Mysterious artists who made a handful of impressive recordings, then completely disappeared from the radar

I've always been kinda fascinated by people like these. Here's a couple of examples:

On Charles Mingus's album Pre-Bird there are two rather difficult vocal numbers, which are sung wonderfully by someone called Lorraine Cusson (sometimes also credited as Lorraine Cousins). Apparently these are the only recordings she ever appeared on, and little is known about her career before or after. IIRC even in the liner notes for the album it's mentioned that Mingus was pretty much the only one who was familiar with her.

On two albums by Yello (Stella and One Second) you hear the remarkable, icy vocals of Rush Winters on several tunes. Yello even released a single and video for Vicious Games, a tune where she does all the vocals, while regular Yello vocalist Dieter Meier doesn't appear at all. But after that they never collaborated with her again, and her only recordings after that appear to be a couple of guest vocals for some new age project. I don't even know what country she's from, though I suspect it's UK, since before Yello she'd done a few backing vocals for two UK acts. Those, alongside the new age thing, appear to be the only thing she's recorded outside Yello. Google search for her name only gives you references to those Yello albums. I don't know why Winters stopped working with them, it would've been cool to hear some solo material by her produced by Boris Blank.

I remember Gloworm, and his song "Carry me home", I did believe he was going to be a huge star and have loads of hits and that. Never saw him again!

Yeah, that's a good example, I loved that tune! I even started a thread about Gloworm, there's some more info there:

Gloworm

His Myspace hasn't been updated since January 2009... :(

Ah, I see we have had this conversation before...

Always want to say Glenn Miller when people talk about artists who completely disappeared from the radar.

It wasn't a big mystery though.

OTOH, I'm sure someone must've cooked up a few conspricacy theories relating to his disappearance.

We still talking about Gloworm here?

What about that guy that Juan Atkins started out with in Cybotron? (Had a number for a name.) Didn't he just disappear?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4V7aoAguEs

Shelagh McDonald is a Scottish folk singer, song-writer and guitarist who released two albums before her abrupt and mysterious disappearance in 1971 [...]

In November 2005, McDonald turned up in the offices of the Scottish Daily Mail and told them her story. She retreated from public life after a bad LSD trip left her paranoid and hallucinating, with a ruined voice. Living with her parents and working privately in Edinburgh, she met and married bookseller Gordon Farquhar; together, they lived a nomadic lifestyle in north Britain, living on welfare benefits and moving from house to house, and later tent to tent.

As of 2005, McDonald says her voice has improved and she is again interested in music, and the renewed interest in her work by the public surprised and gratified her. Since then, however, nothing more has been heard of her.

Apparently he kept the Cybotron name and released two Cybotron albums (without Atkins) in 1993 and 1995. Has anyone heard those?

(x-post)

John David, formerly of Folk Implosion

*Davis

This must apply to a lot of the women on that Wayfaring Strangers: Ladies From The Canyon compilation.

Mink Lungs

tons of rap dudes

I recall Mink Lungs being mildly diverting in concert, totally forgettable on cd. Did I miss something. And did they disappear, or just go back to their crappy job at Other Music...?

Tone Loc

Rodriguez

Basehead

Mazzy Star lol

eric gravatt

Betty Davis

Euphoria

Space Opera

Willis Alan Ramsey

trying to remember the name of this other drummer who was doing tony williams-ish stuff at the same time or before, never became well-known. so mysterious i don't even know who he is.

Willis Alan Ramsey remained semi-active, just never bothered to make a second record.

like Lee Mavers?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB7cztiRTdw

where did the Belgian singer Carol disappear to? she and Snowy Red should've/could've recorded a brilliant Young Marble Giants-esque album together in the early '80s, judging by the quality of their one-off single. her singing on the Rive Gauche single is great too, but I want more.

The Legendary Hassan - only appears on one recording (w/ Max Roach) and it seems like no one knows who the fuck he is.

great call on Carol!

wonder what happened to "Dorothy" from the self-titled Industrial Records single, "I Confess" is one of Alex Ferguson's hidden gems.

