May 16, 2001 – Brian Pendleton (The Pretty Things) was born on 13th April 1944 in Wolverhampton, to Raymond and Kathleen Pendleton (nee Brownsword); Raymond and Kathleen had married early in 1942. Brian was born in Wolverhampton Road in the Heath Town district of the city, at an address that no longer exists. When he was still a baby the Pendletons moved to Dartford in Kent and his younger sister was born in 1950.
The teenage Brian attended Dartford Grammar School. He was in the year below future Pretty Thing Dick Taylor and superstar-to-be Mick Jagger. Although Brian and Dick would recognize each other at a later date (Dick certainly remembered Brian from school) it seems that as they were in different years they didn’t speak much, it is a playground truth that those pupils in the years below were not generally considered worthy of attention and this is doubtless still the case today! English schools divide their pupils into groups called ‘houses’ which are usually named after a person of local historic significance and represented by a color. Brian was a member of the house called Daeth, possibly in honor of a local (Dartford) family; it’s color was yellow. Peter Pike was in the same year as Brian and recalls that he was a reserved character but could from time to time be funny and lively.
The two of them travelled to Germany in 1959 with other pupils on a school trip to Niederlahnstein near Koblenz on the Rhine. Peter remembers that they had a lot of fun on the trip and Brian came across as having a rather dry sense of humour. Peter also recalled that Brian was a member of the ‘Combined Cadet Force’, a kind of military club where boys would train for army or airforce activities. This may explain how Brian developed a passion for guns and target practice, and acquired an air pistol.
Sidney Palmer was a close friend, frequently spending time at Brian’s home in Watling Street, Dartford (on the main road from Dartford to Crayford). He recalls that Brian’s father, Raymond was a keen amateur photographer and had a dark room in the house; he was also part of an amateur dramatic group. Sidney remembers that Brian’s parents always made him feel very welcome and that the Pendleton home “always appeared to me to be very regulated and without dramas.” It was at Brian’s home that Sidney and Brian practised guitar together, mainly to Duane Eddy and Elvis Presley records. The two lads had had their first experience of a live rock and roll band when Cliff Richard performed at the local cinema, around 1958; but they also enjoyed non-music related time together: “Most Saturdays were spent together playing on Dartford Heath (there was a disused army camp which was perfect for trials bicycling or amateur bomb-making!)” but sadly as their teens progressed they would drift apart. Movingly, Sidney says: “Brian was always a good friend, not at all loud or self opionated and it was with great sorrow that I read his obituary in the Guardian.”
Brian would leave school in July 1960, having sat his exams and got six ‘O’ Levels.
He was the only member of his family with musical interests and these centred on the guitar as his main instrument although as time would show he was one of those enviable people who can get a tune out of any instrument they pick up. The young Brian was also a keen cyclist.
By the late summer of 1963 Brian was working as an insurance clerk (his father worked in the same profession) and had played guitar in a couple of jazz bands. Jazz was Brian’s first love, although he was aware of and had listened to some rhythm and blues. As Brian recalled to Terry Coates in his only interview, he saw an advertisement in “Melody Maker” and found himself speaking to Dick Taylor on the phone. They chatted and established that they had been at school together, and an arrangement made for the members of the new band to visit Brian’s house. Brian’s reply had been the only one the new band considered interesting, in that he had a guitar and said he could play.
When Brian’s mother answered the door she took one look at the young men stood on her doorstep (Phil May, Dick Taylor and John Stax) and quickly closed the door again. They heard her call to Brian: There’s a load of gypsies come to see you! Apparently she thought that Brian had upset somebody working at the local fair. Dick recalls that John’s hair in particularly was a wild and frizzy mass at the time, which may well have added to Mrs Pendleton’s mistaken concern!
The new band employed Brian’s services. It has been suggested that this was largely due to the fact that Brian owned a particularly good amplifier but this is surely unfair as Dick himself said later “He was a very good choice because he was the tidiest in his musicianship.” However Dick did teach Brian how to play blues guitar as he had only played jazz up to that point. A drummer was recruited (who would soon be replaced by Viv Andrews) and initially the band played as Jerome and the Pretty Things. The Jerome part soon got abandoned.
