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MARCH-JUNE 2003
Well, so much for our rash promise about keeping the What's New up to date! In a desperate attempt to try and catch up, here's a selection of interesting items that caught our eye since the last edition ...
In this issue:
FAREWELLS
SO
LONG JACK
END
OF AN EAR
BSG
ON DVD
FLAMING
PLAGIARISM
BLASTS
FROM THE PAST
DAME
DUE DOWNUNDER
DON'T
SLAM IT ON YOUR WAY OUT ...
| FAREWELLS |
| This part of What's New
just seems to get longer and more depressing with each successive edition.
This time around, we must sadly bid farewell to ...
Adam Faith, 1941-2003
Faith started out as a messenger for a TV company, eventually progressing to become a film editor, a job he apparently loved. But his major passion was music and in 1956 he joined with some friends to form a skiffle group called The Worried Men. In 1957 they secured a residency at the now legendary "2I’s" coffee bar in Soho, the venue that helped launch several other early UK rock ’n’ roll stars including Tommy Steele, Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde. It was there that he was spotted there by legendary TV producer Jack Good who was directing the seminal BBC pop show 6-5 Special (the inspiration for Australia's Six O'Clock Rock). Armed with a new stage name, Adam Faith made two appearances on the show in 1958. In 1959 producer-composer John Barry introduced faith to songwriter Johnny Worth. Faith recorded Worth's song What Do You Want, with Barry producing, and it became a #1 hit in December 1959. For the next three years Faith was a major star, rivalling Billy Fury and Clif Richard as one of the top three British pop singers, and he scored a hugely impressive run of eleven Top 20 hits in the UK. During this period he also began acting and had small roles in several films. His career slowed in the wake of Beatlemania and he had his last hit in 1967. He married that same year and made a successful transition to the stage with his debut opposite Dame Sybil Thorndike in the Emlyn Williams play Night Must Fall. For the next few years he honed his talent with constant work in repertory theatre. In 1970-71 he starred in the popular television series Budgie, written by Keith Waterhouse, which ran for two seasons. Faith played the title role, a chirpy cockney just out of prison, scraping a living on the edge of the law. His daughter Katya was born during the show's first season. In 1972 he discovered a then unknown singer-songwriter, Leo Sayer, and became his manager and producer. Faith co-produced Leo's early hits including Long Tall Glasses and The Show Must Go On. The following year, he produced the first solo album for The Who's Roger Daltrey and suggested that Daltrey cover Sayer's Giving It All Away. In August 1973 Faith was sidelined by a near-fatal car accident in which he almost lost a leg. After nearly two years' recovery, he returned to films with a leading role in the hit David Puttnam movie Stardust, starring opposite David Essex, Dave Edmunds, Keith Moon and Larry Hagman. Later that year he made a new LP, appropriately titled, I Survive. For the next few years he concentrated on acting, although he returned to production with the 1978 Lonnie Donegan album Putting On The Style which gave the former skiffle star his first charting record in over 15 years. In 1979 he co-starred with Roger Daltrey in the movie McVicar and in 1980 he had a role in the Jodie Foster film Foxes. In the Eighties he became a financial adviser, although he was dogged by ill-health and underwent cardiac bypass surgery in 1986. After his recovery he tookup financial journalism, writing a regular columns for the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday. He gave up his financial career after incurring heavy losses in the late 80s. In the 90s he returned to the stage, and mounted a musical based on Budgie, then starred oposite Zoe Wannamaker in the TV series Love Hurts. He recorded a new album in 1993, and starred in a stage version of Alfie in 1994 which also toured the USA, where he was directed by his daughter Katya. In 1996 he starred in the West End revival of A Chorus Line and in 1998 he hosted a two-part TV documentary about a subject he knew well -- heart disease. In 1999 he set up a cable station called The Money Channel but it foundered disastrously in 2001. The failure of his TV venture reportedly cost Faith £30 million and in October 2002 he was declared bankrupt. During 2000 he hosted a music series on BBC radio and the next year he returned to TV in a new sticom The House That Jack Built, playing Jack Squire, a wealthy housing developer. The show rated poorly and was cancelled after six episodes. In 2002 he was reunited with his wife Jackie, from whom he had been separated for seven years. In January 2003 Faith began
a British tour of Donald Churchill's play Love and Marriage. After
an evening performance at the Regent Theatre in Stroke-on-Trent on March
7 he suffered a major heart attack. He was rushed to hospital but died
in the early hours of March 8. Adam Faith is survived by his wife Jackie,
and 32 year old daughter Katya.
