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relationships (he had fathered a son whom he was not allowed to see) and had also experimented frequently with the then currently popular LSD – and the coroner returned a verdict of suicide by asphyxiation (the suggestion being that he’d ‘drunk’ the petrol), later changed to accidental death. A Hollywood police officer had, for some inconceivable reason, destroyed crucial evidence at the scene such as the gasoline canister. Although officials seemed keen to close the case as soon as possible, Lorraine and Randy Fuller were desperate to pursue what they felt was surely foul play. After all, the brothers weren’t strangers to murder: on a shooting trip in the early sixties, the Fullers’ halfbrother Jack had been gunned down by a purported ‘friend’. But despite apparent oddities in the case, the official statement of ‘no evidence to suggest foul play’ has never been altered. Randy Fuller’s continued pleas – even appearing on NBC’s Unsolved Mysteries series – have fallen on deaf ears ever since.

    Johnny Kidd (with The Pirates): Could’ve had someone else’s eye out with that
    SEPTEMBER
    Thursday 1
    Leroy Griffin
    (New Haven, Connecticut, 5 April 1934)
    The Nutmegs

    Hailing from New Haven, The Nutmegs were the latest in a seemingly endless line of vocal groups from the area, but they did at least have the distinctive tones of Leroy Griffin at the helm. Griffin fronted the band (alongside his brother Sonny and, for a while, another singer bizarrely also named Leroy Griffin), which enjoyed big US R & B hits with ‘Story Untold’ and the best-known Nutmegs song ‘Ship of Love’ (both 1955) – the latter of which was only prevented from becoming a national pop hit when a simultaneous version emerged by The Crew Cuts.
    Griffin’s death in September 1966 will forever remain mysterious. It seems that he and a work colleague had an altercation at a Koppers coke plant where Griffin still occasionally laboured to earn a living. Horrifically, Griffin either fell or was pushed into one of the factory’s giant furnaces, where he was quickly burned to death.
    OCTOBER
    Friday 7
    Johnny Kidd
    (Frederick Heath - Willesden, London, 23 December 1939)
    Johnny Kidd & The Pirates (The Five Nutters)

    Whether he was an influence on Adam Ant is open to conjecture, but Johnny Kidd was the first performer in British pop music to don the panto gear. An early skiffle convert, he formed his own band, The Five Nutters, while still a teenager. When rock ‘n’ roll kicked in, his interest in Lonnie Donegan et al dipped somewhat and he sought a new image – that of seventeenth-century buccaneer Captain William Kidd. The look presaged a name change, too, and had immediate appeal, particularly to HMV, who issued the first Johnny Kidd single, the excellent ‘Please Don’t Touch’ in May 1959. Its Top Thirty placing was a solid but not earth-shattering start, but the label’s next move – to sack the band and bring in experienced hands – was less effective, a series of covers by and large failing to dent the listings. Kidd’s co-written ‘Shakin’ All Over’ (1960), though, was a genuine ‘moment’ in pop-music history and is rightly viewed as the classic British pre-Beatles rock ‘n’ roll record; this infectious stop/start rocker duly took Kidd – now with The Pirates, including top guitarists Alan Caddy and Joe Moretti – to number one that summer. From this, the only direction for a working unit on the label payroll to go was likely to be downwards, and tunes that disappointingly pushed this distinctive band into a ‘Merseybeat’ direction were largely misses (1963’s ‘I’ll Never Get Over You’ a notable exception). Kidd was a hard-worker, however, and he and his group would still kick up something of a storm on their exhaustive live schedule, with occasional support from The Who – a band that has consistently cited him as an influence.

    Alma Cogan: Her ‘ostrich look’ never caught on
    With a