Their very first gig Brian described in his interview with Terry Coates: “I think it was at a place called the Railway Hotel.” In his excellent biography, The Pretty Things Growing Old Disgracefully, Alan Lakey mentions that whenever trains passed the whole place shook! Brian continues: “I remember the place very well. A really tiny venue…with a very small stage. We really enjoyed ourselves…all the other guys’ amps packed up and they had to plug into mine. We played so loud that night by the time I got home my ears were totally fucked up!”
Andrew Dobbie, who went to Dartford Grammar School while Brian was there, recalls: “Brian had gone to the same primary school as some of my friends so I knew him slightly through them. After he left school and joined the Pretty things we used to go to any gigs they were playing at local venues such as the Black Prince in Bexley or the Bromley Court Hotel. I remember at one of their Bromley gigs having a drink with Brian at the bar during the band’s interval and we enjoyed a good laugh about what the nasty little headmaster at Dartford would make of the Pretty Things phenomenon. The school authorities were already upset that a long-haired ex-pupil called Jagger was giving it a bad name.
Meanwhile, the band secured the services of Bryan Morrison and Jimmy Duncan as a management team which proved to be very much a double-edged sword as Duncan got them a contract with the Fontana label but also embezzled the band out of a good deal of money.
Apparently it was Morrison who coined Brian’s nickname The Yeti once his hair began to get a bit wild looking, and due to the fact that he was so much taller than all the others.
Viv Andrews remembers Brian from around this time as “just a nice quiet guy who smoked a lot.” Similarly, when Phil May was interviewed once the band found fame he said of Brian “He’s very quiet and saves all his money.”
According to John Stax, Brian kept himself apart from the rest of the band most of the time. Although Brian and I were in the same band we were never close socially, he recalled.
Duncan came up with a composition of his own, Rosalyn, and the band recorded it but without Viv Andrews on drums, who left during recording (Bobby Graham took his place), causing the release of the single to be delayed a little while. He would be replaced by the legendary and certifiable Viv Prince.
On it’s release in the Summer of 1964, Rosalyn sold well and reached a very respectable No. 41 in the charts. The song is made special by John Stax’s bass runs, Phil May’s loutish vocal and most importantly the distinctive sound of Brian’s slide guitar. It also helped to establish the band’s image as even hairier and dirtier than the Rolling Stones.
Andrew Dobbie, a fellow pupil at Dartford Grammar School who had been in a year below Brian, recalled the excitement when Rosalyn came out. “I was in the sixth form and a group of us rushed out during the lunch hour and bought the record. One of my friends lived just around the corner from the school so went to his house, set the autochanger on his parent’s Dansette to replay and played it over and over! For the next few days, whenever there was a lull in the conversation, someone would pipe up “Oh, Rosalyn…Yeah, Rosalyn” and rest would join in!” Partly inspired by the PTs and the Stones Andrew and some of his fellow sixth formers formed their own band which lasted until they went their separate ways on leaving school; he recalls attempting to crib Brian’s guitar style on some of the Pretty Things’ number that the group attempted.
On 12th July 1964 the Sunday Times Magazine featured an interview with the Pretty Things which took place at the time of Rosalyn’s release, they were informed during the interview that the song had sold 6,000 copies (it would chart a couple of weeks later). In the general banter that the group indulged in during the interview, Brian asks if silent movies will ever return, whereupon Phil May informs him that You do look a bit like Buster Keaton. Later in the article Brian disappears to find a new tail piece for his guitar but returns empty handed as it had cost 12 more than he could afford. The full interview is entertaining and well worth a read. As well as a group picture of the band posing by a sign for a hairdressers’, in which Brian looks very shy and young and innocent, each member gets an individual picture with a brief description beneath. Under Brian’s picture, in which he looks rather intense and serious, it says that he worked in an insurance office where to quote him I was called the young lady!!! Countless photo sessions would follow. In an interview with Terry Coates, Viv Prince recalled having photographs taken as they carried pieces of his new Ludwig drum kit which were strategically hidden in doorways! Another band photo session shows Prince with a candy floss moustache and Brian pulling a face at a toffee apple; he is referred to as the comedian.
