The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (332 page)

Early lead singer John Atkins and later front man David Ebo have also passed away, as has Blue Notes producer Ritchie Barrett.

Wednesday 9

James Paull

(Blackburn, Victoria, Australia, 1 July 1957)

This Is Serious Mum

(Blind Lemon Chicken)

Despite the name of his best-known act, there wasn’t a great deal ‘serious’ about James Paull or his bandmates. As guitarist in the satirical and genre-defying This Is Serious Mum, Paull maintained the band’s penchant for anonymity, masquerading under the pseudonyms Jock, Tony Coitus and Tokin’ Blackman.

TISM – then fronted by singer Genre B Goode – came into being in 1982, when a group of bored Melbourne university students decided to deconstruct the rock bible. The balaclava-wearing band finally put out the debut single ‘Defecate on My Face’ in 1986, which faced an immediate ban. This ‘humour’ was typical of TISM’s lyrics, the themes of which tended toward violence, sex, drugs, alcohol, fame and the rock ‘n’ roll conveyor belt. A debut album rejoicing in the title
Great Truckin’ Songs of the Renaissance
emerged in 1988, and its success led to a deal with Phonogram worth tens of thousands of dollars.

In January 1992 Paull eschewed his classical training and joined up with TISM to play three-chord thrash, replacing Leek Van Vlalen (aka Sean Kelly). At this point, TISM – now back on an indie label – began experimenting with techno in what was to be their most successful period. Despite understandable controversy for 1993’s EP
Australia the Lucky C**t
(which was rechristened
Censored Due to Legal Advice
upon its reissue), the giddy heights of the Aussie Top Ten beckoned with fourth album
Machiavelli and The Four Seasons
(1995). While the group maintained a fiercely anti-music-industry stance, they did at least tour this record.

For the remainder of Paull’s time with TISM, the group was forced to label-hop, though they managed to put out two more charting albums before their last,
The White Albun
([sic] 2004). Paull also maintained the blues ensemble Blind Lemon Chicken. Some months after diagnosis with lung cancer, James Paull died at his home at the age of fifty.

Sunday 13

Clifford Davies

(Aldershot, Hampshire, 1948)

Ted Nugent

If

British-born Cliff Davies received his first, formative percussion lessons from a Scots pipe band drummer; this training helped create the robust sound evident in his later hard-rock recordings. At 24, he joined the sprawling jazz-rock combo If, though he was only the latest drummer in an ever-changing line-up that had already put out four albums since 1970. With him, though, the group released the reasonably well-received (if mainly non-charting) records
Waterfall
(1972),
Double Diamond
(1973),
Not Just Another Bunch of Pretty Faces
(1974) and, finally, the curiously titled
Tea Break Over, Back On Your Eads
(1975).

With If faltering, Davies – along with band mates Walt Monaghan (bass) and Gabriel Magno (keyboards) – then joined the band of notorious Detroit guitarist and former Amboy Duke Ted Nugent. This relationship was an even-more prolific one. Davies both played and sang on several of Nugent’s hard-rocking epics including the breakthrough
Cat Scratch Fever
(1977), which is widely regarded as the Nuge’s finest work. Davies also worked in conjunction with former If-producer Lew Futterman on many of Nugent’s arrangements. This twoman production team went on to work together at Next City, the studio where famed acts such as Grand Funk Railroad recorded.

After his lengthy stint in rock’s spotlight, Cliff Davies found himself employed as a teacher and sound engineer during the nineties, during which time he was beset by health issues – which contributed to an increasing amount of medical debt. On the evening of 12 April, he called his current boss – Reed Beaver of Equametric Studios – in a distressed state. Despite authorities having been warned, Davies was found at his home the following morning dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Golden Oldies #63

Brian Davison

(Leicestershire, England, 25 May 1942)

The Nice

(Various acts)

