celebrity obit

RIP, Bear!

Dusty Wright — Sun, 13 Nov 2022 23:57:38 +0000

RIP, Bear! Dusty Wright November 13, 2022 - 18:57

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Michael Butler (11/26/1926 – 11/7/2022)

I lost my mentor and dear friend this past week. He produced Hair on Broadway, numerous road shows, and the film. (As well as other plays and films) Though he was 30 years my senior, one would never have guessed his age when in my company. We shared many escapades in the entertainment business from 1985 through 2019. He would call me on my birthdays. His life was extraordinary... Born in Chicago, his family owned Oak Brook Farms which would later become the town of Oak Brook, IL. Their family business was Butler Paper and Butler Aviation. His father Paul made polo part of the equestrian landscape in America, winning six U.S. Open Polo Championships and four Butler Handicap titles. Michael would embrace the very expensive and posh sport, as well, collecting and befriending champions and celebrities along the way. His personal friendships with politicians (The Kennedys) and princes/kings (King Charles) and celebrities (too many to list), afforded him endless stories and memoirs. I would host dinner parties just have him share his escapades with my friends. He introduced me to Gore Vidal, someone I would interview for two podcasts. (Together, we would later option one of Gore's novels, nearly selling our excellent script to Hollyweird.). Without going too in-depth, I suggest listening to this extraordinary podcast I conducted with Michael in 2005. It is all true. Blessings to your soul, Brother Bear, you taught me how to live life to the fullest.

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Bob Neuwirth - An Appreciation

Gary Lucas — Mon, 23 May 2022 13:22:50 +0000

Bob Neuwirth - An Appreciation Gary Lucas May 23, 2022 - 09:22

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I first ran into Bob Neuwirth on a change of planes in Chicago, on the way from NYC to play the Winnipeg Folk Festival, must have been 1988.

I knew Bob was scheduled to play also, and when he got on the plane I called out his name -- and he lit up and we bonded.

He made a point of coming to see my solo set the next day, and gave me all sorts of fatherly advice like: "Now Gary, don't get nervous!"We had dinner together that night and I asked him if it was true what Don Van Vliet had once boasted about to me; namely, "I threw Bob Dylan out of Barney's Beanery!" (A notorious bar/burger joint in LA.)

"Well…if it makes him feel better to say that," he grinned.

I asked him to elaborate.

"No, no…that wasn't it at all. What it was, was...they had a sign in Barney's Beanery that said:

'No Faggots Allowed’.

And Bob and I didn’t think that was right. So we got up and left."

Bobby Neuwirth came over to my apartment in the West Village once in the mid-'90s, and we recorded one of his songs "Cloudy Day" right then and there direct to DAT, no overdubs:

Bob is singing and on acoustic, and I’m on electric. This track later came out on his solo album Looking Up (Watermelon Records).

Bob was a great guy! He gave me one of his abstract paintings as a gift and said:

"I've been carrying this around for you forever. What I've paid in overweight charges!"

I rang him up two months ago and tried to get him to sign on to a documentary about his life that my friend Remy wanted to make. He adamantly declined. Guess he knew Dylan would come up as part of the interview, obviously, and he didn't want to go there.

True story:

They had a Norman Mailer Film Festival at Anthology Film Archives some years ago where they screened Norman's first totally improvised "film" shot by DA Pennebaker call WILD 90. Basically, Norman and his cronies playing at being gangsters holed up in a shitty hotel room someplace (the template for Reservoir Dogs, come to think of it). The cast also included a barking dog that Norman infamously barks back at.

On the film credits it says: "Sound by Bob Neuwirth."

(Bob and Pennebaker were old friends, and he is well featured in and does audio commentaries on the DVDs of Don’t Look Back. Also No Direction Home).

The sound is muddy and atrocious, about 90% indecipherable, and after the Anthology screening (where I spotted Alec Baldwin in the audience studying up on Norman probably anticipating playing him someday), they showed a short interview with Norman all about the making of Wild 90, shot only a few years previous. Norman was already dead at this point.