To satisfy the curiosity of those fans who wanted to know everything there was to know about their idols and hearthrobs, pop group members of the time would submit to answering questions about themselves and supplying the sort of superficial information their devotees thrived on. When it came to the Pretty Things, even the quiet and secretive Brian managed to give away a little bit about himself. In one such article early in their success, he stated that he liked Chinese and some Italian food, and drank vodka and lime, light ale and tomato juice; his favourite colours were navy blue, brown and green. More interesting perhaps, he said he’d been playing guitar since he was 17 and owned 50-60 LPs many of which were modern jazz; he mentioned liking Bobby Timmons and Cannonball Adderley in particular. Brian also divulged that he had disliked flying to start with but now enjoyed it, which was just as well as his career with the Pretties would often take them abroad, although he preferred flying in big jet planes to the smaller ones. Most revealing and insightful was Brian’s answer when asked his ambition: “To play modern jazz, though not necessarily for money. I’d like to have a second string to provide a living and play for enjoyment.” In retrospect those words were to prove most significant.
Teenagers loved the Pretty Things. Grown ups despised them – no doubt including Brian’s parents who were most unhappy about their son’s decision to give up his insurance job and throw his lot in with the band. The world of cinemas packed with screaming girls and endless hours on the road, photo sessions and media fascination beckoned. The Pretty Things were on their way.
The Pretty Things were famous and made the most of it, revelling in their image as being even wilder than the Stones and playing up the resulting media and fan hysteria for all it was worth.
The band lived together for a time in a flat in ultra-posh Belgravia, at 13 Chester Street. Brian shared a room with Viv, who was very rarely there as he spent a lot of time hanging out at the flat of singer PJ Proby. Although Phil May recalled that Brian did live there, it seems he wasn’t overly happy with what used to go on:
“He used to get very perturbed when we’d come back after being away for a few days and there’d be somebody in his bed, a couple in his bed, which we all thought was par for the course it was what you’d expect. You know you’d say excuse me its my bed and I need to go to sleep can you finish and get out. With Brian it’d be “Im not sleeping in there.” Personally I would have seen Brian’s point of view, but maybe it was the sort of thing, however unacceptable, that he should have expected. Phil seems to have thought that Brian, despite his guitar skills, didn’t have the right temperament to be a pop star.
He recalled tensions within the band. Despite Brian’s quiet demeanor he managed, probably unintentionally, to push people’s buttons at times. Phil told Alan Lakey: “I remember Bryan Morrison berating us and saying you’re so mean to Pendleton, I can’t believe you are so cruel to him and he came on tour with us and in two days he had Brian up against the wall trying to strangle him. Brian would just say these things and he could’nt bite his tongue…” it would seem that Phil and Brian were not that friendly – on almost every occasion Phil mentions Brian, he refers to him as ‘Pendleton’ which doesn’t indicate a close friendship. In his interview with Terry Coates Brian mentioned that he didn’t get on that well with Phil and Viv Prince at times – but of course, as he also said, they were all so young then!
Eventually the band would move on and get their own places; Dick recalled that Brian spent a lot of time at his (Dick’s) flat, which he shared with their roadie Pete Watts and a friend called Ian Stirling (who would co-write their future hit Honey I Need. A profile of individual band members in a newspaper states that Brian was living in Clapham; when Brian had visited Dick’s flat Pete would drive him home which was in a street called Lavender Gardens. In the same article Brian is described as being 5’11’ tall (although he looked taller!) with green eyes and blond hair, which always looked immaculate even at its longest. Fellow band members would, however, sabotage Brian’s efforts to look smart by winding down the windows of their van to make sure his fine hair deliberately got messed up. Brian would find himself the object of much mickey taking by the rest of the band and the road crew for some reason, which may explain why he never introduced his girlfriend to them…
…her name was Christine and she was 18. Her birthday was exactly a week after Brian’s. She was rather unflatteringly described by John Stax as one of three mousy birds who used to hang around (the band) but Dick Taylor remembers her as darkish-haired and quite pretty, and adds: when the same girl and her friends started to appear at gigs and only talk to Brian, who used to disappear from the dressing room, we smelt romance in the air…but Brian was very guarded about his private life…Brian seemed to go to great lengths to keep her away from the band, probably quite understandable really. Interestingly, the current owner of Brian and Christine’s final home together in Maidstone disclosed to me that upon moving into the property she found a suitcase full of letters written by Brian to Christine during his time with the band.
With the fame came the down side: the endless touring. Brian always loved performing but he described touring as bloody hard work and hated the traveling side it would clearly become a great strain for him. In his interview with Terry Coates he says: It was I suppose like a normal business except that for two hours a day you were a superstar and the rest of it you weren’t. He offered no comment about seemingly endless photo sessions that also ensued which must have soon become equally as tiresome.