 Noel Redding 1945-2003 Forever famous as the bassist in The Jimi Hendrix Experience, musician Noel Redding died of natural causes at his home in Ireland on 12 May 2003. Born 25 December 1945 in Folkestone, England, Redding played guitar with the Modern Jazz Group and the Loving Kind before joining the Experience as bassist after a chance meeting with Hendrix's manager and producer, Chas Chandler in late 1966. Redding has said that his greatest moments were playing the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, where the Experience made its American debut and Hendrix famously set his guitar on fire, and the Experience's 1992 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. After the acrimonious split of the Experience in late 1968, Redding formed his own band, Fat Mattress, which released a 1969 album of the same name, followed by "Fat Mattress 2" in 1970. Both were re-released as a set in 2000. Later, after settling in Ireland, he formed the Noel Redding Band, which recorded "Clonakilty Cowboys" in 1975 and "Blowin'" in 1976. Other recordings included "On Tour" in 2001 and last year's "Live From Bunkr-Prague." In 1990, Redding published his memoirs, Are You Experienced. In February 2003, Redding
announced that he intended to sue Experience Hendrix, the company that
manages the Hendrix estate, for up to $5 million in lost earnings. The
day after his death, the Experience Hendrix web site mourned Redding's
death, saying, "His contributions to the Jimi Hendrix Experience shall
never be forgotten." The Noel Redding Bass Guitar Method was published
last year in the United States by Carl Fischer Music. Ever the trouper,
Redding had played most Friday nights for the last 20 years at De Barra,
his local pub, often with his friends John Coughlin from Status Quo and
Eric Bell of Thin Lizzy. He played his last gig there on 9 May, two days
before his death.
June Carter Cash 1929-2003 Singer, songwriter and country music legend June Carter Cash, the wife of Johnny Cash, died in Nashville on 15 May from complications following heart surgery, just over a month short of her 74th birthday. Born Valerie June Carter, on 23 June 1929, she was a performer from the age of ten and bona fide country music royalty. Her mother Maybelle was the sister-in-law of Alvin P. and Sara Carter, who founded The Carter Family in the same year June was born. When Alvin and Sara left the group after their divorce, Maybelle continued the family act by recruiting her three daughters June, Helen and Anita. The Carter Family became the first major recording stars and the foremost progenitors of Southeastern country/folk music. In 1970, they became the first group to be elected to the Country Music Fall of Fame. The relationship between June and Johnny Cash is one of the greatest love stories in music. The couple met when the Carters toured with Johnny in 1961 and they soon fell in love and became inseparable on and off stage. Johnny proposed to her on stage in 1968 at a concert in London, Ontario. They were married for 35 years and their love for each other was constant and obvious right up until the end. June was also instrumental in helping Cash to subdue his demons and kick his much-publicised drug addiction. June co-authored Johnny's Ring Of Fire, which was written about their relationship, and it became one of the couple's most enduring and successful hits. Her duets with Johnny, including It Ain't Me Babe and the hit singles Jackson and If I Were A Carpenter (both Grammy winners) are regarded as classics of the country music canon. A deeply committed Christian, June was the mother of Carlene Carter, stepmother to Rosanne Cash (who married British musician Nick Lowe) and "den mother" to Rodney Crowell, Marty Stuart, Kris Kristofferson, and many other seminal musicians of the '60s, '70s, and '80s. As well her roles as a wife and mother, she was a stellar songwriter ("Ring of Fire"), an author of "skill and heart", an accomplished actress (she co-starred with Robert Duvall in 'The Apostle') and a skilled comedienne; her comic performances and characters were a showstopping highlight from her earliest days with the Carter Family. Her last recording, the album,
the autobiographical Press On (1999) earned her a Grammy.
It was her first album in 25 years. The sad irony attending her sudden
and unexpected death was that she had enjoyed robust good health most of
her life and and over the last few years she had provided constant care
for Cash, who is chronically ill.
Stan "The Man" Rofe, 1935-2003 An era ended in May this year when one of the legends of Australian radio, a pillar of Australian popular music and one of the true gentlemen of the industry, the great Stan Rofe passed away on 16 May 2003. Follow this link for a fuller tribute to the great man.
