The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (326 page)

Friday 4

Keith Baxter

(Morecambe, Lancashire, England, 19 February 1971)

3 Colours Red

Skyclad

(Various acts)

Drummer Keith Baxter joined pioneering pagan metal band Skyclad when he was still a teenager. The group – Baxter, Martin Walkyier (ex-Sabbat, vocals), Steve Ramsey (ex-Satan/Pariah, guitars) and Graeme English (ex-Pariah, bass) – released their debut record,
The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth,
in 1991 – an album commonly regarded as the first genuine folk-metal hybrid. (New members Fritha Jenkins (violin/keys) and Dave Pugh (guitar) joined soon after.)

Baxter remained with Skyclad for four more albums, however while the band maintained a cult following, there was little chart impact; this was remedied by a move to London to join 3 Colours Red, the Britrock band signed to then hot Creation Records. The group, founded by Pete Vuckovic (ex-Diamond Head, vocals) and Chris McCormack (ex-Honeycrack, guitar), were an immediate hit. Their first album,
Pure
(1997), made the UK Top Twenty, as did its follow-up,
Revolt
(1999). 3 Colours Red were also regulars on the singles charts, claiming six Top Forty hits in a little over two years, the biggest of which, ‘Beautiful Day’ (1999), narrowly missed out on a Top Ten slot. Success afforded them the chance to tour the US with Marilyn Manson, Aerosmith and Silverchair, but a rift between Vuckovic and McCormack split the band during what should have been their finest hour. (By the time they reformed 3 Colours Red with Baxter in 2004, the group’s broader fanbase had moved on.)

Keith Baxter – who also played with Vuckovic band Elevation (and later Baby Judas and former festival favourites Therapy?) – died suddenly from gastrointestinal haemorrhaging at the age of just thirty-six.

Thursday 10

Rod Allen

(Rodney Bainbridge - Leicester, England, 31 March 1944)

The Fortunes

(Various acts)

The Fortunes didn’t shift the kind of units that many of their beat contemporaries did, but the group was nonetheless widely loved for their thoughtful take on the form. Formed in 1963 as an electrified version of their previous incarnation, The Clifftones, The Fortunes included vocalist Rod Allen, guitarist Glen Dale, bass player Barry Pritchard, keyboardist David Carr and drummer Andy Brown. Having honed their sound, The Fortunes quickly recorded what was to be their biggest hit, 1965’s ‘You’ve Got Your Troubles’ (UK #2; US #7; Canada #1).

The band’s harmony-infused ‘Caroline’ became a signature tune for the fabled pirate radio station of the same name, while other tracks ‘Here It Comes Again’ (1965, UK #4; US #27) and ‘This Golden Ring’ (1966, UK #15) maintained the band’s position as chart regulars. Although these hits were to dry toward the end of the decade, The Fortunes enjoyed a revival with a pair of UK Top Ten singles, ‘Freedom Come, Freedom Go’ (1971) and ‘Storm in a Teacup’ (1972), at the start of the next. A memorable Coca-Cola jingle – written by Allen – must also have swelled the coffers nicely.

Whatever their chart profile, The Fortunes found themselves in constant demand for some forty years, with Allen leading an ever-evolving line-up right up until 2007, when the front man was diagnosed with liver cancer. Rod Allen insisted that the band should continue after his death, which occurred just two months after learning of his condition.

See also
Barry Pritchard (
January 1999). David Carr passed away in July 2011.

Golden Oldies #60

John Stewart

(San Diego, California, 5 September 1939)

The Kingston Trio

The Cumberland Three

(Various acts)

While the fledgling Kingston Trio were playing the crowded coffee bars of San Francisco, guitarist and singer John Stewart was entertaining the masses with his own brand of rock ‘n’ roll folk: as a songwriter, he’d started young, penning ‘Shrunken Head Boogie’ at just ten years old.

Stewart later fronted bands such as The Furies and then The Cumberland Three, in which he joined forces with musician Gil Robbins (later of The Highwaymen). This group was the first of Stewart’s to cut an album,
Folk Scene USA
(Roulette, 1960), which they followed up with
Civil War Almanac Vols I and II
before he encountered the band that was to put folk music into the charts. The sleeve notes to The Cumberland Three’s debut had borne an endorsement from Kingston Trio guitarist Dave Guard, and it was he that Stewart was to replace in 1961, joining co-founders Nick Reynolds (guitar/percussion) and Bob Shane (Robert Schoen - vox/guitar).

The Trio had already cemented their place in folklore with the six-million-selling ‘Tom Dooley’, which had topped the US charts in 1958 and is generally credited as having kickstarted the 1960s boom for the genre. Although not of this calibre, there were to be hits behind Stewart’s leadership, too, most notably ‘Reverend Mr Black’, a Top Ten song and another big-seller in 1963. The Kingston Trio disbanded in 1967, by which time Stewart was highly sought as a composer. His ‘Daydream Believer’ was The Monkees’ third number one at the turn of 1968 - although this hit was the only concession he made to mainstream pop songwriting at that time. (That was more the domain of his brother Michael, the co-founder of hitmakers We Five.)

DEAD INTERESTING!

TREACHERY ON THE HIGH SEAS

A bizarre tale of ‘real’ piracy hit both the waves and airwaves during 1966: the lurid death of Fortunes manager, Reg Calvert.

The flamboyant impresario–who also looked after UK acts like Screaming Lord Sutch and Pinkerton’s Assorted Colours–saw pirate radio as the wave of the future for pop-music broadcasting and went on to found Radio City off the Kent coast. When rival Radio Caroline was launched in June 1966, its director Oliver Smedley purchased a transmitter for the offshore stations to share as long as Calvert would oversee the running of them both. But, with the law clamping down heavily on pirate radio, Smedley then pulled out of the deal: in retaliation, Calvert refused to pay him for the transmitter, which he believed to be malfunctioning anyway. This in turn led to Smedley’s hiring of a band of riggers to sabotage Radio City and put the station out of action until his bill had been met. With hostilities escalating, Calvert paid a visit to Smedley’s home, threatening him with physical violence: the former army major turned a rifle on Calvert, killing the pop manager with one bullet.

Following the subsequent trial, Smedley was acquitted on the grounds of self-defence. The entire grisly episode was, however, the final straw for a government that was to pass the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act in August 1967.

Stewart returned as a solo performer during the 1970s and scored a US Top Five single with the haunting ‘Gold’ (1979). Its parent album
Bombs Away Dream Babies -
which spawned two further Top 40 hits - owed much to the input of Fleetwood Mac’s Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Stewart’s work appeared effortlessly to cross the boundaries of folk, rock and also country, the artist latterly concentrating on songwriting in this field. Diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease, Stewart passed away at sixty-eight from a brain aneurysm on 19 January 2008.

See also
Dave Guard (
March 1991); Nick Reynolds (
Golden Oldies #75). New Kingston Trio guitarist Roger Gambill died from a heart ailment in 1985, Michael Stewart passed on in 2002following a lengthy illness, and Gil Robbins died in April 2011.