Biography
Born in Christchurch, New Zealand, Thain was part of the rock trio The New Nadir, and with the drummer Peter Dawkins, he travelled from New Zealand to London, and once jammed with Jimi Hendrix before the trio split in 1969.
Thain joined the Keef Hartley Band and, in 1971, they toured with Uriah Heep; they asked him to join them (replacing Mark Clarke) in February 1972, and he stayed in the band until February 1975. He played on four studio albums: Demons & Wizards, The Magician's Birthday, Sweet Freedom and Wonderworld as well as their live album, entitled Uriah Heep Live.
During his last tour with Uriah Heep, Thain suffered an electric shock at the Moody Coliseum in Dallas, Texas on 15 September 1974, and was seriously injured. Due to his drug addiction he was not able to perform properly, and was fired by the band in early 1975 and replaced by former King Crimson bassist/vocalist, John Wetton. Thain died of respiratory failure due to a heroin overdose, on 8 December 1975, aged 27.
Read more about this topic: Gary Thain
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)