Wane "Swampy" Jarvis
The first band Wane worked with was The La De Das and he was their road manager until 1971. The truly staggering list of acts he worked with is a veritable Who's Who of rock and includes Frank Zappa, Elton John, Suzi Quatro, Rick Wakeman, Status Quo, Eric Clapton, Richard Clapton, The Sweet, Little River Band, John Paul Young, Beach Boys, George Thorogood, Max Merritt, Renee Geyer, The Pretenders, Split Enz, Cliff Richard, Spandau Ballet, Iron Maiden, Tom Jones, A-Ha, Sade, Santana, John Farnham, Elvis Costello, Jimmy Barnes, AC/DC, John Mellencamp, Iggy Pop, Frank Sinatra, Liza Minelli, Sammy Davis Junior, Poison, Diesel, Bon Jovi, Neil Young, Tracy Chapman, Skid Row, The Angels, Cheap Trick, Motley Crue, Bobby Brown, Salt 'n' Pepa, Soul II Soul, Aerosmith, Hall and Oates, Billy Joel, Dire Straits, Bob Dylan, Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart, Black Crowes, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Richard Marx, Guns 'n' Roses, Extreme, Arrested Development, Suzanne Vega, Living Color, Madonna, Metallica, Peter Gabriel, Depeche Mode, Whitesnake, REM, Kiss, Pearl Jam, Doobie Brothers, Foreigner, James Taylor, The Eagles, Joan Armatrading, Plant & Page, Hootie and the Blowfish, Dionne Warwick, America, Natalie Cole, Peter Paul & Mary, Foo Fighters, Run DMC, Ricky Martin, Shania Twain and the Bee Gees. Many of his mates gathered for a special concert at the Sydney Entertainment Centre in June to pay tribute to him. More information can be found
at:
Mickie Most 1938-2003 Legendary British pop producer Mickie Most died from mesothelioma on 30 May 2003, aged 64. Born Michael Peter Hayes in Aldershot, England, on 20 June 1938, Most broke into Britain's fledgling 1950s rock'n'roll scene as a member of The Most Brothers. He moved for a time to his wife's homeland of South Africa, where he topped the charts by covering US hits with his band The Playboys. He returned to England in 1962, but after scoring only one minor hit with Oh Mr Porter, he realised that he was unlikely to make it as a pop star so he turned to other areas of the music industry. Initially he worked selling records to supermarkets and petrol stations, placing his discs in strategically placed racks (the origin of the name of his company, RAK). When this career began to peter out, he decided to start producing pop records. He discovered The Animals at the Crawdaddy Club in London and secured them a recording contract with EMI; crucially, he also signed the band to an exclusive production contract and the huge success of their records established Most as Britian's top independent producer. He produced all their early classics including House of the Rising Sun, which was #1 in both the USA and the UK, although the band eventually fired him in 1965 claiming that he was forcing them to record material that was too commercial. His other '60s production credits included Lulu (To Sir With Love), The Nashville Teens, Jeff Beck (Hi Ho Silver Lining), The Seekers and many of the classic Pye label recordings by Donovan including Sunshine Superman, Season Of The Witch, Atlantis and Barabajagal, recorded with the Jeff Beck Group. Most's biggest commercial success in the Sixties was with Herman's Hermits. He chose and produced all their recordings and for a brief time they even challenged The Beatles as the most popular group in the world, selling a staggering 10 million albums and singles in just 12 months in 1965. "He had an incredible skill in picking songs -- he could pick a song on the moon. He was a giant, something special. So many artists owe so much to him," said songwriter Nicky Chinn. Chinn and co-producer Mike Chapman worked with Most in the 1970s and produced many major hits for the Most's RAK label. Despite his keen commercial pop instincts, Most's productions did not always hit the mark -- the Little Games album he recorded with the Yardbirds in 1967 was a disastrous flop and The Seekers' farewell record Days of My Life (April 1968) was, ironically, the least successful single of their career. In 1969 Most established Rak Management with Peter Grant, the company managed Led Zeppelin. In the early 70's he founded Rak studios and the Rak label. The label became home to some of the top British pop acts of the 70s including The Sweet, Suzi Quatro, Mud, Hot Chocolate, Racey and Smokie. In the 70s he was a familiar presence on British TV, where his withering assessments of new talent on the ITV variety show New Faces made him