In this doc. when asked about the terrible sound, Norman says:

"Yeah, we had this guy Bob Newhart doing sound, who was just terrible!"

I rang Bob up that night and and told him I'd just seen the film and asked him about this, and he laughed a long time and said:

"Did Norman say that? Well, he and the other guys had never been in a film before, and they kept wandering off their marks with their ‘improvisation’. And I had to try and keep up with their lurching all over the place by trailing after them with the boom mic. So it was nearly impossible in that situation to capture the sound decently.

But let me tell you something Gary -- even if the film had had pristine sound, 'it wouldn't have made any difference!'"

I really am missing Bob Neuwirth. A great man.

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That's Why The Lady Is

Robert Cochrane — Mon, 10 Jan 2022 18:44:22 +0000

That's Why The Lady Is Robert Cochrane January 10, 2022 - 13:44

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April Ashley - Model, Socialite and Trans Rights Campaigner

29th April 1935 - 27th December 2021

Certain lives read like unlikely fictions -- plots extreme in their stretching of belief, too unlikely to be considered real life -- do sometimes occur. One such journey of existence was the fabled, often troubled sojourn of April Ashley, socialite, Vogue model, activist and occasional actress, born a boy in a working class, impoverished district of Liverpool on 29th April 1935. Pretty and exhibiting obvious feminine characteristics from his earliest days, it proved an unhappy childhood, bookended by a belittling, abusive mother, and a kindly, but mostly drunken, father, home on shore leave from the Royal Navy. The outside world was no less accepting. Had Charles Dickens ever annotated a tale of a trans life, Ashley's had all the elements of his genre of story telling, dark, dramatic and unsettling.

In 1951 in a desperate attempt to ignore herself and fit in with the expectations of a post-war England, a spell in the Navy proved a futile venture. A suicide attempt in Los Angeles followed and after returning to Liverpool, a stay at her own behest, in a mental institution where treatment consisting of electro-shock therapy and copious drugs, but after a year, the contradictions remained. A brave attempt at conformity had failed, but from that arose a sense of self-reliance and acceptance and a desire to become the person within. Even the authorities couldn't alter what nature had ordained. Rejected at home, the bright lights of London beckoned with the genesis of dressing as a woman and a life on her own terms.

During a holiday in France she began working in revue as a dancer at the Le Carrousel club in Paris where she was entrusted with a letter to Dr. Georges Burou, a pioneer in gender reassignment surgery, by Coccinelle, the first French citizen to undergo the procedure at his clinic in Casablanca. In 1960, already taking oestrogen, and having saved enough money via her work as a dancer, she presented to Burou for the gruelling seven hour operation. As she went under he whispered "Au-revoir, Monsieur" and as she came round greeted her with the words "Bonjour, Mademoiselle!" April Ashley had finally arrived. She was only the second UK citizen to undergo the such surgery.

Back in London her stunning appearance swiftly earned a career as a leading lingerie model and a bit part in the final Bob Hope and Bing Crosby vehicle The Road To Hong Kong. All was going well, but disaster struck when a former friend sold her story to a tabloid newspaper. The sensational headlines destroyed her modelling career and her name was removed from the the film when it finally appeared in 1962. Ashley retreated to Spain where she found work modelling, and as a hostess in clubs, and a greater sense of tolerance. She also encountered the minor British aristocrat, the louche Arthur Corbett, who was still married. A courtship ensued, and then marriage, which was never consummated, and then more controversy when the nature of their union was exposed. Ashley, like any spurned romantic heroine, fled the Costa del Sol in the arms of a Spanish nobleman.