The young Brian ‘Blinky’ Davison, originally a skiffle drummer, made his first tentative steps into the music scene with The Mark Leeman Five (until the front man’s untimely death in a 1965 car crash), The Habits and soul band The Attack. Ultimately, he found success as drummer with London’s The Nice. This proto-prog outfit - where R & B singer P. P. Arnold and ELP keyboardist Keith Emerson also found their starts - was put together by influential Rolling Stones svengali Andrew Loog Oldham. In 1967, they recorded what is generally believed to be the first progressive album,
The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack
(the title utilised the names of all the band members). With influences ranging from Jacques Loussier to Jiml Hendrix to Johann Sebastian Bach, the group surprised many by scoring three UK Top Five albums, not to mention hitting the the singles charts with their unusual rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s ‘America’ in 1967.

Davison later found work as a journeyman drummer, putting in brief stints with Every Which Way, Jackson Heights, Refugee and even David Essex’s band, before landing a gig with the psychedelic-prog unit Gong. Disillusioned, Davison left the industry for a time, then returned in 2002 for a reunion concert with former Nice pals Emerson and singer Lee Jackson.

A popular music teacher at Bideford College in his later years, Brian Davison died of a brain tumour at his Devon home on 15 April 2008.

Gong multi-instrumentalist Pierre Moerlen died in 2005, while drummer Pip Pyle passed away the followingyear.

Thursday 17

Danny Federici

(Flemington, New Jersey, 23 January 1950)

Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band

(The Storytellers)

(Child/Steel Mill)

(Various acts)

For many years a multi-instrumentalist in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, Danny Federici started out playing polkas at his New Jersey home. His mother, sensing a prodigy in her family’s midst, booked the young virtuoso out for parties, where he could entertain guests with his accordion.

During the mid-1960s, Federici branched out into rock ‘n’ roll most notably with New Jersey favourites, Bill Chinnock’s The Storytellers. The core of The E Street Band, however, can be traced back to Federici’s next act: having left The Storytellers, he and highly individual drummer Vini ‘Mad Dog’ Lopez formed the hard-rock band Child with bassist Vinnie Roslin. The trio saw fresh local singer/guitarist Bruce Springsteen as their ideal front man. The group shortly thereafter became Steel Mill (to avoid confusion with another band named Child based out of New York), thus creating the nucleus of Springsteen’s band. The relationship was to last nearly four decades.

After a couple of false starts known variously as Dr Zoom & The Sonic Boom and The Bruce Springsteen Band, the soon-to-be E Street Band came into being around 1972, when the charismatic front man found both management and a major record label (Columbia). This earliest line-up featured Springsteen (vocals/guitar), Federici (organ/accordion), Lopez (drums), Garry Tallent (bass), Clarence Clemons (saxophone) and David Sancious (piano). Although he didn’t play on Springsteen’s debut
Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ
(1972), Federici – who at this time had a few professional issues with pianist Sancious – did tour in support of this somewhat-ignored record and was featured on the critically-acclaimed-but-commercially-snubbed follow-up,
The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle
(1973).

The E Street Band, as they were officially known as of 1974, experienced a huge upturn in fortune that year. After going through several line-up changes, they took on Springsteen’s old sparring partner Stevie Van Zandt on guitar, before unleashing their strongest material yet in
Born to Run
(1975). Thanks to a killer title cut that found its way onto just about every playlist in US radio, this record proved potent enough to see The E Street Band past protracted legal issues and onto the delayed follow-up,
Darkness on the Edge of Town
(1978), and its successor,
The River
(1980) – whose ‘Hungry Heart’ perhaps remains the defining moment of Federici’s contribution to the band’s sound. By this point, the band were one of rock’s biggest live draws, though Federici also became notorious for some offstage pranks that earned him the nickname ‘The Phantom’ by the man sometimes known simply as ‘The Boss’.

Such was Springsteen’s prominence that he recorded less and less with The E Street Band throughout the eighties, although Federici and company were retained for the
Born in the USA
(1984) and
Tunnel of Love
(1987) sessions. The E Street Band were officially decommissioned in 1989.