a household name. The 1980s saw Most scoring hits less often, although Racey, Kim Wilde and Johnny Hates Jazz (featuring his son Calvin Hayes) all attained some degree of popularity in the UK. Tributes flowed at Most's funeral, which was attended by some of the biggest stars in the industry. Peter Noone, who flew in from LA, said: "He made my life. He was my best friend, best man at my wedding, my daughter's godfather. He made my records. He was a genius at what he did. He was the world's greatest producer." Lulu said: "I have a lot to be grateful to him for. It's the end of an era. When someone like Maurice Gibb goes (Bee Gee and her former husband), George Harrison goes and now Mickie Most... We were very close at one time. He's left a tremendous legacy." Hot Chocolate's Errol Brown said: "He brought the best out of me as an artist, writer and singer. He was a great friend to me and meeting him changed my life completely. He helped to make one of the classic songs in You Sexy Thing. Everywhere you go in the world you hear it and that's a great testimony to his skills." Recalling their first meeting, Suzi Quatro said: "I had an offer to be the new Janis Joplin and he said to me, 'how do you fancy being the first Suzi Quatro?' " Quatro cut short a holiday in Spain and flew home upon hearing the news of Most's death. "Mickie has been the biggest part of my life since I was 20 years old," she said. "He took me from Detroit in 1971 and brought me over to England. He always had one eye on me, even when I got married. I really am very upset. It's come as a huge shock. He was like a father and a brother so I feel like I have lost a member of my family. His greatest quality was to see star quality and then find the right song, and marry that song and the artist together in one package." Donovan said: "He was one of the top five music producers in the 1960s. He had an innate understanding of what a song needed to be a hit." Although he was not active
in the music industry for the last decade of his life, his fortune was
estimated at £50m ($AUD125m) at the time of his death. A noted cook,
Most was also an avid collector of vintage cars and motorbikes. He is survived
by his wife Christine and their three children.
Dave Rowberry 1940-2003 Keyboard player Dave Rowberry had the unenviable task of succeeding founding member Alan Price in The Animals in 1965. He remained with the group until that lineup split acrimoniously in 1967, having been worked into the ground and comprehensively ripped off by their unscrupulous manager Mike Jeffrey (who went on to inflict the same punishment on his next hapless client, Jimi Hendrix). Rowberry and drummer John
Steel, plus other musicians reunited in the 90s and formed the group Animals
and Friends, touring regularly. The band played their last gig in the UK
on Monday June 2 and were due to play in Poland the following weekend.
Most of The Animals including Dave were reunited at a gala party Hollywood
in May 2003 to celebrate Eric Burdon's 60th birthday. John Steel said Rowberry,
who suffered from heart problems, was found dead in his flat on June 6
by bassist Jim Rodford. He was 62. Animals guitarist Hilton Valentine paid
tribute to Dave as "likeable, easy going, intelligent, great sense of humour
and a fucking great keyboard player."
|
| SO LONG JACK |
| 2003 has been a year of
many endings in popular music. One of the biggies here in Australia is a milestone for
veteran singer John Farnham. John, who began his career in the mid-Sixties,
has just concluded his farewell "The Last Time" tour with a triumphant
trio of final performances at the Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne, concluding
on June 15. Although he will continue to record and may perform occasionally,
this was his last full-scale national concert tour. Despite some hiccups
over safety issues with the innovative travelling tent show, the tour was
a huge success and was capped by a broadcast of his final performance which
was screened on the Nine Network.
However, to the great amusement of pundits who can't quite believe that Jack will be hanging up the mic just yet, it has been announced that, in the great Aussie tradition of Nellie Melba and The Seekers, Farnsie will do one more "honestly-I-mean-it-this-really-is-the-last-time" performance at the AFL Grand Final in September. |
| END OF AN EAR |
| Another Aussie music era
came to an end with the resignation in late May of long-serving Triple-J
music director Arnold Frolows.