In 1970, having swanned across Europe for much of the intervening decade, she instigated court proceeding against her former husband, who counter-sued. The case dragged on for three long years with considerable press attention, the judge finally ruling that Ashley was "at all times a man" and their union was't recognized in law. Unbowed, she opened a restaurant in London with a friend called "April & Desmond's" which was a social success and a culinary disaster, but nobody bothered much about the food since they were having such an extraordinarily good time, as indeed was April, whose hedonism resulted in a couple of heart attacks. By 1975 she'd deserted the capital in favour of the Welsh border town of Hay-on-Wye, and then on to San Diego where she found gainful employment in an art gallery. As the new century dawned she was living in France.

In 2001 the European Court Of Human Rights struck down the judge's ruling over her divorce and her campaign to have trans rights enshrined in law finally bore fruit in 2005 when she finally was presented with a birth certificate confirming her status as a woman, a feat achieved with the help of an old friend from former times, John Prescott, who by then was the deputy Prime Minister of the UK. Where previously the incoming tide had threatened to consume her, Ashley found a new celebrity as a pioneer and icon. Invited to speak at Oxford, appear on the chat show circuit, she had finally arrived at a point of acceptance. In 2012 she was awarded an Order Of The British Empire by the Queen "for service to transgender equality" and in 2015 became an honorary citizen of her home city Liverpool. An exhibition about her life ran there for a year.

As she aged Ashley became an imperious figure, a cross between Margaret Thatcher and the Countess Spencer. A woman who'd been wooed by Elvis Presley, who'd partied with John Lennon and Mick Jagger, and counted INXS singer Michael Hutchence, the actor Omar Sharif, amongst her lovers. She was a muse for Picasso, but declined the advances of Salvador Dali to paint her in the nude. It all seems rather unlikely for a a life begun as a boy in in 1930's Liverpool. Ashley once confessed that she as a child before she went to sleep would whisper to the night "Please God when I wake let me be a girl." She granted her own wish in the end. A movie of her life starring Catherine Zeta Jones never made it into production. Her second autobiography was pulped as her collaborator on her her first volume claimed she had plagiarised his work. Another drama in a life bedecked by incident. She married for a second time, but that union ended in divorce a decade later.

The English singer-songwriter John Howard's new album Look is a concept affair based around his friend's spectacular life, he played piano in her restaurant in the '70s. Due for release in March, it is a heartfelt compliment, and fitting tribute, but one that must now sadly arrive, as a posthumous one for a life lived at such a pace it altered the grain of existence.

April Ashley died in London after a short illness.

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A Maverick Dandy

Robert Cochrane — Fri, 21 May 2021 19:20:41 +0000

A Maverick Dandy Robert Cochrane May 21, 2021 - 15:20

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Nicolas Ker 1970-2021

Nicolas Ker was a composer, singer, film maker, performer, poet, and dark star. A polymath extraordinaire he deserves the accolade of uniqueness. His untimely death at the age of fifty robs French culture, pop, rock, or otherwise, of a soul who seemed imbued with an air of the past, a film-noir sensibility. As someone who carried a rock and roll sensibility, with a few demons in tow, his was a striking, yet unsettling confection. The writer of majestic brooding soundtracks and soundscapes, his songs referenced folk music, rock, and electronica. With the swagger and dash of Johnny Thunders and Nick Cave, like a French Howard Devoto in cahoots with Lee Hazlewood, he had presence and an edge of danger. Seemingly ever in a haze of unfashionable cigarette smoke, Ker personified a louche diety. His clipped snarl drone of a voice the perfect vehicle for his band Poni Hoax. A captivating front man who seemed better suited to to the dank gloom of Max's Kansas City and CBCB's than wide sunlit French avenues. Part-magican, part-malevolent jester, Ker carried himself with an air of defiant non apology. A genius and enigma in one being.

