Where Are They Buried? (68 page)

At 29, Ronnie was laid to rest wearing his trademark, black Texas Hatters cowboy hat. His favorite fishing pole was placed inside his coffin. Though Steve, 28, and Cassie, 29, were from Oklahoma, they were buried alongside Ronnie at the Jacksonville Memory Gardens in Florida. In 1999 someone defaced their graves and, shortly thereafter, they were exhumed and moved to a location that this author chooses to not disclose.

On the tenth anniversary of the plane crash, most of the surviving original members of Lynyrd Skynyrd reunited for the Tribute tour in which lead vocals were provided by Ronnie’s younger brother, Johnny. Besides those killed in the crash, a former band member glaringly absent from the lineup was Allen Collins, who had been in the original incarnation of the Noble Five and who had distinguished himself and the band as lead guitarist. But Allen had also been one of the band’s most notorious substance abusers both before and after the plane crash.

In 1986 Allen lost control of his car while driving under the influence of alcohol. The ensuing crash killed his girlfriend and left him paralyzed from the waist down, with only limited use of his upper body and arms. Allen later pleaded no contest to DUI manslaughter. Part of his sentence required that, as a celebrity, he make public service announcements warning others of the consequences of drunk driving. Allen served as musical director during the 1987 Tribute tour but remained wheelchair-bound on the sidelines while his band took center stage. Before each concert, Allen would be rolled up to the microphone to explain to his fans that he wouldn’t be playing guitar because, on another night long ago, he had chosen to drive drunk.

As a result of decreased lung capacity from his paralysis, Allen developed pneumonia, from which he died at 37.

Allen Collins was buried at Riverside Memorial Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From I-295, take Exit 7 onto Normandy Boulevard. Head east and the cemetery is immediately to the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery and drive past the fountain. Stop after about 75 yards and you’ll see on the left a cement walk leading into the Garden of Cross. Eighty feet down this walk is a stone bench inscribed “Collins-John.” (John is the maiden name of Allen’s wife, Kathy, who died in 1980 from complications after a pregnancy.) Opposite the bench are the graves of both Allen and Kathy.

The Tribute tour was such a success that Lynyrd Skynyrd reunited for good and since then, they’ve released five albums and become a staple of summer concert tours. Unlike Allen, bass player Leon Wilkeson rejoined his old friends on stage and, with the two other original members, keyboardist Billy Powell and guitarist Gary Rossington, teased the prying eyes of fans who longed for the Lynyrd Skynyrd of yesteryear.

After more than a decade of thumping along in the band’s new incarnation, Leon died in his sleep in a Florida hotel room during a brief break between shows. A medical examination found that he’d suffered from diseases of the liver and lungs and, after toxicology tests came back negative, it was ruled that he died of natural causes at just 49.

Leon was buried at Riverside Memorial Park Cemetery in Jacksonville, the same park as Allen.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Leon’s stone is along the main drive, near the fountain on the left.

Believe it or not, Billy Powell, the only Lynyrd Skynyrd member with any formal college training in music theory, actually started with the band as a roadie, schlepping amps and speakers for a year before being “discovered” by Ronnie Van Zant himself. While setting up at a prep school’s prom for which they had been hired to play (these really
were
the early years!), Billy noticed a piano in the corner. “I sat down and played them my version of ‘Freebird’,” he remembered years later. “Ronnie came up to me and said, ‘You mean to tell me, you’ve been working for us for a year and you can play piano like that?’ So, right then and there, Ronnie said, ‘We need a keyboard player.’”

Billy was a perfect fit and his keyboard talents invigorated the band with a new fullness of sound, while his “Freebird” intro evolved into a trademark concert highlight that never failed to ignite a wave of audience exhilaration within seconds of him tickling its first few notes. For the remainder of his life, Billy would cherish the memory of those wonderful dream-like years when everything clicked for the tight-knit group of friends who shared the bill with such juggernauts as The Who and the Rolling Stones.

Though the plane crash changed everything, Billy was fortunate enough to “only” suffer extensive facial lacerations including an almost completely severed nose. The first to be discharged from the hospital, he was the sole member able to attend his bandmates’ funerals.