Arnold, 53, started his career in London in 1970, where he managed record stores. He moved to Australia in 1974 and at the start of 1975 he became one of the original staff of Australia's first 24-hour non-commercial rock station, 2JJ (Double Jay), where he helped establish the record library and co-ordinate the station's programming. In 1977 Arnold returned to England to work in music publishing and he became the head of A&R at Virgin Records UK until the early eighties. However he maintained his connection with the Jays, filing reports and interviews from London, and he undoubtedly helped Double Jay to break many punk and New Wave acts of the period with Jay audiences. He came back to Australia and rejoined the station, (now on the FM band and renamed Triple-J) in the early Eighties, and he was appointed as music director in 1985. Over the years Arnold has had his fair share of critics and in recent times many whingers have predictably harped on the irony that the Yoof Network was being programmed by a guy in his fifties. But it's undeniable that Arnold has a rare talent and was the X-factor that kept Triple-J at the cutting edge of what was happening in music for almost twenty years -- an incredible achievement in the cutthroat, fad-driven, emphemeral world of rock and rock radio. It's also undeniable that, taken overall, for most of Arnold's period as MD Triple J programming comprehensively shat all over the competition in terms of the quality and variety of the music it played. Probably the best compliment the industry payed him was that during the station's peak ratings years from the late 80s to the mid-90s, Triple-J was constantly being used as a de facto market research service by commercial radio, who cherry-picked the most chart-friendly tracks and then made them into commercial hits without ever acknowledging who broke all these acts in the first place. (Think Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Ben Folds, Powderfinger, silverchair ... to name just a handful of acts who were broken by Triple J). As an original Double Jay listener, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Arnold for his incredible service to the ABC, to Australian music, and to listeners all over the country. I certainly owe a lot of my musical education to his excellent taste, his incredible breadth of knowledge and his relentless dedication to presenting the best in new music. Onya Arnold! While his departure is (at least for some of us) a bittersweet occasion, breaking the last link with the Jays' origins, Arnold's new job is one that any Aussie music buff would give their eye teeth for -- he will oversee the development of a collaborative initiative with ABC Archives to conserve and market the station's unique collection of live music recordings "in a way which both values it as the collection of national significance it is, and allows it to be used by Triple J and other areas of the ABC". The collection is an unequalled archive of live contemporary music, encapsulating some of the most exciting years of Australia's rock history from the late Seventies to the present. From the station's earliest
days, the broadcasting of live music was an essential part of Double Jay
and Triple-J's brief, and its collection inludes many legendary programs
such as the old 'Live at Studio 221' shows, "Cooking With George" (later
culled for an ultra-collectible LP set) and the long-running 'Live At The
Wireless' series. Over the years Double and Triple J recorded just about
every band of any significance on the Australian scene, helping to break
a good many of them along the way. Another priceless portion of the archive
is the Jays' collection of recordings of local gigs by some of the biggest
and best touring acts of the era, including people like XTC, Elvis Costello,
The Police, Nirvana and countless others.
|
| BSG ON DVD |
| immedia reported
in early June that Universal Music has signed LRB founder members Beeb
Birtles, Glenn Shorrock and Graeham Goble (BSG) to record a DVD and an
album for Australian and International release later in the year. The trio
reunited last year, which surprised many, given that the famously fractious
partnership between Shorrock and his former bandmates dissolved acrimoniously
in the 80s. But the hatchets seem to have been well and truly buried and,
backed by a hot five-piece band of younger musos, the trio are wowing fans
with their reunion shows, including a killer gig at The Basement late last
year, some of which will hopefully find its way onto the DVD.
The reunion also garnered
press attention because of the legal wrangling over the band's name. BS&G
sold their rights to the LRB name as each of them left the band during
the 80s, but LRB still exists and still regularly tours the USA and other
countries. The LRB name is now owned by guitarist Stephen Housden and bassist/lead
singer Wayne Nelson, who lead the current version of LRB (which contains
no original members). BSG took the matter to court because Nelson and Housden
refused to allow them to use the LRB name in any context, notwithstanding
the fact that LRB's name and reputation rests almost entirely on the songs
and voices of Birtles, Shorrock and Goble. The three were unsuccessful
in their legal challenge to win back the right to use the name, hence the
current BSG appellation.
|
| FLAMING PLAGIARISM |
| Undercover (27 June)
reported that American band Flaming Lips (who backed Beck on his
recent US tour) have reached a settlement to share the royalties of their
latest single with '70s folk-rock icon Cat Stevens. The settlement
was made necessary after the Glasgow Herald 'outed' the group by
pointing out the bleeding obvious, to wit the unmistakeable resemblance
between the Lips' latest waxing, Fight Test, and Cat's early 70s
hit Father and Son.
|
| BLASTS FROM THE PAST |
| Proving that there's life
yet in the old rock dog, two veteran acts have turned industry heads with
the surprise success of their latest releases. More than 20 years after
their demise, Led Zeppelin made an astonishing debut at #1 on the US charts
with a new 2CD compilation of previously unreleased live recordings from
the 70s. The Beach Boys also fared remarkably well with the new compilation
Sounds
Of Summer which positively zoomed off the shelves, selling 68,000
copies in one week in America, enabling the collection to debut at #16.