Although in those days singles were released every two-three months, it was nearer five months before the follow up to Rosalyn was released. Called Don’t Bring Me Down, Brian’s strong rhythm guitar provides a solid backbone for what was to be their only Top Ten hit. It also received a lot of attention due to its what were then considered risque lyrics. The US banned the record on the strength of the line I laid her on the ground – amazing when you consider not only the graphic lyrics that abound today under the protection of a Parental Guidance Sticker.
Brian also started a fashion trend, although certainly not by any means he may have intended! One day whilst out shopping in Carnaby Street with Dick Taylor he bought a black and white striped fisherman’s jersey. At the time Brian and the other band members were living at the infamous Chester Street flat. The jersey caught the eye of Brian Jones who basically nicked it and wore it while performing with the Stones on Ready Steady Go, which was seen by Brian Pendleton who pointed out that Jones was wearing a jersey just like the one he had bought, whilst apparently never realising it was the one he had bought. Brian reportedly kept saying I wonder whatever happened to my jersey like Brian’s? Apparently he never realized it was the same jersey. After Jones’ TV appearance, young men all over the UK rushed out an bought one of these jerseys, blissfully unaware that it was actually Brian Pendleton of the Pretty Things who had bought the jersey to start with and so engineered the trend; it must remain forever a what if… as to whether so many people would have bought it had the rightful owner worn it on television.
In fact Brian was rather unlucky with clothes! He bought several expensive silk shirts one day just before a gig and left them, still wrapped, in the dressing room, only to find when he returned that they had been stolen. Understandably he was furious!
After recording and turning down releasing Get Yourself Home as a single because it sounded too similar to Don’t Bring Me Down, they had their second (and last) Top 20 hit in March 1965 with the fantastic Honey I Need, penned by Dick Taylor and others, with its powerful chord intro and crashing Viv Prince drums leading into the final chorus. This song also made its way unlike Rosalyn and Don’t Bring Me Down onto the Pretties’ first album released around the same time. Called The Pretty Things, it featured 10 blues covers (including the self written 13 Chester Street which was so blatantly a copy of Got Love If You Want It, it can’t really be called an original composition, plus Honey I Need and Judgment Day (credited to Bryan Morrison but actually written by James ‘Snooky’ Pryor). Highlights include Mama Keep Your BigNo, I won’t look at the camera! Mouth Shut, She’s Fine She’s Mine (on which Brian played bass while Stax played harmonica) and Pretty Thing, all Bo Diddley numbers and all showing Brian’s guitar skills. In fact, the record owes a tremendous lot to Brian’s driving guitar style. It went Top 10 in the UK (in the days when only the top ten albums made the chart) and confirmed the Pretty Thing’s success; although from a ‘commercial’ point of view things went downhill from this point, the Pretties (or Things as they were often known) would still make some great music and remain very much in the public eye, if often for the wrong reasons.
In April they played at the Blokker Festival in Holland. The first tune they played was Honey I Need, and I will always carry a lasting memory (from watching a film of the event) of Brian taking his time to make sure his acoustic guitar was correctly tuned to perform this classic. He can be heard asking one of the roadies about the controls on his amp. Once he is finally ready to play (and by this time Viv Prince is shouting at him trying to get his attention) Brian even teases the audience a little, knowing that everyone in that venue is waiting for him.
By this time Brian had somehow managed (considering the media attention the band received) to get secretly married to Christine and was a father-to-be. The wedding had taken place at a registry office early in the year. He did not inform his fellow band members of these facts. He also never told them that his family were unhappy at his choice of following a music career with the Pretty Things rather than carrying on working as an insurance clerk and that his father had even asked him to change his surname because he though it would bring disrepute to the Pendleton family. Thankfully Brian didn’t do this.
