Two deaths of artists who missed out

Back in the sixties I had the job of reviewing new singles releases for my paper, the Croydon Advertiser. I still have quite a few of those 45s and as it happens two musicians have died who have associations with a couple of those records, but who were either overlooked or missed out on the records in question. The first is James Holland, aged 81, who was a member of the Holidays, a Detroit soul group who recorded for various labels including Golden World and whose members changed regularly. The Holidays began as a doowop group and were also known as the Royal Holidays, the New Holidays and the Four Hollidays. As well as recording with the group James recorded in Chicago (backing Sir Mack Rice on 'Mustang Sally') and was central to the majority of records by the various versions of the Holidays. But their only UK release, 'I'll Love You Forever', released on Polydor in 1966, was actually recorded by four guys from Jackson, Mississippi, with Edwin Starr over dubbing the lead, which had originally been taken by Tony Hester. It became a Northern Soul favourite and is now very collectable. The full, complicated story of the Holidays can be found on the excellent SoulfulDetroit.com website.

The second death is that of Manchester born blues singer and instrumentalist Victor Brox, also 81, who has been considered by many to be among the UK's best blues singers. He played with many greats, including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Deep Purple, Alexis Korner, Dr John and Muddy Waters and also had his own band, the Victor Brox Blues Train, and appeared on the original recording of 'Jesus Christ Superstar'. But the 45 in question, a copy of which I received at the time, is 'Warning' by the Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, released on the fledgeling Blue Horizon label in 1967. Aynsley was of course the band's drummer and the label credits him as the writer of a song which is considered highly influential in the development of heavy metal. But although Victor is not credited, either as the writer or for his central role on vocals and organ, he was credited with having written the song when Black Sabbath recorded it on their debut album in 1970. Victor was the father of blues musician Kyla Brox, who performs regularly in the UK.