The coronavirus has taken the life of rock musician Alan Merrill at the premature age of 69. Alan was the son of jazz singer Helen Merrill, who survives him, and also the cousin of singer-songwriter Laura Nyro.
He is famous for composing the rock anthem, I Love Rock’n Roll, which became a huge hit for Joan Jett and was also covered, less memorably, by Britney Spears.
Not so well-known is his short, but spectacularly successful career in Japan.
Helen Merrill was based in Japan for several years in the late 1960s, as her husband was a music company executive who had been posted to Tokyo. Alan went to join her in 1968.
Just seventeen years old, he managed to carve out a niche for himself in the rapidly evolving Japanese music scene. Soon he was working as a session musician, releasing solo albums and appearing in TV commercials and cop shows, as well as hobnobbing with famed Japanese and foreign musos.
Times were good, as indicated by this extract from his diary for 1971 –
May 12th – Afternoon, met Paul Rodgers (Free) with Yuki Shibata at Pub Cardinal Roppongi. Out drinking with Tetsu and Paul Kossoff ’til dawn. Free broke up. Koss is devastated. Drink with Koss and Tetsu at Akasaka Byblos til 3 AM. Then in Harajuku til 5AM.
May 13th– Fitting for a stage suit at Koshino Junko’s shop Colette. Go to the agency Dentsu, see Nissan poster for the first time. I look like a chick. I’d date me.
May 14th– Demo 9 originals for next album. Kossoff and Tetsu say they’ll play on the next record.
May 15th– Paul Rodgers starts to date Machi and they’re kissing all the time. We go to Byblos and drink, then on to the restaurant Spiglow. Paul and Machi leave after a few bites to go make love at the hotel no doubt. Clearly in heat. Yuki and I finish our dinner where she tell me how in love she is with Andy Fraser, Free’s bassist.
By this time, the “Group Sounds” boom, modelled on British Invasion beat groups of the early 60s, had wound down and the more ambitious Japanese musicians were aiming for a new, more contemporary sound. Tetsu Yamauchi, mentioned above, was to move to Britain and join Free and then The Faces, featuring Rod Stewart.
In Tokyo, Alan Merrill got together with drummer Hiroshi Oguchi, formerly of The Tempters, one of the big three Group Sounds bands. Together, they formed Vodka Collins, Japan’s first glam rock band. The name was chosen because the cocktail was supposedly one of Keith Richards’ favourite tipples.
Alan loved The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed and Bowie, but his band’s template, in terms of both image and sound, was Marc Bolan’s T. Rex. Alan was up for that, having already cultivated an androgynous, cross-dressing style. He handled guitar, vocals – in both English and Japanese – and did all the song-writing.
Later, another two members were added – bassist Take Yokouchi and guitarist Hiroshi “Monsieur” Kamayatsu, formerly of The Spiders, another legend of the Group Sounds era.
Everything was going fine until Alan discovered one of the unshakeable verities of Japanese show business. The management takes the money. The musicians get peanuts, if they’re lucky.
For advice he asked his mother, now back in the U.S., who had long experience of exploitative financial arrangements. She told him to quit while the going was good, which he did. Immediately, on the eve of a sell-out concert at the Budokan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLee72wPd0
The band’s only contemporaneous album, Tokyo / New York, hadn’t even been finished. Later, it was to become a classic of the genre.
Alan relocated to the UK. Almost straightaway, he formed a new group, Arrows, which went on to score a few minor hits and star in a TV series for British teeny-boppers. The song that he is most famous for languished on the B-side of an unsuccessful single, before being picked up by Joan Jett in 1982.
In later life, Alan reformed Vodka Collins and toured Japan, receiving a warm response from his by now middle-aged fans, and new albums were released under the band’s name. But it wasn’t the same. There was a moment and it passed, as such moments do. According to Alan, looking back in 2017, “it was a magical group in a magical time in a magical country.”
Alan Merrill kept going with total professionalism, releasing new material and playing regularly, until illness suddenly and cruelly struck him down.
Put another dime in the jukebox, Alan.