The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (417 page)

Raised in Queens, New York, Raymond Jones was for several years the keyboard player with funk/R & B greats Chic, joining Bernard Edwards (bass) and Nile Rodgers (guitar) at the age of just nineteen. The musician had begun by sessioning with little-recalled soul/disco unit Ecstasy, Passion & Pain (EP&P), where he met future Chic drummer Tony Thompson. Fleshed out with the punchy vocals of Norma Jean Wright, Chic eventually unveiled a series of major international smash 45s including the ‘big four’ of ‘Dance, Dance, Dance’ (1977, US/UK Top Ten), signature hit ‘Le Freak’ (1978, US/New Zealand number one; UK Top Ten), ‘I Want Your Love’ (1978, US Top Ten; 1979, UK Top Five) and ‘Good Times’ (1979, US number one; UK Top Five). Though the group’s sound was undeniably influential, it was the duo of Edwards and Rogers that took the greatest plaudits.

After leaving Chic, Jones played with a number of lesser R & B stars and concentrated on his own songwriting, which included composing the transatlantic hit ‘Baby Stay With Me Tonight’ (1984) for rising star Jeffrey Osborne: Jones became Osborne’s musical director, penning further R & B hits for the singer, while also working with a diverse array of other talent, including Nona Hendryx (ex-Labelle) and Talking Heads.

Raymond Jones – who later wrote a considerable amount of music for movie director, Spike Lee – died from pneumonia in an East Point, Georgia hospital. He reunites in the celestial studio with Edwards
(
April 1996
) and Thompson (d 2003), both of whom succumbed to cancer. (Rogers announced early in 2011 that he, too, was fighting the disease.)

Saturday 9

Wurzel

(Michael Burston - Cheltenham, England, 23 October 1949)

Motorhead

(Various acts)

Needless to say, it was the uncompromising singer Lemmy Kilmister who insisted guitarist Wurzel add the otherwise-superfluous umlaut to what was already his nickname – the belief being that this made the erstwhile Mr Michael Burston more ‘heavy metal’. Wurzel had previously served in the army, where his unkempt appearance had helped him acquire the identity of the fictional scarecrow

The guitarist had for some time served with the bands Bastard and Warfare, which one can assume probably weren’t doo-wop acts. Wurzel eventually hooked up with Motorhead in 1984, once his aggressive guitar style was honed to the point of these thrash-metallers’ satisfaction. Beginning with that year’s retrospective album
No Remorse,
Wurzel remained with the band for over a decade, recording six further studio albums. (The 1992 album
March or Die
took the group’s obsession with German punctuation to almost Spinal Tap-like levels.) The guitarist left Motorhead after
Sacrifice
(1995), the band somewhat past their creative and commercial peak by this time.

Wurzel had already issued the solo EP
Bess
in 1987, and after he left Motorhead, he went on to session with several other bands including The Ramones, dubious UK punk survivors Splodgenessabounds, and his own act, Leader of Down, with whom he had been set to issue a debut album at the time of his death. Wurzel passed away from ventricular fibrillation triggered by cardiomyopathy.

Golden Oldies #141

Rob Grill

(Los Angeles, California, 30 November 1943)

The Grass Roots

(The 13th Floor)

Rob Grill began as a studio manager at ARS, alongside pals Cory Wells (later of Three Dog Night) and John Kay (later of Steppenwolf); he then became the singer, writer and bassist for the successful US rock band The Grass Roots.

The Grass Roots were a project created in 1965 by Dunhill Records songwriters and Byrds fans P F Sloan and Steve Barri - an anonymous studio group for which they were asked to compose hits. Presaging one of the higher-profile examples of ‘creating a band to fit the song’, the duo found a hit on its hands with ‘Where Were You When I Needed You?’ (1966, US Top Forty), and needed to find some faces, and fast. At first, members of The Bedouins stepped in, but conflict arose when only the singer was required to work. The next line-up to surface were The 13
^th
Floor, a folk/pop band from Los Angeles that featured journeymen musicians Warren Entner (vocals/keyboards/guitar), Creed Bratton (vocals/guitar), Rick Coonce (drums) and finally a lead singer and bassist named Rob Grill.

These musicians became ‘The Grass Roots’. The band enjoyed a series of singalong hits from which gold discs were earned for ‘Let’s Live For Today’ (1967), ‘Midnight Confessions’ (1968) and ‘Sooner Or Later’ (1971, all US Top Ten). Although The Grass Roots charted twenty-one singles at home, they found it harder to place on other international hit parades, and never secured a UK hit. Grill also became frustrated by the fact that the group’s material was proving less popular than the Sloan/Barri-penned hits: his only a-side had been ‘Come On and Say It’ (1970), which stalled at Billboard number sixty-one. The singer thus took over managing The Grass Roots in order to maintain some level of control. Despite the changing tastes and the resulting diminishing returns throughout the seventies, Grill stuck to his dual role and the group maintained a loyal live following into the next decade. By 1979, Grill was also working solo, assisted on a debut record by some highprofile friends in the shape of Fleetwood Mac.

Since the start of the millennium, Rob Grill had experienced a succession of health issues - mainly bone disease -which had necessitated his undergoing several hip replacements. The former singer had been in a coma since suffering a fall some weeks before his death on 11 July 2011 in an Orlando, Florida hospital.

Rob Grill’s passing came just five months after that of Rick Coonce, who died from heart failure in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

Golden Oldies#142

Jerry Ragovoy

(Jordan Ragovoy - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 4 September 1930)

A revered figure in sixties rhythm ‘n’ blues, Jerry Ragovoy was a US songwriter who made his mark working as a producer and arranger for the Philadelphia-based Chancellor Records label. Among Ragovoy’s first penned hits were ‘A Wonderful Dream’ by The Majors (1962, US Top Forty) and the million-selling ‘Cry Baby’ by Garnet Mimms & The Enchanters (1963, US Top Five/US R & B number one - co-written with Bert Berns), whom he continued to produce throughout the decade. The songwriter also wrote for Chancellor’s token heart-throb, Fabian.

Later in his career, Ragovoy - who also wrote under the pseudonym Norman Meade - went on to compose several internationally recognised standards. These included ‘Time is On My Side’, recorded by many including The Rolling Stones (1964, US Top Ten), and ‘Stay With Me’ by, among others, Lorraine Ellison (1966, US R & B Top Twenty). Perhaps the most celebrated of his songs - and surely the most lucrative - was ‘Piece of My Heart’, the prime version being that of Big Brother & The Holding Company (1968, US Top Twenty). The vocalist here was, of course, Janis Joplin, who also covered many of Ragovoy’s songs in her brief career as a solo artist. Having been bowled over by Joplin - a white interpreter of R & B - record-buyers were almost as surprised to learn that the writer of these songs was a middle-class Jewish man. Ragovoy’s last song for Joplin was (ironically) ‘I’m Gonna Rock My Way to Heaven’, which the singer was all set to record at the time of her sudden passing (
October 1970).

Although his profile was considerably lower since the 1970s, Ragovoy nevertheless worked as a producer for Bonnie Raitt, and then went on to claim a Grammy for the soundtrack of revue show,
Don’t Bother Me, I Can’t Cope
(1973). Jerry Ragovoy spent his final years living in Connecticut: he died on 13 July 2011 in a Manhattan hospital, after suffering a stroke.

Sunday 17

Taiji Sawada

(Ichikawa, Japan, 12 July 1966)

X Japan

(Various acts)