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Billy Mackenzie
William MacArthur Mackenzie (27 March 1957 – 22 January 1997) was a Scottish singer and songwriter, known for his distinctive high tenor voice. He was the co-founder and lead vocalist of the post-punk and pop band the Associates. He also had a brief solo career releasing his debut studio album, Outernational, in 1992, his only solo album released during his lifetime.
William MacArthur Mackenzie was born on 27 March 1957 in Dundee, Scotland. As a child, he lived on Park Avenue in the Stobswell area of the city. He attended St Mary's Forebank Primary School and St Michael's Secondary School. He led a peripatetic lifestyle, decamping to New Zealand at the age of 16, and travelling across America aged 17. Here he married Chloe Dummar, the sister-in-law of his Aunt Veronica. While Mackenzie was quoted as saying the marriage was made to stave off deportation so that he could sing with the New Orleans Gospel Choir – calling his wife a 'Dolly Parton type' – Dummar still believes the pair were in love. He left her after three months of marriage and returned to Dundee, and the two never had contact again. Chloe Dummar filed for divorce in 1980, and Mackenzie did not contest the filing. (Chloe's brother was Melvin Dummar, who claimed to be the "one sixteenth" beneficiary of the estate of Howard Hughes until the case was thrown out in 1978.)
Mackenzie returned to Scotland where he met guitarist Alan Rankine and in 1976 formed the Ascorbic Ones. They changed the name to Mental Torture and finally the Associates in 1979. Rankine left the Associates in 1982, but Mackenzie continued to work under the name for several years until he began releasing material under his own name in the 1990s.
Mackenzie collaborated with many other artists during his career. He had a fruitful partnership with the Scottish indie musician Paul Haig of the post-punk band Josef K, the result being low key dates in Glasgow and Edinburgh during the mid-1980s, which mixed their own best known songs with covers of songs such as Sly and the Family Stone's 1971 song "Running Away" and Yoko Ono's 1981 song "Walking on Thin Ice". Later the pair united to perform "Amazing Grace" on a Scots Hogmanay television programme, and each donated a song to the other's forthcoming studio album. "Chained" proved a highlight on the next Haig album, although Mackenzie's version of "Reach the Top" remained unreleased after the Associates' The Glamour Chase project was shelved by WEA. Following Mackenzie's untimely death in 1997 an entire album of Haig and Mackenzie material, Memory Palace, appeared on Haig's own label Rhythm of Life.
In 1987, he wrote lyrics for two tracks on Yello's fifth studio album One Second: "Moon on Ice", which he sang himself, and "The Rhythm Divine", which was sung by the Welsh singer Shirley Bassey and was released as a single. A version sung by Mackenzie was released on the cassette and CD versions of Associates' compilation album Popera. Mackenzie also collaborated with B.E.F. (British Electric Foundation), a band and production company that span-off Heaven 17, for their two studio albums Music of Quality and Distinction Volume One (1982), and Volume Two (1991). In 1991, he returned as a guest singer for the track Capri Calling on Yello's new album Baby. His final recording was the song "Pain in Any Language", with the English electronic music group Apollo 440. The band made a dedication to Mackenzie in the album notes to their second studio album Electro Glide in Blue (1997).
During a 1996 interview with Gary Mulholland in Time Out magazine, when presumed by Mulholland to be gay and asked about the ongoing speculation regarding his sexual orientation, Mackenzie clarified, saying: "Well, it's something that... how would you say? My background is that I'm more interested in individuals and if I've got an affection towards them, then I don't really see hang-ups or boundaries coming into things. So if you're honest and you like either sex, if you're comfortable with that, that's OK." Later in the same interview, he added, "It's what's behind somebody's gender that appeals to me and what they are in essence." This would be the first time Mackenzie spoke candidly about his bisexuality to the press.
Rankine noted in a 2016 interview with the online talk show Dangerous Minds, "A lot of his songs are about his struggling with his gender and his sexuality." In his lifetime, Mackenzie did not publicly label his gender identity, but in the aforementioned Time Out interview, he stated: "I'm just waiting for the day when we're all what we were intended to be... hermaphrodites." Mackenzie made allusions to androgyny and cross-dressing in his solo songs "Falling Out with the Future" and "Velvet", as well as an unreleased demo with Steve Aungle, "Gender Illusionist". In a 1982 interview with Smash Hits, he mused about getting a sex change to avoid having to go to war. Music journalist Ned Raggett presented A Matter of Gender: The Fluid Life of Billy Mackenzie, an analysis of Mackenzie's quotes on gender and the personal observations of others in his life.
On 22 January 1997, Mackenzie died by suicide, overdosing on a combination of paracetamol and prescription medication in a kennel in the garden of a bungalow he owned at Auchterhouse, Angus. He was 39 years old. Clinical depression and the death of his mother are believed to have contributed to his suicide.
