)

MARCH

Thursday 2

Johnny Jackson

(Johnny Porter Jackson II - Gary, Indiana, 3 March 1951)

The Jackson 5ive

(White Dove)

‘There were times when he’d outshine Michael at their shows.’

Gordon Keith - owner of original Jackson 5ive label, Steeltown

Despite the confusion that his name was likely to cause, Johnny Jackson was not a ‘Jackson brother’. He sat at the traps for all of The Jackson 5ive’s most noted Motown hits (including ‘ABC’ and ‘I Want You Back’) but was always presented by the label as a ‘cousin’ of the famous siblings. Nope, Johnny, a local boy, was effectively adopted during his teens by the infamous Joseph Jackson, who by this time already had ten children of his own, most of whom were to become successful musicians. Discovering him to be a decent percussionist, Joseph set Johnny to work straight away as the group’s drummer (replacing Milford Hite) as The Jackson 5ive swept all before them in 1969. For a few years, this was a rewarding way for the young percussionist to make a living, and, publicly at least, he (and keyboardist Kharri ‘Ronnie’ Rancifer) made few complaints about not featuring in any of the band’s publicity shoots.

However, once The Jacksons (as they were later to rebrand themselves) had outgrown teen stardom, there was little room for the drummer. Although there is doubt as to when his tenure officially ended, Jackson was already playing with other acts by the eighties. In his later life, he provided percussion for White Dove, the band of his lifelong friend, Anthony Acoff.

Jackson’s unusual life ended in stark tragedy. After neighbours had alerted them to a ‘disturbance’ at the Gary, Indiana apartment shared by the drummer and his girlfriend, police found Jackson dead from a stab wound to the chest. His forty-four-year-old partner Yolanda Davis – who was later charged with murder – did not deny responsibility for the deed (despite fleeing the scene with the weapon), claiming that the couple had had an argument.

Although the family was said to be devastated by the news, it was another non-Jackson brother – sister Janet – who footed the bill for Johnny Jackson’s funeral. Neither she nor Michael, however, attended the service.

See also
Michael Jackson (
June 2009)

Golden Oldies#32

Ali ‘Farka’ Touré

(Kanau, Mali, 31 October 1939)

Ali Ibrahim Toure - ‘the African John Lee Hooker’ - was one of the continent’s most respected musicians of his era. Toure was, out of his mother’s ten children, the only one to survive infancy: he was given his nickname ‘Farka’ (literally ‘donkey’) as a boy, vowing though that this would be one donkey upon which no one would dare climb. As a youth, he mastered African stringed instruments such as the gurkel, before picking up the electric guitar and adapting the songs he’d learned. It took him until his late thirties, however, to see a debut album internationally released (AW
Farka Toure,
1976). The album brought Toure global recognition despite the fact that most of the songs were performed in traditional African tongues.

Throughout a prolific career, Toure issued seventeen albums of material (many with accompaniment from instrumentalists such as Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal) while for some time continuing work as first sound engineer and later farmer. At the time of his death from bone cancer on 6 March 2006, Ali ‘Farka’ Toure was producing an album with his son, Vieux. His own posthumously released
Savane
was nominated for a Grammy award, while the Malian Ministry of Culture recognized Toure’s timeless contribution by holding several events, including a vast international concert on the first anniversary of his death.

Thursday 9

Henrik Johansson

(Sweden, 31 May 1977)

Apostasy

‘No one in Apostasy is an outspoken Satanist (nor) do we hail death and torment. However, in all cases, don’t judge a dead man. The wrong man died once again.’

Apostasy’s latest keyboardist Leif Hogberg speaks on the
Blabbermouth
website

A near-identical story to that of Johnny Jackson emerged from the dark world of black metal just one week later. Apostasy were a workmanlike genre band that had somehow carved a niche after five years as a going concern: the band had been formed by Mathias Edin (guitar), who recruited his older brother Fredric (vocals), plus pals Hakan Bjorklund and Lars Engstrom (guitar) to flesh out the group. Guitarist Henrik Johansson joined as replacement for the latter, having been friends with Edin for some years. After one or two unsuccessful demos and a great deal of touring, Apostasy was signed to Black Mark Records for a 2003 debut record,
Cell 666.
This fared well, but after a follow-up (and a succession of line-up changes that took in bassist Andreas Edin and keyboardist Dennis Bobzien), disaster was to strike.

At the tail end of 2005, neighbours had complained of a series of violent arguments between Johansson and his new nineteen-year-old girlfriend at their Kramfors apartment. With authorities seemingly unable to act, in the spring of 2006 this tension reached its natural conclusion. At 3.55 on the morning of 9 March, Johansson’s girlfriend found a knife in the kitchen, which the guitarist attempted to remove from her grasp. He died soon after receiving a single stab wound to his heart, which his girlfriend claimed occurred as he ‘ran toward the knife’. She was later charged with manslaughter.

Friday 17

Professor X

(Lumumba Carson - Brooklyn, New York, 4 August 1956)

X-Clan

The son of civil rights activist Sonny Carson, Lumumba Carson – better known to his cohorts as Professor X – used very different methods to get his own militant standpoint across. The young Carson attended many political rallies with his father and was frequently in and around trouble, getting himself shot, stabbed, beaten up and even jailed for his efforts. That is, until he found a positive focus for his anger.

The founders of the activist group Blackwatch, X-Clan – Grand Verbalizer Funkin’ Lesson Brother J (Jason Hunter), Professor X the Overseer, Paradise the Architect (Claude Gray) and Sugar Shaft the Rhythm Provider (Anthony Hardin) – introduced themselves to the hip-hop community in 1989, decked out as they often were in African medallions and beads. Carson was older than most of his rap contemporaries, but, a big fan of legendary Harlem agitpropsters The Last Poets, he decided to embrace the scene as a way of promoting his Afrocentric beliefs. Professor X often worked as the band’s manager, overseeing the group’s first collection, 1990’s
To the East, Blackwards
– which is considered today one of rap’s best debuts. This record fared well on Billboard’s listings, paving the way for a second album, the equally well-received
Xodus
(1992). Then, while the rest of X-Clan went on an open-ended hiatus, Professor X kept his hand in, issuing a pair of uncompromising solo recordings in
Years of the 9 on the BlackhandSide
(1991) and
Puss ‘n Boots: The Struggle Continues
(1993). But any sign of an X-Clan reunion seemed lost forever after the AIDS-related passing of Sugar Shaft in 1995.

Lumumba Carson kept a lower profile at the time of his own death from spinal meningitis at a hospital in Brooklyn. Remarkably, a new X-Clan album – featuring an entirely different line-up plus a few scene friends – surfaced early in 2007.