I guess Dorothy was the drummer from Rema Rema and Psychic TV (but she only ever sang on that one single)?

nikki mcclure. still active as an illustrator but as far as i know she quit music completely after a couple fine singles on k.

mark aaron. dude who played the killer guitar leads on cale's sabotage live. gone for good after that sole record i think.

Don, obviously.

although, more than a handfull obv.

van Vliet? stayed completely radar-accessible, just not making music

John Davis, formerly of Folk Implosion

John's doing fine. I'm not sure if he makes music any more; I rated his solo records very high and would love to hear more. But he may have just sort of stopped making music.

Well, you'd need an actual radar to locate him, I guess. (xposT)

super-lol at first google result for van vliet painting

I got a shot of a corridor of a gallery with a DVV painting.

google, not gis

I mentioned John Davis as he very abruptly upped and left the music business on the day his last album was released and has never been heard of publicly since.

Henry Grimes... then he came back

This record is pretty dope
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WzaUnO1S4E&feature=related

I mentioned John Davis as he very abruptly upped and left the music business on the day his last album was released and has never been heard of publicly since

well, he did do this, also, after Blue Mountains.

http://www.discogs.com/John-Davis-2-Dennis-Callaci-Room-For-Space-EP/release/430932

super-lol at first google result for van vliet painting

― ٩(̾●̮̮̃̾•̃̾)۶ (sic), Wednesday, 9 November 2011 11:58 (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I get a link to the "Radar Station" pages of his paintings...

Ah, this time I get a link to "AllPosters" who are selling a poster of one of his, for £39.

I mentioned John Davis as he very abruptly upped and left the music business on the day his last album was released and has never been heard of publicly since

well, he did do this, also, after Blue Mountains.

http://www.discogs.com/John-Davis-2-Dennis-Callaci-Room-For-Space-EP/release/430932

That's from 1996 though - he had quite a few solo releases before exiting from music, apparently on One Part Lullabye's release date.

Maybe Cornelius? What the hell has he been doing lately?

Saw him last year playing in Yoko Ono's band

marissa marchant

lock thread

I have to add the Jamaican stripper, Margarita (I've also seen it spelled Marguerita), who was the girlfriend of Don Drummond (one of the Skatalites and among the all-time Jamaican musical greats.) Apparently, they had some stabbing game that functioned as sexual foreplay, and as these things will, it got out of hand and Margarita bed to death. Drummond was later incarcerated. She sang only one song on record, the amazing "Woman A Come," which has to be heard to be believed.

wilderness.

Les Rallizes Dénudés kind of fit here, no? No-one knows what Mizutani is up to these days.

I thought he's spending his days converting tapes to CDR and mailing them to Volcanic Tongue?

Cornelius did a song for the Scott Pilgrim movie, the one the Katayanagi Twins play at the battle of the bands.

he's been gigging recently too, saw his band a few years ago, they were great.

Lana Del Rey

hey guys naming artists who didn't really disappear at all do you notice how this could actually be an interesting thread if you stfu w/artists who didn't actually disappear? thanking you for yr attention in this matter.

lol. i mentioned the band "wilderness" above, and concerned that i missed an update, or some reappearance, i scanned the internet. nothing. no news since 2008, when they released their last album. that's actually where the band's wiki page bottoms out.

i liked this band. if anyone's heard an update about them, i'd like to hear it. i assume they just quietly disbanded.

Late of the pier?

Kurt Heasley/Lilys... this guy is some sort of genius to his fans who are mostly serious music geeks.

john scoggins had one LP (a pretty good one) on a tax-scam label in 1976 then disappeared

http://www.discogs.com/John-Scoggins-Pressed-For-Time/release/2965217

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ifTOh8cDPo

folks on another board trying to track him down found some early-2000s arrest for impersonating a police officer, and nothing else.

supposedly he was in some band that might have recorded a single or an album but google does not help in the slightest with that.

OK so he might have had a band named "the ramparts" that played CBGB in 1977. that's all i got.

why not put this here too:

Jonathan Halper's "Puce Moment" soundtrack (two tracks, "Leaving My Old Life Behind" and "I Am A Hermit"). Literally cannot find out anything about this music apart from Kenneth Anger's vague and predictably mysterious comments. Don't know if it was ever even released as a single independently of the film or what. Very proto-Velvets/Syd Barrett stuff, p incredible. Recently covered by Franz Ferdinand for some reason.

