Read The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars for Free Online Page A

agency and a doomed marriage to established musician Carolyn Hester. While performing in Greenwich Village, he met his second wife and ultimate musical collaborator, Mimi, a dance student, guitarist and 17-year-old sister of Joan Baez. The pair were immediately accepted into the folk community, debuting at the 1964 Big Sur Festival and shortly thereafter signing with Vanguard, who released an eponymous debut album (1965) and a rated follow-up, Reflections in a Crystal Wind, early the following year.
    Now a respected poet, playwright, columnist and author, Fariña’s Been down So Long It Looks Like up to Me – a novel inspired by college experiences – was published in New York. It was clearly a time for celebration, especially as the day of the book launch in Carmel coincided with Mimi’s twenty-first birthday. Following the launch, a number of friends accompanied Richard and Mimi to her sister’s house for a surprise party; one of these was Willie Hinds, an inexperienced biker who sometime during the course of the evening offered Fariña a ride on his newly acquired Harley Davidson. As the pair reached 100 mph weaving through the rolling hills on the winding roads of Carmel, Hinds failed to make a bend, skidded and lost control of his bike. Hinds survived the wipe-out with minor injuries but Fariña was hurled across two fences into an embankment and died immediately.
    See also Mimi Fariña ( July 2001)
    JULY
    Monday 18
    Bobby Fuller
    (Goose Creek, Texas, 22 October 1942)
    The Bobby Fuller Four

    The true spirit of rock ‘n’ roll lived and died in Bobby Fuller – but was the Texas-born guitarist the genre’s first genuine murder victim? When his mother, Lorraine, discovered her son’s lifeless corpse propped up against the steering wheel of her car, she noticed not just the acrid smell of blood but also the distinctive fumes of petrol.

    Bobby Fuller (second left) with The Bobby Fuller Four: ‘The Law’ simply wasn’t interested
    Like most young Texans, Fuller and his older brother, Randy, were fans of local-boy-made-good Buddy Holly and sought to emulate his success (if not his virtuosity) as soon as they could learn a few basic chords. This they would have achieved, had several events not put paid to The Bobby Fuller Four during their 1966 peak. All had begun well enough, with the teenage Fuller not only running a basic studio set-up in his basement but also graduating from music school; he made various recordings with independent labels before the local-airplay hit ‘King of the Wheels’ (1965) elevated him to the position of cult hero to the growing El Paso garagerock ‘n’ roll crowd. Settling on a Bobby Fuller Four line-up of himself as lead guitarist/vocalist, Randy Fuller (bass), Jim Reese (guitars) and Dwayne Quirico (the first of four short-term drummers, another of whom would be the studio-based Barry White – yes, that Barry White), the ambitious frontman relocated his band to the more happening LA. The result was a series of raunchy, stripped-down singles on Mustang, ‘Let Her Dance’, ‘Love’s Made a Fool of You’ and ex-Cricket Sonny Curtis’s seminal ‘I Fought the Law’ – a massive US hit at the beginning of 1966 and, of course, a much-covered standard for decades to follow. But fame was to be short-lived, recording sessions all but capsized by feuding between the two brothers. That summer, Fuller had pretty much made up his mind to dissolve the band and was due to meet with his musicians to tell them of his solo plans, but the meeting never took place. On the afternoon of 18 July, Lorraine Fuller’s missing Oldsmobile suddenly ‘turned up’ in a field next to her apartment on Sunset Strip, Hollywood. In it she found her son Bobby – missing for some fourteen hours – not just dead but in rigor mortis, badly beaten and doused in fuel. Rumours had abounded about Fuller’s mental state – he had recently become mildly depressed with the state of affairs with his band and his