Born Nicholas Langlois, to a Cambodian mother of aristocratic birth in Phmon Penh on 19th December 1970, she fled the Khmer Rouge, his lineage was diverse, his father was being French. Ker arrived in Paris aged sixteen via Istanbul and Cairo and immediately was attracted to the decadent side of the city and its history. In 2001 he encountered four musicians, graduates from from the Conservatoire National Musique, appropriately they found him in a bar and had discovered their vocalist. A perfect marriage of refinement and rawness they christened the venture Poni Hoax, releasing four albums over a period of twelve years. Their single "Budapest" proved a hit across Europe and they became regulars on the festival circuit. Their self-titled debut attracted controversy because of its cover, a naked woman in the company of an owl, but it was with their second Images Of Sigrid that saw them elevated from underground secret to mainstream success. A mixture of Bowie, David Byrne, and Daft Punk, they packed a strangely hypnotic punch. A single from that album Antibodies proved another smash across the continent.

Anyone who has witnessed the documentary about the band Drunk In The House Of Lords catches an insight into the breakneck sensibility that was Nicholas Ker, a man with little care for taking care. By disposition he was reckless but from that emerged work of concision, grace and refinement. He could channel his demons. A decadent dandy, an impish rogue, and a symbol of swagger and poise. His solo release Les Faubourgs D'Lexil was less frantic than his work with the band. A hugely personal and reflective album it revealed the breadth and sensitivity of his talents.

What remains conveniently uncertain how he met his muse, the actress and singer Arielle Dombasle. Theirs was a mythic melding of extremes. Apparently she demanded that he write her an album. He did. La Riviere Atlantique announced their unlikely pairing, garnering attention through her movie fame, and his reputation for abundant excess. In 2019 its successor Empire arrived, a masterpiece of many styles that electrifies,The original odd couple, but a perfect collaboration, her transcendant ethereal poise anchored to his underworld, nocturnal perspective. Their videos are a treat to the eager eye. Decadent perposterous and artful. The pair even collaorated on the movie Angel Crystal Palace. Dombasle and Ker represent a creative frisson forged between halfway between heaven and hell. She, the perfect foil for him with her elegant distractedness and grace, he, her diligent craftsman, a cross between an artful doger and a punky warlock, who created sumptious backdrops for her exquisite voice. They continued a lineage of kooky pairings. Gainsbourg and Birkin, Cave and Minogue, Sinatra, and Hazlewood.

Ker exhuded a sensibility much older than his years. He belonged to another time, be that the Paris of absinthe and decadence or the world of dank clubs and loud music whilst haunting stately homes or abandoned churchyards in his video creations. He was Rimbaud-like, a dash of tragedy in the guise of defiance. A genie with no lamp to return to. Perhaps it is wrong to expect more, but the genius he has already annotated is difficult to view without a sense of sorrow. Deft and considered when it was required, yet beyond that lay the attributes of madness and despair. A hard act to better and an impossible one to replace, his absence leaves a sense of loss and mystery in the air.

Nicolas Ker died in Paris on 17th May 2021. His new single with Arielle Dombasle "Deconstruction Of The Bride" has just been released. Many plans had been made. There was much yet to be done.

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Glitter and Bleach for Bambi

Robert Cochrane — Thu, 12 Nov 2020 22:28:01 +0000

Glitter and Bleach for Bambi Robert Cochrane November 12, 2020 - 17:28

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Had Bambi Lake been a New York resident she would have doubtless become a Warhol Superstar. Lake certainly had all the qualifications that such a job required. The blonde looks of Candy Darling, the arched eyebrow humour of Holly Woodlawn, and the mad bad-ass sass of Jackie Curtis. Too often it is mused to shine you have to burn. After half a century of attracting attention at a high cost to herself, the star that was Bambi Lake has crashed and gone. Mercurial, charming, outrageous, and self-sabotaging her absence will be noticed. That trash and flash attitude often alienated those who might have helped her career. Her addictions didn't help. San Francisco was her home, even when she was without one, but instead of wearing flowers in her hair, it was glitter and bleach for Bambi.