After the accident, Billy pursued a few music projects with ex-Skynyrd members, including the bands Alias and Rossington-Collins. After embracing religion, he excitedly joined with the Christian-rock band Vision in 1985, but that connection ended prematurely as Billy’s late-night, carousing lifestyle clashed with the dreary habits of Bible-thumping bandmates. In 1987 Billy reunited with fellow Skynyrd survivors for the Tribute tour, and ended up remaining with the band’s new incarnation right up to his death. After a heart attack at 56, Billy was cremated.

SEPTEMBER 19, 1943 – JULY 29, 1974

AUGUST 30, 1935 – MARCH 18, 2001

NOVEMBER 29, 1940 – JANUARY 19, 2007

During the 1960s the Mamas and the Papas burst out of the Southern California pop scene and bombarded the Top Forty with lushly harmonized folk-pop songs. The group was formed by John Phillips, who was also the creative talent and hit-writing machine of the foursome, after he pulled up stakes and left New York as the folk music scene went electric. The group’s other three members—alto Cass Elliot, John’s long-time collaborator Denny Doherty, and John’s second wife, Michelle Phillips—contributed to the radiant blended sound, while session musicians provided the bulk of the instrumentation.

Projecting diversity in colorful hippie garb, they released a string of hit singles, including “California Dreamin’” and “Monday Monday,” and reigned among the hip vanguard that typified the newest breed of groups to follow in the Beatles’ wake. But it all came apart in just a few years, as the quartet’s intertwining romantic entanglements and chemical excesses strangled their ability
to work together. They broke up in 1968 and reunited briefly in 1971 to make one last album per a contractual obligation, but that album flopped, and the Mamas and the Papas became only a fond memory.

Mama Cass Elliot then enjoyed a fairly successful solo career, but while in London for a two-week engagement at the Palladium, she died in 1974, alone in an apartment. A popular legend holds that Cass choked to death on a ham sandwich, but it’s not at all true. Instead, a ham sandwich that she hadn’t yet touched was on the table next to her bed when she suffered a heart attack. After an autopsy discovered “fatty myocardial degeneration,” her official cause of death was ruled as heart failure due to obesity.

At 30, Cass was cremated and her ashes buried at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From Highway 134, which is the connector between Highway 101 and I-210, take the Forest Lawn Drive exit. Proceed west for a half-mile and Mount Sinai’s entrance is on the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Go up the hill and, just after the drive bends to the left, the twin Courts of Tanach are on the right. Go up the stairs and enter the first court Cass’ marker is in the far left corner on the grass, and it displays her given name, Ellen Naomi Cohen.

After John and Michelle divorced, Michelle embarked on an acting career. Meanwhile, John’s life went into a tailspin and he spent most of the 1970s under the influence of one drug or another, often getting high with his teenage daughter, MacKenzie, who was a star on the
One Day at a Time
television series. A drug bust finally pushed him into therapy and, once clean and sober, John formed a reunion version of the group with Denny and two new Mamas.

At 65, John died of a heart attack. He now resides at Palm Springs Mortuary and Mausoleum in Cathedral City, California, where his crypt is emblazoned “California Dreamin’.”

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From I-10, take the Ramon Road exit and proceed south for two miles to Da Vall Drive. Turn left, make a quick right into Palm Springs Mortuary, and park in the office lot to the left.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Walk back across the entrance lane, proceed alongside the fountain, then turn at the first left and the next
right. John’s crypt is on the left, just past the Frink family fountain, four rows from the bottom.

After the group’s brief revival in 1982, Denny retreated to his native Nova Scotia and pursued his acting career, playing the Harbor Master in a popular children’s television show called
Theodore Tugboat
. In 2003 his off-Broadway show called
Dream a Little Dream: The Mamas and the Papas Musical
, which traced the band’s early years, dizzying arc of fame, and breakup amid drugs and alcohol, was well received. But, he found it emotionally draining. “There’s a part of this thing that if I’m not careful, I’d be just a blob on the stage crying my guts out,” he explained. “It’s an exercise in staying in the moment and not getting maudlin about your friends dying.”