In related news, Undercover (30 June) reported that an anonymous Beatlephile is offering for sale a long-lost outtake version of the Beatles' 1965 Xmas record. The Beatles' Xmas discs were an annual tradition and the Fabs recorded seven of them, one for every Xmas from 1963 to 1969. The discs were specially recorded, pressed and sent out to the members of the Official Beatles Fan Club, and needless to say they became hot collectors' items as the years passed. The first three Beatle Xmas records from 1963, 1964 and 1965 were cute if relatively mundane affairs, all recorded at EMI studios at the end of their recording sessions. The tape that has just surfaced is apparently a version of the '65 single that was scrapped in favour of the released version. In 1966, in keeping with their rapidly expanding musical horizons, the Beatles took a more conceptual approach, writing and performing a short, surrealist audio Pantomime called "Everywhere It's Christmas" (Paul's idea, apparently), a move away from the simple "seasons greetings to all our fans" messages found on the previous three Xmas messages. It was also the first Xmas record to be double-sided and the first to feature a colour sleeve (a suitably trippy effort probably painted by Paul). The Beatles Xmas message
for 1967 featured more surreal audio satire humor and the cover was a distinctive
Sgt Pepper-style photo collage. By 1968, the Beatles were increasingly
working apart so they recorded separate messages to be edited together
-- a job that fell to Fab friend and BBC DJ Kenny Everett, who took the
recordings back to the Beeb and did some special mixing which still gave
the impression of Beatles doing a unified fan club message. The cover was
a abstract geometric desing in red and blue. The 1969 Xmas message (featuring
a striking abstract colour photo design by Ringo) was constrained by the
lack of input from George Harrison (a mere 6 seconds on the record) and
Ringo (only 16 seconds) and was again mixed by Kenny Everett using music
from the BBC library to pad out the record.
|
| DAME DUE DOWNUNDER |
| David Bowie has announced
that he will tour Australia in February 2004 as part of his 'A Reality
World' international tour. It's Bowie's fourth visit here. His first was
in 1978, followed by the 'Serious Moonlight' tour in '83, and the spectacular 'Glass Spider' tour of 1987.
The tour band will feature his long-serving bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, and also
reunites him with guitarist Earl Slick (Diamond Dogs) and
brilliant keyboardist Mike Garson, who worked with Bowie on the final
Ziggy tour, performed on the Aladdin Sane album and who in more
recent times visited Australia with Smashing Pumpkins. |
| DON'T SLAM IT ON YOUR WAY OUT ... |
| Lawsuits have been flying
in all directions over the controversial revival of The Doors by
keyboard player Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robbie Krieger. They first recruited
former Cult lead singer Ian Astbury, enabling him to fulfil his long-held
and not-very-secret fantasy of slipping into the leather daks to impersonate the Lizard King.
Then it was reported that original drummer John Densmore could
not participate because of hearing problems, but it subsequently emerged
that Densmore hadn't even been asked -- he apparently found out about his non-inclusion
from a Billboard article. He took legal action to prevent his former
bandmates from using the name The Doors, which resulted in the barely altered
moniker "The Doors 21st Century".
With Densmore out of the picture, former Police drummer Stewart Copeland was slated to fill the drum stool, although there was a cloud over his participation because he broke his wrist in November 2002 and reportedly aggravated the injury at their Las Vegas live debut in January. Copeland played with the group for their first TV appearance on Jay Leno's "Tonight Show" in early March, and it was reported that he would be playing on a planned album, but according to the Doors website, Copeland was quoted after the Tonight Show appearance as saying: "That's over man. That's done. Ian is great and he can do it, but I'm not going to go with them." By the time the new 5-piece lineup hit the road in late March (with Angelo Barbero on bass) Copeland had been replaced by Ty Dennis. Copeland is now suing the band, alleging breach of verbal contract. Then in April, Densmore and Copeland were joined in the "sue queue" by the parents of Jim Morrison and the mother of Jim's late partner, Pamela Courson, who jointly inherited Jim's 25% interest in the Doors' company. Now they too are suing Manzarek, Krieger and Astbury, claiming that the current outfit is "maliciously misappropriating" the good name of The Doors and that the current members are using the poetry and image of Jim without permission "in order to wrongfully enrich themselves". |
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