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Gossip
Soul Heaven:
'Drug overdose' caused Turner death
Rock 'n' roll pioneer Ike Turner's death last month was caused by a cocaine overdose, according to an official report.
The medical examiner's office in San Diego said its findings were that Turner "abused cocaine" which resulted in "cocaine
toxicity".
The report also listed hypertensive cardiovascular disease and pulmonary emphysema as "significant and contributing factors"
to Turner's death.
Turner, whose musical accomplishments were overshadowed by his image as the man who brutally abused former wife Tina Turner,
died on December 12 after years of drug abuse.
Turner once said he began using drugs to stay awake and handle the rigours of non-stop touring during his glory years.
But while he would readily admit to drug abuse, Turner always denied abusing his ex-wife. In her 1987 autobiography, I,
Tina, she told of a brutal pattern of abuse.
After years out of the spotlight his career finally began to revive in 2001 when he released the album Here and Now. The
recording won rave reviews and a Grammy nomination
Bobby Relf
Los Angeles soul singer and song-writer whose hits, notably
Harlem Shuffle, were successful in the Northern Soul clubs
As half of the soul music duo Bob & Earl, Bobby Relf was an almost permanent fixture in the lower reaches of the UK
pop charts during the late 1960s. Their record, Harlem Shuffle, originally released in the US in 1963, came out in the UK
a year later and became a club favourite which sold steadily without breaking into the Top 20. But demand for the record grew
and when it was re-released in 1969 it reached No 7 in the UK charts.
Behind Relf’s belated success lay a long and varied history as a vocal group singer in Los Angeles, where he was
born in 1937. Robert Relf was attending Fremont High School in 1954 when he got together with his fellow pupils Sam Jackson,
Ted Brown and Ronald Brown to form the Laurels.
They got the chance to record the following year with the ballad Yours Alone for the LA-based Flair label. The group next
recorded as backing singers for the R&B star Jesse Belvin before performing a similar task for the blues star Peppermint
Harris. The Laurels had the opportunity to record by themselves again for the RCA X label and rounded off a busy year with
discs on the Combo and Cash labels. The latter — an operatic-like ballad called Our Love — was described by the
music writer Jim Dawson as one of Relf’s best recordings — “a strange, lugubrious performance that sounds
like nothing else”.
Relf went solo for his next recording, Little Fool, in 1956. After it failed to find success, he continued to sing and
spent short stints with groups such as the Crescendoes, the Upfronts, the Hollywood Flames and Bobby Day and the Satellites.
Dorothy 'Kim' Tolliver
(b. 21st June 1937, Lebanon, Tennessee, U.S.A. d. 6th June 2007, Cleveland,
Ohio, U.S.A.)
(Alzheimer's Disease)
Freddie Scott
b. 24th April 1933, Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A.
d. 4th June 2007.
Freddie Scott has died. He was 74.
Durning his career he recorded the songs 'Hey, Girl', 'Are You Lonely
For Me?' and 'What Do I See In The Girl'.
Freddie Scott was born on the 24th April 1933, in Providence, Rhode Island,
and was a member of the groups Sally Jones & The Gospel Keyes and The Swanee Quintet Juniors, during his lifetime.
As a teenager, although he performed with the Sally Jones group, he pursued
a career in medicine, working on his Ph.D. at Paine College in Augusta, Georgia.
Whilst studying medicine, Freddie joined the Swanee Quintet Juniors, whose
debut he sang lead vocals on their song 'Far Away Places.'
Freddie abandoned his medical aspirations and looked towards a return
to the performing arts.
In 1956 he signed to Zell Sanders' J&S label releasing his debut solo
single, 'Running Home.'
In late 1956 he was called up for military duty, briefly serving in Korea.
Returning to recording he joined the Bow and Arrow label and recorded
1957's 'Tell Them for Me.' followed by 'Please Call' and 'A Faded Memory.'
Freddie completed his military service, and recorded for the Enrica label
for 1959's 'Come On, Honey.'
He then collaborated with Helen Miller to compose for Al Nevins and Don
Kirshner's Brill Building company Aldon Music.
In 1961, Freddie recorded 'Baby, You're a Long Time Dead' for the Joy
label.
The following year he was approached by Aldon songwriters Gerry Goffin
and Carole King who wanted some help with their song 'Hey Girl.'
Freddie recorded the song for the Colpix Records imprint making the Top
Ten on both the pop and R&B charts.
Freddie then relocated to Columbia, and recorded 'One Heartache Too Many'
in 1965, before relocating to the Shout imprint, where he remained for two years.
He recorded for the Elephant V, ABC's Probe imprint before signing to
Vanguard in 1971.
Freddie was now making much of his living writing advertising jingles
with his long time colleague Helen Miller.
Freddie also moved into acting, appearing in the films 'Stiletto' and
'No Way Out.'