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Billy Mackenzie
William MacArthur Mackenzie (27 March 1957 – 22 January 1997) was a Scottish singer and songwriter, known for his distinctive high tenor voice. He was the co-founder and lead vocalist of the post-punk and pop band the Associates. He also had a brief solo career releasing his debut studio album, Outernational, in 1992, his only solo album released during his lifetime.
William MacArthur Mackenzie was born on 27 March 1957 in Dundee, Scotland. As a child, he lived on Park Avenue in the Stobswell area of the city. He attended St Mary's Forebank Primary School and St Michael's Secondary School. He led a peripatetic lifestyle, decamping to New Zealand at the age of 16, and travelling across America aged 17. Here he married Chloe Dummar, the sister-in-law of his Aunt Veronica. While Mackenzie was quoted as saying the marriage was made to stave off deportation so that he could sing with the New Orleans Gospel Choir – calling his wife a 'Dolly Parton type' – Dummar still believes the pair were in love. He left her after three months of marriage and returned to Dundee, and the two never had contact again. Chloe Dummar filed for divorce in 1980, and Mackenzie did not contest the filing. (Chloe's brother was Melvin Dummar, who claimed to be the "one sixteenth" beneficiary of the estate of Howard Hughes until the case was thrown out in 1978.)
Mackenzie returned to Scotland where he met guitarist Alan Rankine and in 1976 formed the Ascorbic Ones. They changed the name to Mental Torture and finally the Associates in 1979. Rankine left the Associates in 1982, but Mackenzie continued to work under the name for several years until he began releasing material under his own name in the 1990s.
Mackenzie collaborated with many other artists during his career. He had a fruitful partnership with the Scottish indie musician Paul Haig of the post-punk band Josef K, the result being low key dates in Glasgow and Edinburgh during the mid-1980s, which mixed their own best known songs with covers of songs such as Sly and the Family Stone's 1971 song "Running Away" and Yoko Ono's 1981 song "Walking on Thin Ice". Later the pair united to perform "Amazing Grace" on a Scots Hogmanay television programme, and each donated a song to the other's forthcoming studio album. "Chained" proved a highlight on the next Haig album, although Mackenzie's version of "Reach the Top" remained unreleased after the Associates' The Glamour Chase project was shelved by WEA. Following Mackenzie's untimely death in 1997 an entire album of Haig and Mackenzie material, Memory Palace, appeared on Haig's own label Rhythm of Life.
In 1987, he wrote lyrics for two tracks on Yello's fifth studio album One Second: "Moon on Ice", which he sang himself, and "The Rhythm Divine", which was sung by the Welsh singer Shirley Bassey and was released as a single. A version sung by Mackenzie was released on the cassette and CD versions of Associates' compilation album Popera. Mackenzie also collaborated with B.E.F. (British Electric Foundation), a band and production company that span-off Heaven 17, for their two studio albums Music of Quality and Distinction Volume One (1982), and Volume Two (1991). In 1991, he returned as a guest singer for the track Capri Calling on Yello's new album Baby. His final recording was the song "Pain in Any Language", with the English electronic music group Apollo 440. The band made a dedication to Mackenzie in the album notes to their second studio album Electro Glide in Blue (1997).
During a 1996 interview with Gary Mulholland in Time Out magazine, when presumed by Mulholland to be gay and asked about the ongoing speculation regarding his sexual orientation, Mackenzie clarified, saying: "Well, it's something that... how would you say? My background is that I'm more interested in individuals and if I've got an affection towards them, then I don't really see hang-ups or boundaries coming into things. So if you're honest and you like either sex, if you're comfortable with that, that's OK." Later in the same interview, he added, "It's what's behind somebody's gender that appeals to me and what they are in essence." This would be the first time Mackenzie spoke candidly about his bisexuality to the press.
Rankine noted in a 2016 interview with the online talk show Dangerous Minds, "A lot of his songs are about his struggling with his gender and his sexuality." In his lifetime, Mackenzie did not publicly label his gender identity, but in the aforementioned Time Out interview, he stated: "I'm just waiting for the day when we're all what we were intended to be... hermaphrodites." Mackenzie made allusions to androgyny and cross-dressing in his solo songs "Falling Out with the Future" and "Velvet", as well as an unreleased demo with Steve Aungle, "Gender Illusionist". In a 1982 interview with Smash Hits, he mused about getting a sex change to avoid having to go to war. Music journalist Ned Raggett presented A Matter of Gender: The Fluid Life of Billy Mackenzie, an analysis of Mackenzie's quotes on gender and the personal observations of others in his life.
On 22 January 1997, Mackenzie died by suicide, overdosing on a combination of paracetamol and prescription medication in a kennel in the garden of a bungalow he owned at Auchterhouse, Angus. He was 39 years old. Clinical depression and the death of his mother are believed to have contributed to his suicide.