John Davis released a very lovely album this year and no longer qualifies for this thread.

this seems like a silly example to include but i do think this 1997 bass reworking of shirley murdock's "as we lay" is a 10/10 a+ single and vocal performance by dana harris:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh9OoWTkCz8

it charted at #59 on the billboard hot 100 that year, but there's little trace of her anywhere else. apparently she was featured on a couple songs on the almost-unknown 2nd album in 2002 by one-hit-wonders b-rock & the bizz (of "mybabydaddy" fame -- also a classic single imo); i haven't heard them but have been tempted to buy a dirt-cheap copy of the album out of curiosity. (b-rock produced her version of "as we lay.")

it's also possible she was the uncredited female vocalist for the 1996 single by another one of b-rock's (failed) acts, southsyde boiz. it was a shameless ripoff of the quad city dj's hit from the same year -- serviceable but not particularly good, and the vocal, if it is her singing the chorus, is pretty indistinctive, probably sung to sound exactly like the quad city dj's singer. the woman in the music video lip-syncing to the chorus does look just like dana harris tho.

Connie Converse: Connie Converse - How Sad, How Lovely...

Hermann Szobel is kind of a legend in prog circles. Austrian eccentric prodigy who made one crazy record (sort of avant-jazz-prog, except that he'd apparently never heard any prog rock in his life, to the extent that he seems to have been under the impression that "King Crimson" was the name of an actual British king) for the Arista label at age 18 in 1976 and then disappeared, never to be heard from again.

Re: that John Scoggins album cover, didn't know they had USB drives back in 1976...

that's a polaroid!

Residence & Last Seen: Jerusalem, Israel Date of Last Contact: November 8, 2001 Sex: Male Age: 44 years Date of Birth: September 5, 1957 Place of Birth: Vienna, Austria Description: Height - 172 cm. Weight - 75 kilograms. Built - Medium. Hair - long hippy & brown. Eyes - blue. Does not wear glasses. No tatoos nor earings. No birth marks. Languages Known: German, English, Hebrew, Hungarian & French. Profession: Musician & Artist. Employment: Lived of mother's monthly allowance. Mother: Sonia Szobel. Winter months she is in Florida at fone # 1-305-866-6258 & in summer time she lives in Vienna at fone # 011-431-505745. Address is 1040 Wiedner Mpt 45, Wien 1040, Austria 45. Citizenship: Austrian & Israeli. Passports: Austrian & Israeli (subject tends to lose his passports). Other Information: A loner. Likes dogs. Uses drugs (hashish)

bizzy bone went from upstaging 2Pac and Biggie on 2 songs in the same year to dropping off the map into a weird alcoholic mediocrity (granted he had a lot of work before these songs but they sort of signalled the end)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSHTFiiYLHA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfxvgi0i1nc

John Wilson, the guitarist and bass player on early Heaven 17/BEF records, in particular the Pavement side of Penthouse and Pavement.

john jacob jinglesmith
This is the thread where you sign up for your Official ILX Jingle.

Bizzy Bone has released something like 20 solo albums (the latest in 2012), plus obviously he was on the best-known Bone-Thugs-n-Harmony albums, so I wouldn't really say he was a mysterious artist or that disappeared after a handful of recordings.

A long time ago, I found a cut-out of No Dirty Names, Dave Van Ronk's '66 LP. It was mostly good-to-great, pulling in a cohesive variety of songs from several sources, incl. DVR himself. But the one that got most deeply under my skin and never left, was and is "Mean World Blues," with a note floating by: "Well I'm goin', goin' away baby, and don't you look for me. I'll be hidin', hidin' in the deep blue sea." Credited to one Neila Horn, whom Van Ronk mentioned briefly, respectfully, on the battered back cover---was she dead? I started to remember people who sang one seemingly awesome song in a crowded, old smokey apartment, and were never seen or heard of again, at least by me.
Many years later, Numero put out Songs of Leaving from an ancient acetate of songs by Niela Miller. She was bummed by the music biz before ever becoming truly professional: for inst., one of the songs on the former acetate was the or a very probable source of "Hey Joe," copyrighted by her ex, Billy Roberts, so that's the or a major reason she split. You can read all about both of 'em on the WWW, of course, but man, that song.