The fourth of eight children John Purcell was born in Palo Alto on October 20th 1950 to a construction worker father, her mother was a secretary. At school he showed a propensity for acting and through a friend the choreographer Kenny Ortega (Madonna, Michael Jackson and The Tubes) secured a part in the chorus line of the original production of Oliver on Broadway. The touch-paper for the future path had been lit. Already aware of conflicts within her/his nature she/he survived via his/her involvement in local theatre production. By 1970 whilst studying theatre at Canada Junior College, she was hitchhiking and accepted a lift from Peter Mintun who would become The Cockettes' piano player. It was he who introduced Lake to the group and she'd found her spiritual home and the freedom to express and explore an identity that would become the force of nature known as Bambi mentored and supported by the group's founder Hibiscus 1949-1982.

A feature on the San Francisco theatre scene since then she first came to prominence via the unfettered hippy, drag and drug psychedelic theatre ensemble "The Cockettes" that also spawned the disco star Sylvester. Via shows in New York and San Francisco their ensemble of spontaneous outrage both shocked and thrilled. When the troupe became Angels Of Light, Bambi was starring in their first production Whatever Happened To Baby Jesus; a combination of the biblical tale and that of The Little Match Girl. Eventually she became their leading lady and performed in London in The Enchanted Miracle and lived there for a year. With the advent of punk she sang with the all female band V2 and toured Europe supporting The Stranglers, and opening for many punk acts across San Francisco. She even spent a year in Berlin with Iggy Pop and David Bowie.

There were also stints as a porn actress, prostitution, mental health issues, drug addiction, and homelessness. She was regularly turned away from women's refuges on account of her trans identity. Depending on the version of events she was sharing at the time, Lake was arrested for ringing the cops with a bomb hoax after being invited to a party by the Stones or it may have been Oasis, and being refused entry by security. She was frequently barred from bars and arrested for being drunk and disorderly. Yet despite maintaining sheer chaos in heels she could warm and charm an audience with her singing. Remarkably Lake managed to pen in 1996 her autobiography The Unsinkable Bambi Lake, edited by Alvin Orloff with an introduction by Henry Rollins, published a collection of poetry, and in 2005 released her sole album My Glamorous Life As A Broadway Hostess which contains the heartbreakingly beautiful elegy "The Golden Age of Hustlers." A song that aches with pathos and earned regret. A perfect fusion of Allen Ginsberg, Dorothy Parker, and Walt Whitman.

"I saw the best bodies of my generation

Sold, bartered, and destroyed

By drugs and prostitution.

Pretty queens on the corners and midnight cowboys in the doorways

If you want it, Daddy, get it here.

It's a candy store

In more ways than one.

Golden girls and boys all must

Like chimney sweepers come to dust.

It's hard to find someone you can trust

Amidst the rhinestones and the rust."

In 2015 the documentary film maker Silas Howard caught her in all her ramshackle glory in the award winning Sticks And Stones.

Bambi Lake became ill in October and succumbed to cancer on the 4th November 2020. For a life lived fast and against the grain it was an appropriately quick exit. In these snowflake days her brash "Fuck You" abrasiveness is to be applauded and admired. She recently reflected: "I guess my greatest talent is when I perform people cry. I don't know why." They cried because her broken honesty as a chanteuse reflected perfectly in the shattered shards scattered in their own hearts.

Her final performance was as part of the Dan Karkoska produced Cockettes Are Golden - A 50th Anniversary Celebration at the Victoria Theatre in San Francisco on January 4th 2020.

Her autobiography has recently been republished and revised.

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The Queen Is Dead. Long Live The King!

Robert Cochrane — Sat, 09 May 2020 15:58:48 +0000

The Queen Is Dead. Long Live The King! Robert Cochrane May 9, 2020 - 11:58

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For sheer tear down the house, hollerin' bravado and pure passion.

Conflicted and contrary.

Scandalous and screaming and black.

There was only ever Little Richard.

The true originator of Rock & Roll.

