Carey Fortune (1954-2014)

JJ sent us this piece about the recent death of Carey Fortune:

I’ve just heard of the sad passing of Carey. I first met him when he accompanied Linda, his girlfriend, to a gig of ours at the Nashville Rooms in West Kensington in early ’76. They started coming to see us regularly and became mates. He was a musician who had studied trumpet and was also a competent drummer.

Carey became a roadie for us with Dick Douglas in 1976. One famous incident was where we got hassled big time at Bangor University (where Carey had studied) and he just launched himself off the stage into the crowd. There was a mass punch up and the ice cream van ended up with all four tyres slashed. We started to call him ‘Mutant’ due to the pallor of his skin…

He and Linda split up and he joined the band Chelsea. He also played drums on the majority of my solo album Euroman Cometh in late ’78. Sadly I didn’t see him much after that and the last I heard was an email from him saying he was living in France. He will be missed. RIP Carey.

Jean Jacques Burnel/21st August 2014