He did, however, kick off a brief career in the movies by being in the right place (the Savoy Hotel) at the right time when filming took place for the Bob Dylan documentary movie Don’t Look Back. Brian stated in his interview with Terry Coates that he met Dylan via the Country and Western musician Derroll Adams who also appears in the film. Brian features in the scene when Donovan plays for Dylan, just before this, there is an argument involving Dylan about some broken glass. After glimpsing the back of Brian’s (neatly styled!) head, we see him, smoking the inevitable cigarette, approach the doorway where Dylan and a young man are arguing, then he seems to think better of getting involved. However he is soon seen standing in a group of people trying to pacify someone. He then returns to the sofa and I believe it is Brian’s voice we can hear saying You’re joking! and sounding very much like Mick Jagger (both being from Dartford of course) when Dylan is talking about a cowboy hat. Finally Brian can be seen leaning against the door while Donovan is playing, he seems to be really getting into the music although at one point he appears to be almost nodding off; I can’t help thinking he must have been stoned! Brian was quite partial to smoking a joint or two but was not apparently a user of other illegal substances. By appearing in the film by himself Brian got one over the other Pretties who often had a laugh at his expense! Ironically though, it wasn’t actually released until 1967 by which time Brian had left them and they were no longer a successful chart act.
In the summer of 1965 their next single, Cry To Me, was released, admittedly a slower song than their usual frantic output but maybe released at the right time it could have been an absolute smash. Unfortunately it clearly wasn’t the right time as it only just got into the Top 40…a setback commercially but the Pretties were still hot property in the notoriety stakes and their legendary tour of New Zealand confirms that fact, although they could have, should have gone to the US…
…Brian emphasises in his interview with Terry Coates his real regret that the group didn’t go to the United States instead. He recalls: That really was one of my ambitions which unfortunately was never fulfilled…I’d loved to have played there but it would appear that co-manager Bryan Morrison wasn’t sufficiently tempted by the offers placed on the table before him to tour the US a terrible faux pas as he later conceded.
Instead, the Pretties headed to New Zealand with Sandie Shaw and Eden Kane. The stories of fires, water hoses and lobsters are now legend and well covered in Alan Lakey’s biography so I won’t repeat them here, but from Brian’s point of view it appears he had a great time. It was absolutely brilliant he recalled. Escapades included the band getting Sandie Shaw’s father to stay up drinking and playing poker all night and, at one concert, Brian, in cahoots with Viv Prince, carrying two girl singers off the stage whilst they were performing with another band! In April 2006 a new book about the band’s time in New Zealand, Don’t Bring Me Down…Under was published (see Thank You for more info) and I have to mention what the book says about Sandie Shaw and Brian, as it echos what I have suspected myself for some time, that Sandie’s alleged physical behaviour towards Brian (she is said to have hit him when they had ‘words’) indicates that she had feelings for him and was attracted to him (Mike Stax, one of book’s authors, describes it as “unresolved chemistry”). Sandie was just a young girl of 18 when she went on tour with a bunch of wild young men which must have been quite an experience and if the antics of Viv Prince are anything to go by, quite intimidating and trying at times!
This particular time would also be memorable for another reason. In August, Brian and Christine’s baby was born, a little boy named Philip. Sadly Brian wouldn’t see his son until two weeks later due to the New Zealand tour. After all the fun and games in the Southern Hemisphere, it was time to head home North to his new (and secret) family.
After the failure of Cry To Me to reach the Top 20, the departure of Viv Prince when his wild antics could no longer be tolerated, and the terrible faux pas made by Bryan Morrison in deciding not to tour America (not to mention the money being stolen out of their account by their other manager, Jimmy Duncan), the Pretties must have been hoping for a change of fortune with their next single release.
It was called Midnight To Six Man, and apparently was written precisely between those hours. Brian recalled a slightly different timescale; however Eleven To Five Man didn’t really have the same appeal as a name. What is for certain is that much care and attention was given to the production of this track than had been given to any of their previous work; it was recorded again and again to make sure they had it just right. They were repaid artistically; Midnight is a stunning record from start to finish with its urgent drum opening (courtesy of new recruit Skip Alan), the atmospheric presence of a Hammond organ, one of Dick Taylor’s best solos and Brian’s strong rhythm playing providing a solid background throughout. Unfortunately, and it does seem unfair as it was such a good track, the song spent one week in the lower reaches of the Top 50 before vanishing out of sight. In future years it would be rightly recognised as one of the great records of its time, but that was no help to them then.
Similarly, their second album Get The Picture, which strangely didn’t feature Midnight To Six Man although it is on the CD version available these days, also failed to chart, although in those days the album chart was only a Top 10 in any case so this may not have been considered as much a disaster as the commercial failure of their last two singles. Get The Picture does feature Cry To Me, however, as well as some outstanding tracks such as You Don’t Believe Me (co-written by Jimmy Page), the provocative I Want Your Love and London Town, which features a beautiful piece of acoustic guitar playing by Brian.