All the brass, sass and androgyny from the Stones to Bowie.

From Michael Jackson to Prince.

From Madonna to Lady Gaga.

All roads lead back to Richard Penniman.

He wasn't just the most extreme presence of his era.

He left every era standing in the shade of his sheer bravado.

He knocked hell out of those piano keys.

As the hairline receded the wigs just got bigger.

Conflicted and at times provocative.

His recent unfortunate views on homosexuality came from inner conflict.

From that came the songs.

His contradictions drove and made him who he was.

We don't want our icons perfect.

We need them chipped and flawed.

There were the convictions for voyeurism and lewd conduct.

The revolving doors on his sexual closet.

The extreme swings of religiosity.

You simply can't ignore the jerking electricity that still fizzes in his songs.

The joy combined with madness.

Good Golly Miss Molly, Tutti Fruitti, Lucille, Rip It Up!

The sheer poetry of Awopbopallbopalopbamboom.

As Jobriath once sang "A Little Richard Goes A Long Long Way"

It did then and it always will.

This is the end of the very beginning.

Something pivotal has died with him.

The baton has fallen.

There is, in this instance, no successor waiting in the wings.

The Queen Is Dead! Long Live The King!

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All For The Love of Rock 'N' Roll

Robert Cochrane — Sun, 05 Apr 2020 19:33:37 +0000

All For The Love of Rock 'N' Roll Robert Cochrane April 5, 2020 - 15:33

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Alan Merrill 1951-2020

Alan Merrill tasted success in many different territories of the globe. He was a star, but his stars didn't align in the way for him to become a household name. Big in Japan before such a reality was thought possible for a Western act. A success in the UK and Europe with a band that never saw their music released in his American homeland, apart from one single on Private Stock Records. A consistently active and productive musician and one who saw a song, written as a riposte to a Rolling Stones anthem in the making, become one of the best known songs of the '80s and today, despite being written in the mid-seventies and originally marooned on the flip-side of a flop single.

Born Allan Preston Sax in the Bronx February 19th 1951, his mother was the jazz singer Helen Merrill who was variously signed to Atco, Milestone, and Mercury Records, whilst his father Aaron Sachs was a clarinet and saxophone player who recorded with the likes of Sarah Vaughan, Billie Holiday, and Stan Getz. In the mid sixties he played in a series of semi-pro bands in the Cafe Wha in Greenwich Village, and in 1968 he joined the dying embers of The Left Banke, but didn't record with them. By 1969 he was in Japan as the front man for The Lead a group of foreigners based in Tokyo who scored a No. 1 hit with "Blue Rose" and then promptly fell apart when two of their members were deported over irregularities with their visas. Merrill remained, secured a deal with Atlantic Records and released the album Alone In Tokyo and the single "Teardrops." To make his name more manageable for the Japanese market, and less risque than Sax, he adopted his mother's maiden name. In 1971 after starring in a jeans commercial, and a teen orientated soap opera he released Merrill 1 -- an album of self-composed songs that is rightly valued as a precursor of the power-pop genre. He next formed Vodka Collins, the first Japanese glam rock outfit who recorded the album Tokyo-New York and had a double A sided hit with "Sands Of Time/Automatic Pilot." One of Merrill's songs "Movies" from Merril 1 cropped up on the flip-side of a Tiny Tim single in 1972. Mr. Tim would once more return to Merrill's back catalogue in 1996 to record "I Love Rock 'N' Roll."

