The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (330 page)

MIA singer Todd Sampson collapsed and died following a July 2010 concert by the reformed band in Nevada.

MARCH

Sunday 2

Jeff Healey

(Norman Jeffrey Healey - Toronto, Ontario, 25 March 1966)

The Jeff Healey Band

(Various acts)

While always knowing that he had a time limit in which to achieve his goals, Jeff Healey overcame remarkable odds to succeed in music. In his infancy, Healey – who was adopted at birth – lost both his eyes to retinoblas-toma, an extremely uncommon form of cancer that necessitated their surgical removal.

‘The minute you hear a song with Mike Conley singing–you
know
it’s him.’

Jello Biafra, The Dead Kennedys

Healey began learning the guitar at just three years old, adopting his soon-to-be-familiar style of playing with the instrument laid flat upon his lap. At seventeen, he formed his first band, Blue Direction, a four-piece blues covers group that wasn’t the best showcase for Healey’s obvious versatility. The guitarist’s extraordinary prowess on his Fender Stratocaster became more obvious with the formation of The Jeff Healey Band in 1985. This group, with Healey (guitar/ vocals), Joe Rockman (bass) and Tom Stephen (drums), became a serious draw in Toronto’s clubs over the next year. It was at one of their Albert’s Hall gigs that the blind musician was discovered by fabled guitarists Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert Collins – two of the many major talents with whom he was later to play. The pair recommended Healey and his band to Arista, and the label eventually issued their impressive – and triple-platinum – debut album
See the Light
(1988). The record was a global success, claiming Top Twenty status everywhere from New Zealand to Switzerland. It also spawned the massive hit single ‘Angel Eyes’ (1989), which sold over a million copies in the United States and was featured in the cult movie
Road House.
The follow-up album,
Hell to Pay
(1990), enhanced Healey’s reputation further, securing a Top Five slot at home and a Top Twenty placing in the United Kingdom.

After a string of less well-received albums reliant on cover songs, Healey subsequently renounced rock for another of his passions, vintage American jazz, and again proved more than adept at crafting music in this style. Such was Healey’s passion for the form that he was given his own radio hour by CBC to spin sides from a personal collection that reportedly topped 30,000 records. (The guitarist – and latterly jazz trumpeter – also lent his name to a blues bar in Toronto’s Bathurst Street.)

The return of Healey’s cancer meant that the artist was in and out of surgery for the final years of his life: in 2005, sarcomas were removed from his legs, while a 2007 operation to eradicate metastatic tissue from his lungs ultimately proved enough to prolong Healey’s life rather than to save it. He died at St Joseph’s Health Centre in his home town, leaving a widow and two children – one of whom carries the same genetic disorder as his father. Jeff Healey’s death was immediately followed by the issue of the posthumous collection
Mess of Blues
and a well-attended concert that raised funds to fight the rare condition that was no match for the ambitions of this notable artist.

Golden Oldies #62

Hurricane Smith

(Norman Smith - Edmonton, London, 22 February 1923)

Throughout his long life, the superficially unfashionable Norman ‘Hurricane’ Smith was full of surprises. It’s a safe bet that few who recall Smith’s idiosyncratic appearances on television showcases such as
Top of the Pops
were aware that the hitmaker of ‘Oh Babe What Would You Say?’ (1972, UK Top Five; US Billboard number three; US Cash Box number one) was a former RAF glider pilot - not to mention the engineer behind all of The Beatles’ EMI studio recordings up to and including
Rubber Soul
(1966). Indeed, it was John Lennon who gave Smith the distinctive nickname he was to carry into his belated recording career.

Moving on from the Fab Four, Smith’s studio reputation soared after he produced three of the first four Pink Floyd albums (even providing drums for one track) and then guided The Pretty Things through what is arguably rock’s first ‘concept album’, S
F Sorrow
(1968). (Smith’s contributions were so valued that vocalist Phil May described him as the sixth member of the group.)

While producing emerging British rock act Barclay James Harvest, Smith recorded a rough cut of ‘Don’t Let It Die’ (1971) - a tune he’d written with Lennon in mind. However, his own unfettered vocal take prompted colleagues to suggest that Smith release the song unchanged. The next surprise was a smash hit only prevented from topping the UK charts by Middle of the Road’s hypnotically awful ‘Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep’. For a year or so, smartly dressed Hurricane Smith the Pop Star was, at nearly fifty, a regular face in the British media, stunning all who knew him by then topping the US hit parade on Valentine’s week in 1973.

A final surprise to even more will be that pensioner Norman ‘Hurricane’ Smith - also known as ‘Normal’ to The Beatles - was still recording into the new millennium. The engineer/producer/singer died from natural causes on 3 March 2008, just two weeks after his 85th birthday.

See also
John Lennon (
December 1980)

Saturday 15

Mikey Dread

(Michael Campbell - Port Antonio, Jamaica, 4 June 1954)

(The Clash)

(UB40)

(Various acts)

Mikey Dread always had an interest in electronics. He worked for a time with Jamaican radio service JBC before combining his technical know-how with a natural ebullience to emerge as an engaging reggae vocalist and performer. Dread’s collaborations included work with contemporaries King Tubby and Carlton Patterson, but he is perhaps best remembered in the UK and USA for his work with The Clash. Dread produced the crossover hit ‘Bank Robber’ (1980, UK number twelve) as well as several songs on the triple album
Sandinista!
(1981), and later joined Joe Strummer’s band on tour.

‘One day we’re gonna let you hear him sing!’

Sleeve reference to Ola Brunkert on Abba’s 1976 album
Arrival

Dread – who also played many times with English reggae act UB40 – continued to record and produce into the new century, picking up numerous accolades as he did so. The unassuming artist also used his distinctive tones to voice several British television documentaries about the music that he loved. Although Dread had been living with a brain tumour for some time, the reggae legend finally succumbed to the condition at his sister’s home in Connecticut.

See also
Joe Strummer (
December 2002)

Sunday 16

Ola Brunkert

(Orebro, Sweden, 15 September 1946)

Abba

(Various acts)

An unsung hero behind the phenomenal success of Swedish pop crusaders Abba, Ola Brunkert was the session drummer who appeared on all of the group’s albums and also accompanied the quartet on many world tours.