I should have said that her song was *a* probable source, since he did change some of it, and as was pointed out to her online, "You can't copyright a chord progression." (Or a Q & A format re the lyrical pattern.) Anyway, nobody ever lifted nothin' from "Mean World Blues," far as I know: it's too all-to-itself for that, passing though.

How about Ronnie Singer- legendary jazz guitarist who committed suicide along with his wife at the age of 25 in 1953, leaving behind no official recordings, but only one heavily bootlegged live excerpt?

http://ronniesinger.blogspot.com/

Bizzy Bone has released something like 20 solo albums (the latest in 2012), plus obviously he was on the best-known Bone-Thugs-n-Harmony albums, so I wouldn't really say he was a mysterious artist or that disappeared after a handful of recordings.

Of course, like I said, but he dropped off pretty hard, pretty quick granted the substances etc caught up though. All those solos after The Gift are all just cheap throwaways essentially, by a rapper sounding nothing like who he was in the 90s.

"got shitty" is kind of fundamentally different from "completely disappeared from the radar"

Robert Plant in the 80s thread got me wondering about what happened to guitarist Robbie Blunt. Aside from a tiny number of YouTubes he's dropped out of sight.

I am the recording artist John Scoggins from the album Pressed For Time> I did not disappear plus you gossiping old ladies don't seem to know where to search for the actual John Scoggins, jes. you go on google and there's like hundreds of john scoggins's that are NOT ME. Go to UTUBE, and ITUNES, You'l find the Actual artist John Scoggins is alive and well and still making and releasing Music. There,s currently an original album vinyl on EBAY right now JAN> 2016 BUT probably not for long, music on Warner music on ITUNES, Amazon and every other digital site AND NEW Music on UTUBE> god search for a musician on music sites Google will just give you all sorts of people with the same name that ain't me.

lol

I am the recording artist John Scoggins from the album Pressed For Time> I did not disappear plus you gossiping old ladies don't seem to know where to search for the actual John Scoggins, jes. you go on google and there's like hundreds of john scoggins's that are NOT ME. Go to UTUBE, and ITUNES, You'l find the Actual artist John Scoggins is alive and well and still making and releasing Music. There,s currently an original album vinyl on EBAY right now JAN> 2016 BUT probably not for long, music on Warner music on ITUNES, Amazon and every other digital site AND NEW Music on UTUBE> god search for a musician on music sites Google will just give you all sorts of people with the same name that ain't me.

― John Scoggins, Monday, January 18, 2016 4:58 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

whoa

welcome back!

checkin out scogg on UTUBE, sounds good!

you gossiping old ladies

lol, fair assessment

so do you, like, hoard sealed copies of Pressed for Time and put one up on ebay about every 6 months and then just sit back and watch the bids roll in? that's what I'd do if I were rare private press psych folk powerpop recording artist John Scoggins.

I, too, listened to one of your songs on UTUBE, and it sounds great! any chance of a reissue?

"i did not disappear you gossiping old ladies" would be a good board description

one-time King Crimson percussionist Jamie Muir probably belongs here

George Murray, Bowie's brilliant bassist in the last half of the 70s. Last seen on a Jerry Harrison solo album and then apparently got out of the music business entirely.

i wish someone would reissue those Shelagh McDonald records mentioned above. or re-reissue them in an easy/affordable way.

yes! was just trying to track down some of her stuff recently and it seemed like even the early 00s comp was pretty pricey.

George Murray, Bowie's brilliant bassist in the last half of the 70s. Last seen on a Jerry Harrison solo album and then apparently got out of the music business entirely.

― Elvis Telecom, Monday, January 18, 2016 9:45 PM (24 minutes ago)

i suppose there are a billion of those old blues guys out there, but bayless rose.