The band were persuaded to foot the bill for a short film showing them capering around London in between footage of them playing in the studio and at the 100 Club. This 15 minute effort, Pretty Things On Film, has been described as a total waste of time and money and understandably so, nevertheless I beg to offer a different view. With the tragedy of many of the Pretties’ sixties TV recordings being either destroyed or of such poor quality it detracts from the pleasure of viewing them, On Film is a valuable piece of footage that should be treasured. For this reason I really value my copy, on the CD of Get The Picture. Brian looks at his most gorgeous here, his immaculate hair at its longest and, ever the Jazz man, is sat on a stool and wearing a cardigan during the studio clip of the band playing Midnight. In fact his guitar skills are more than apparent in this film and he rightly panned the director (whom he described in his interview as ‘a total w*nker’) for overdubbing the live performances with studio takes. Nevertheless Brian obviously did consider the film to be a waste of time and money, and this is more than apparent when you see the look on his face as the band wave Bryan Morrison off as his plane takes off without them; he is clearly thinking: How on earth did I get dragged into this nonsense? Maybe this was the point where Brian was beginning to think that his days in the Pretty Things were numbered.
He did manage to raise a smile, however, in January 1966 when the Pretties guested on a TV show called ‘A Whole Scene Going’, aimed at under-21s and featuring a ‘problem page’ type scenario where a girl relates the sad tale of her boyfriend getting torn apart by girls who won’t believe he isn’t Phil May due to their similarity in appearance (and probably made up by a BBC employee). Brian smiles as he hears this, then the band, with new drummer Skip Alan, perform Midnight To Six Man to polite applause; Brian playing his white Telecaster, either forgetting or choosing not to join in with the second chorus and looking very attractive with his always immaculate hair and his slim build accentuated by his striped trousers; after many photoshoots where he would persistently wear a tie and jacket, Mr Pendleton was now looking seriously groovy!
But looking groovy unfortunately didn’t sell records. Their next single, Come See Me, although lacking the total brilliance of Midnight, was still a great track and certainly deserved a Top 20 placing. In the event it got into the Top 50, but it was the spontaneous B-side, LSD, written by Phil May and Dick Taylor, which got the media attention and a BBC ban. The single take of this track is a mini-masterpiece and shows just what the band were capable of at their brilliant best. They insisted it was to do with pounds, shillings and pence but of course no-one was having any of it.
Several appearances on foreign (particularly Dutch) television proved that they were still popular but they just couldn’t convert this popularity into UK chart success. An ill-advised attempt at achieving this via a Kinks song, House in the Country, backfired, scraping into the Top 50 and at the same time proving to be the Pretties’ chart swansong. A further single released towards the end of 1966, called Progress, shows the band in a desperate state, unrecognizable from the spontaneous raw sound of their heyday. If only Midnight To Six Man, which whilst carefully produced as opposed to spontaneous was still an amazing track, had got the chart placing it had deserved…
The pressure on Brian must have been immense. He was sick of life on the road. The hits had dried up. His family hated him being a pop star and would have preferred him to have kept his ‘proper’ job in insurance; his father even wanted him to change his name! He was a married man and by now also the father of a young son. If being a pop star couldn’t support a young family, then what was he to do? The heavy drinking he indulged in to ease the pressure of life as a Pretty Thing and all it entailed could not have helped.
Exhausted, broke and broken down, there was only one solution.
Brian officially left the Pretty Things on Christmas Eve, 1966. His version of events is that he rang the band and told them he was leaving. The reasons he gave in his interview with Terry Coates were that he was exhausted mentally and physically by three years on the road, plus he was broke and was married with a child. He confirmed that he had suffered something of a breakdown.
His life after the Pretty Things was much like any life of those early music idols that didn’t make it beyond the sixties and early seventies: they either became pillars of society with 9 to 5 jobs and a family with responsibilities or they succumbed to alcohol, drugs and other painkillers. Brian Pendleton went back into the insurance business for another two decades, before finding his way back to music, albeit much more out of the spotlights.
He was found dead at the front door of his apartment on May 16, 2001, succumbed from lung cancer.
His was a very typical story of rock and roll, full of controversy, and mismanagement issues leading to money problems, theft and stupid mistakes, resulting in premature downfalls.