By 1974, Merrill had taken up residence in London. He formed a pop-glam outfit named Arrows who secured a deal with Mickie Most's RAK Records. Although the other members were English, Merrill's frontman status Arrows made a virtual trinity of American glam poseurs in London exile, the other two being Sparks and Milk 'n' Cookies. Caught between the label owner Mickie Most dominance, and the label's consistent success and endless thirst for hits, the band's own writing abilities were excluded from the forefront. Their first chart hit "A Touch Too Much" had fallen from the pens of Chinn & Chapman. Despite having their own national television series that ran for two series, fourteen shows in each, whose guests included chart acts of the day, including the likes of The Bay City Rollers, Marc Bolan, Slade, and Peter Noone. Amazingly whilst both series were being shown, the band had no new releases available to promote. The show aired in Europe and territories like Hong Kong, but with nothing to sell, they didn't benefit from their fame oy their ubiquity. When their single "Broken Down Heart" was released in 1975, a song on the b side was what captured the attention of the disc jockeys. Eventually "I Love Rock 'N' Roll" was made the official A side. It was the only piece of product that they performed in the series, but the single tanked.

The band's performance of it was watched by a young Joan Jett, then on tour in the UK with her band The Runaways. The song stuck in her head and in 1981 she turned it into the bona fide smash it had always deserved to be. Merrill had written it as a casual riposte to the Rolling Stones "It's Only Rock And Roll But I Like It." Since he owed some money to his band mate Jake Hooker he added him as co-author of it. It would prove an expensive act of kindness. Their debut and sole album First Hit is a fairly unsatisfactory affair because many of the band's own compositions were squeezed out in favour of less inspiring, but seemingly more commercial offerings by the hit writing team of Phil Martin and Phil Coulter Arrows limped into 1977 when punk effectively hastened their decline, and despite having several tracks produced by Rolling Stone Bill Wyman, these never were released at the time. It seems that RAK Records had little idea how to handle the band to achieve greater success. It is a major oversight that a producer like Mickie Most missed the potential in Alan Merrill's "I Love Rock 'N' Roll." It is a song that speaks for itself.

Merrill then joined forces with his friend the former Rare Bird singer and guitarist Steve Gould. They formed Runner a band who signed to Arista Records short lived Autograph label. Their excellent debut album saw the dent them US charts, and a second album was under way with Alex Sadkin at the production duties but tensions within the band meant they never completed the record. Their single "Run For Your Life" would eventually be covered by Sammy Hagar. The 1980s were kinder to Alan Merrill. He teamed up with Rick Derringer, a collaboration that saw three albums released and the movie The Rick Derringer Rock Spectacular. Merrill released a self-titled solo album on Polydor Reocords in 1983, and by the end of the decade he was part of Meatloaf's touring band, appearing on the Live At Wembley album from 1987. He returned to acting in the hit series Encyclopedia Brown on HBO to success and acclaim in the role of casey Sparkz. 1982 had seen "I Love Rock 'N' Roll" become a global smash and a US No. 1 for Joan Jett and her band the Blackhearts. It remains her signature song. In 1990 Alan Merrill successfully reformed Vodka Collins and they toured Japan when their debut LP was released on CD. It was a reunion that would spawn a further four successful albums.

In the new century Merrill continued to write and record. Britney Spears had a No. 1 in the UK and all across Europe with her version of "I Love Rock 'N' Roll." A song that seems impossible to contain, a little like Norman Greenbaum's perennial "Spirit In The Sky." Albums kept on appearing, his most recent being 2017's A Blue Avenue. Eminem sampled "I Love Rock 'N' Roll" on the song "Remind Me" from his album Revival which topped the American charts in the same year. Merrill's song that simply won't go away because of its brilliant encapsulation of attitude and ambition with a heart. Alan Merrill had the looks, the talent, and the charisma that is required for success. His is an astonishing back catalogue of continued effort and enterprise and it is a tragedy that like so many victims of Covid 19 that he died alone on 28th March 2020 in hospital in his native New York. He was the last surviving founding member of Arrows.

Paul Varley died in 2008 in London after living for years in LA. He fathered a daughter Iona. with Marc Bolan's former wife June. Jake Hooker married Judy Garland's daughter Lorna Luft, becoming her manager. He died in Malibu in 2014. Arrows' manager Peter Meaden, who had once handled The Who's affairs died in 1978 at the age of 38 after years of drug abuse.