At 66 Denny died of an abdominal aneurysm and was buried at Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia.

CEMETERY DIRECTIONS:
From Highway 101, take the Cobequid Road exit, turn to the west and the cemetery entrance is a short distance along Old Sackville Road.

GRAVE DIRECTIONS:
Enter the cemetery at the entrance next to the main office and drive straight up to Section 6G, at the top of the hill behind the maintenance shop. Denny’s stone is eight rows from the drive in the middle of the section.

FEBRUARY 6, 1945 – MAY 11, 1981

Even though Bob Marley never had a U.S. hit, he stands as one of the most warmly regarded figures in all of popular music. Within the loose framework of a reggae rhythm that seemed to command listeners to fall into its groove, Bob turned simple lyrics into sharp criticisms, and his outpouring of grief for his beloved but corrupt Jamaican homeland stirred consciences worldwide.

Born to a young black mother and an older white father, Bob grew up in a lush hamlet, high in the mountains of Jamaica. In 1962, at just 17, he cut his first single and, throughout the next decade, made a number of recordings for small Jamaican labels with his backing group, the Wailers. But wide commercial success eluded him, and the newly married Bob arrived in the U.S. in 1969 to take a chance on a 9-to-5 routine at a Wilmington, Delaware, auto factory.

Bob soon returned to Jamaica. With a fresh focus, he began working with a new producer and record company and in 1973 released a landmark album,
Catch A Fire
. Unlike Bob’s previous releases, this work was packaged and marketed like a rock album and, to complement the strategy, he was astutely promoted to rock audiences, most notably sharing a billing with Bruce Springsteen at a number of New York City shows. Bob’s gritty and vibrant blend of rock, blues, and West Indies folk began to catch on. After Eric Clapton covered Bob’s “I Shot the Sheriff” in 1974, the transition was complete, and Bob Marley and the Wailers were stars.

As Bob’s patterned melodies and endless hooks ramped his success skyward through the 1970s, he also gained credibility as a social leader. But even as a national hero and the King of Reggae, he could not bring change to the tormented social landscape of Jamaica. Bob was a Rastafarian—a member of the religious movement that favors nature, simplicity, marijuana, and, above all, peace—and was committed to peaceful revolution. Unfortunately, Jamaica’s government recognized only the sword. In December 1976, two days before he was to give a free “Smile Jamaica” concert aimed at reducing tensions between warring political factions, gunmen attacked him and his entourage. Nobody was killed, though bullets grazed both Bob and his wife, and the incident served only to further galvanize his political outlook. Later works, especially
Exodus
and
Survival
, featured an urgent militant bent.

In 1977 a cancerous growth was found on one of Bob’s toes, which he had injured years earlier while playing soccer. In the summer of 1980 it was learned that cancer had invaded his vital organs and, less than a year later, at 36, Bob died at a Miami clinic from brain and lung cancer.

Just steps away from the small stone house in which he was born, Bob lies in a white mausoleum surrounded by a fence splashed with the red, yellow, and green colors of Jamaica. In 1991 the government proclaimed his birthday a national holiday and, every year since, performers have celebrated his memory on a nearby stage. The site is in the tiny village of Nine Mile, 70 miles northwest of Kingston, accessible from the B3 road.

SEPTEMBER 5, 1946 – NOVEMBER 24, 1991

During the infancy and coming of age of “manufactured sound” in the 1970s, the British rock band Queen took great pride in the fact that its music featured no synthesizers. The group instead emphasized electric guitars (albeit heavily mixed) layered over
smooth vocal harmonies, while the shrill lead was provided by flamboyant frontman Freddie Mercury.

Freddie had been born Farok Bulsara in the British colony of Zanzibar in Africa, though his Indian family soon moved to Bombay and, when he was thirteen, they settled in England. After obtaining a degree in graphic arts, Freddie flitted about London’s eclectic underground during the 1960s, selling clothing and artwork at the Kensington market during the day and singing with a variety of fledgling groups by night.