Wild and lonely

In January 1997, Billy Mackenzie, the most astonishing singer of his generation, was found dead. 10 years on, no one quite knows why the mercurial Associates frontman, whose music lit up the early 80s, committed suicide, but on the eve of a tribute concert in London on what would have been his 50th birthday, his ex-Associate Alan Rankine recalls to Paul Lester the highs and lows of an extraordinary life

GALAXY OF MEMORIES

The first time Alan Rankine met Billy Mackenzie, in 1976, he was singing with Stan & Deliver, a “codfunk act” from Dundee enjoying local club success on the back of Average White Band. Although the band were merely competent, the singer in the white jump suit with the acrobatic larynx was something else.

“It was pure sex,” gasps Rankine, relishing the memory of Mackenzie’s quasi-operatic voice that used the likes of Billie Holiday, David Bowie and Russell Mael as points of departure. “It was like nothing I’d heard before. No one in Scotland sounded like that. No one in Britain sounded like that. It didn’t compute.”

Associates, who formed in 1977 and had hits in 1982 with Party Fears Two and Club Country, were described as “the most modern pop group of the 80s”. With their dark good looks and sharp outfits, Rankine and Mackenzie were like an artily playful version of Oasis’ Gallaghers, or a Morrissey-Marr more into Moroder than McGuinn.

You would have struggled to recognise the pair in their late teens though, in those pre-punk days when the Dundonian Bill Mackenzie was with Stan & Deliver and Linlithgow’s Rankine, as gifted a musician as Billy was a vocalist, was playing guitar with a cabaret act called …

by Paul Lester
<< Back to Issue 335

You must be a subscriber to view the full article, subscribe now for full access to all online content.

Already a Magazine Subscriber? Register now for online access.