He maintained a live performance schedule into the 1980's, returning to
music recording a version of Van Morrison's 'Brown Eyed Girl' for an Evangeline Records tribute album.
In 2001 he released 'Brand New Man', his first new material in almost
a quarter of a century.
Luther Ingram
b. Luther Thomas Ingram, 30th November 1937, Jackson, Tennessee,
U.S.A.
d. 19th March 2007, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.
Luther Thomas Ingram has died, after years of kidney troubles and ill
health, in St. Louis, Missouri, at the age of 69.
Luther Thomas Ingram's professional career began in New York with work
for producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
Several singles followed, including 'I Spy For The FBI', which was a version
of Jamo Thomas's 1966 hit version.
Luther then signed to HIB Records for 'Exus Trek / If It's All The Same
To You' before moving on to Koko Records, an independent label later marketed by Stax and owned by his manager and producer,
Johnny Baylor.
Here, alongside Mack Rice, he participated on songwriting chores including
'Respect Yourself' for the Staple Singers.
Luther was also releasing his own material with a great deal of success
on the R & B charts.
He was, for a time, a member of the group, The Gardenias.
In 1972, he released a recording of the classic Homer Banks, Raymond Jackson
and Carl Hampton song, '(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don't Want To Be Right'.
Produced by Johnny Baylor, the song reached number one on Billboard magazine's
R & B chart, and peaked at number three on that publication's Hot 100 chart in 1972.
It was was later recorded by Rod Stewart, Millie Jackson and Barbara Mandrell.
The song went on to sell over a million copies and reached number 3 in
the U.S. pop charts.
Luther's next release, 'I'll Be Your Shelter (In Time Of Storm)', then
followed.
His label, Koko struggled with financial problems.
It took 8 years before Luther returned to the R & B chart in 1986
with 'Baby Don't Go Too Far'.
In 2001, Luther Ingram began battling kidney disease.
Various soul artists performed benefit concerts to help offset his medical
expenses.
Barbara McNair
Actress and Motown singer
Barbara McNair, singer and actress: born Chicago 4 March 1934; four times married; died Los Angeles 4 February 2007.
"Lenny Bruce used to say that I was a Caucasian and that someone took a paintbrush and painted me brown," the Broadway
actress and singer Barbara McNair told a journalist in 1968: "White people are not aware that negroes look all kinds of different
ways. We don't all have wide noses and full lips."
McNair was born in Chicago in 1934 but the family soon moved to Racine, Wisconsin. She was encouraged by her parents to
sing and often took solos at church services and in school productions. She studied at the American Conservatory of Music
in Chicago, but her start in show business was by no means academic.
She sang standards in clubs in Greenwich Village and then made an impression on the syndicated Arthur Godfrey's Talent
Show. She made her début on Broadway in The Body Beautiful (1958), the same year that she started to make records. Apart from
"Bobby" (1958), her singles met with little success.
In 1963 McNair received good notices when she took over from Diahann Carroll in the Broadway musical No Strings, but she
received racist taunts in the touring production as the show called for her to kiss a white man. She appeared in the television
series Dr Kildare in 1964 and for several years she made guest appearances in TV dramas such as Hogan's Heroes, McMillan and
Wife and Mission: Impossible.
When in 1965 Berry Gordy Jnr wanted to add middle-of-the-road sales to his Tamla-Motown labels, he signed McNair, Tony
Martin and Billy Eckstine. McNair revealed that she was well capable of being a standard Motown performer, but Gordy refused
her insidiously catchy "Baby A Go-Go". McNair released two fine albums, Here I Am (1966) and The Real Barbara McNair (1969),
but many tracks lingered in the vaults, including a whole album of Smokey Robinson songs.
Although she did not have any commercial success with Motown, "You're Gonna Love My Baby" and "You Could Never Love Him"
became favourites on the UK Northern Soul scene. A double album of released and unissued material, The Ultimate Motown Collection
(2003), showed the quality of her work. Motown could have done more as she had a US TV series, The Barbara McNair Show (1969),
with such guests as Johnny Mathis, B.B. King and Bob Hope, with whom she toured in Vietnam.
Her nude appearance in the film If He Hollers Let Him Go (1968) caused controversy as it was featured in a Playboy photo-spread.
By way of contrast, her next film, Change of Habit (1969), featured her as a nun helping a doctor, improbably played by Elvis
Presley. She appeared as Sidney Poitier's wife in Call Me MISTER Tibbs! (1970) and the sequel, The Organisation (1971). In
1973 she returned to Broadway for a revival of The Pyjama Game.
The year before, McNair had signed for a package in her dressing-room and it contained drugs. It appeared that her then
husband, Rick Manzie, was involved in dealings with the Mob and, after he was murdered in 1976, McNair found it difficult
to get work.
In recent years, she had been performing in night-clubs and opening for Bob Newhart. She also appeared in a touring tribute
to Duke Ellington, Sophisticated Ladies.
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