Roger Lee Durham

Born: February 14, 1946, in Kansas City, Missouri
Died: July 27, 1973
Band: Bloodstone, The Sinceres

In 1962, a group of high school friends in Kansas City, Missouri, founded a doo-wop quintet named The Sinceres. The members eventually learned how to play instruments, renamed themselves Bloodstone, and after a brief stint as a Las Vegas lounge act, moved to LA. Months without a record deal forced the band to London where label boss Mike Vernon took them to the studio.

Roger Durham sang and played percussion on the group’s eponymous debut from 1972, which included “Natural High,” a single that placed top ten on the pop charts. (“Natural High” also found its way on the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown, starring Pam Grier, Robert De Niro, and Samuel L. Jackson, Bridget Fonda, and Michael Keaton.)

Bloodstone tapped into a mix of doo-wop, subdued funk riffs, and soul with a tinge of gospel, which garnered the group a place in the black rock and funk movement of the seventies. They played gigs alongside the likes of Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, The Impressions, and (the-not-so-black) Elton John. Bloodstone’s keyboardist Harold “Ivory” Williams went on to cut On The Corner with Miles Davis, but returned in time for gigs and recording dates.

July 27, 1973, Roger Durham fell off a horse and died from the injuries. His duty as an airman in the Vietnam War garnered him interment at the Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery in Kansas.

Jesse Belvin
Born: December 15, 1932, in San Antonio, Texas
Died: February 6, 1960, near Hope, Arkansas
Bands: The Shields, and solo. Co-writer of The Penguins’ “Earth Angel”

Jesse Belvin is hardly mentioned in the annals of rock, but his contributions are significant to its early development. Belvin could croon like Nat King Cole or roar, sounding like a combination of Little Richard and Elvis Presley. Belvin was a prolific songwriter and was known to sell them off to other doo-wop groups in the LA area for $100 a piece. Jesse Belvin co-wrote “Earth Angel,” which was a major hit for the Penguins in the mid-fifties, peaking at the rhythm and blues charts and even crossing over to a respectable #8 on the pop charts. Frank Zappa paid homage to the song and the LA doo-wop scene that he grew up with on Weasels Ate My Flesh. “Earth Angel” was recently recorded by both Death Cab For Cutie and Weezer.

RCA Records signed Belvin in 1959 and decided to promote him as much as possible. Jesse recorded a slew of singles and Dick Clark ended up using Belvin’s “Goodnight My Love” as the closing theme for American Bandstand for several years.

February 2, 1960, Belvin played for the first segregated audience in the history of Little Rock, Arkansas. White supremacists hailed racial epithets and managed to halt the show twice. Belvin had received several death threats since his tour started in the still-segregated south, and he was scared for his life. Four hours after the show ended, Belvin was on the road near Hope, Arkansas, with his manager/wife JoAnn and a driver when the black Cadillac skidded off the road. Jesse and the driver died on impact while JoAnn died at the hospital later that night. A trooper on the accident scene stated that the rear tires had “been tampered with.” No more details surfaced, but The 27s book tells another version of what happened that night. Belvin is largely forgotten, but his songs and recordings live on.