Like the band itself, all theirs were stories ended before their allotted time.

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Friend of the Dead

Webmaster — Tue, 24 Sep 2019 19:48:42 +0000

Friend of the Dead Webmaster September 24, 2019 - 15:48

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Robert Hunter, one of my favorite songwriters, has left this mortal coil. For the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia and Hunter teamed up for many of the band's most iconic tunes, including "Friend of the Devil," "Uncle John's Band,” "Sugaree," “Truckin'," "Franklin's Tower," "Casey Jones," "Eyes of the World," and many others. Hunter also worked with Bob Dylan on songs from the late-'80s onward and more recently collaborated with songwriters like Jim Lauderdale, David Nelson, Bruce Hornsby, and Steve Kimock . He deservedly received the Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013, and then he was inducted into the Songwriter's Hall of Fame with Jerry Garcia in 2015. He will be missed by one and all.

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Neal Casal 1968-2019

Dusty Wright — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 12:10:32 +0000

Neal Casal 1968-2019 Dusty Wright August 27, 2019 - 08:10

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Neal Casal

Circles Around the Sun

CRB

I had the honor to interview Neal Casal back in 2012 when I was recording video podcasts about once a week. He was touring as the lead guitarist with Chris Robinson Brotherhood, an act that I was just getting into, but still needed to share his own solo material. I knew he was good, but was blown away by how effortless he sang and played in person. So smooth and carefree. A real gentle and peaceful soul, too. He'd just released his tenth album Sweeten the Distance (The Royal Potato Family), one of my favorite albums of the year. And getting the chance to record him solo -- just voice and acoustic guitar -- was a very special moment for me. Check out that performance of "Need Shelter" (above) and this mournful ballad "White Fence Round House" (below), written following a near-death experience while surfing, both from the aforementioned solo album.

In fact, it was back in 1995 when I first discovered him. He'd just released his first solo effort Fade Away Diamond Time (Zoo Records) and that album quickly became one of my favorite albums of the year. It's a timeless classic of Americana roots-rock. For me, that album was a modern day version of Neil Young's After The Goldrush. I was instantly smitten with his talent -- voice, songs, guitar playing, tone, vibe. His sound was something that I would try to replicate for my debut solo album a few short years later.

As a member of Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, Hard Working Americans, and his killer jam band Circles Around The Sun, Neil had become a stellar touring lead guitarist. He was the perfect foil for Chris Robinson, too. I'd seen him with the Brotherhood several times, and each time I was impressed with his chops, tone and inventiveness. The very first concert I took my son Luca and his friend to see was with Neal and CRB at Irving Plaza. Not sure if he understood how cool a father-son moment it was for me; sharing a cherished musician with your child.

RIP, Mr. Casal. All of us who knew you and followed your career were blessed to have witnessed your passion for music.

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RIP, Mr. Hollis

Dusty Wright — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 02:02:25 +0000

RIP, Mr. Hollis Dusty Wright February 25, 2019 - 21:02

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celebrity obit

Mark Hollis, frontman for Talk Talk, one of my favorite bands to emerge from the new romantic genre of UK rock, has died, age 64. Though he retired from the music biz twenty years ago, he left a lasting mark by releasing some of the most dynamic post-rock music ever recorded. Moreover, even though the band scored chart success with the synth pop-rock single "It's My Life" (1984), no one could have predicated, especially the critics, that the experimental minimal realistic sound on Spirit of Eden (1988), their masterpiece, and Laughing Stock (1991) would leave such a last mark. Both of those albums, as well as his lone solo effort entitled Mark Hollis (1998), are essential for any music fan/collector. In my opinion, without Hollis and Talk Talk there is no Radiohead, no Elbow; melodic art rock created with minimal chords and notes that still created dynamic tension in a profoundly soulful manner. Listen to the celestial track "Eden" above.