#60sbands | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

themidnightramblers · 9 months

Text

Meet The Midnight Ramblers Band Members (& other important people)

Mal Walker

The Ramblers’ founding member, original leader, and resident genius. Sometimes known to fans and bandmates as “Mad Mal,” he famously named the group by riffing on his favorite Muddy Waters song, “Ramblin’ Kid Blues.” Word on the street is Mal scribbled the lyrics to their first single on the newspaper wrapper for his fish ’n’ chips one lost drunken night in London. This peerless track, “Bought on the Never Never,” cribbed a sly bit of street slang, turning it into a youth anthem and the band’s debut hit. Mal was as renowned for his ability to metabolize a king’s ransom of drugs, as for his savant-like talent for mastering any instrument, from electric guitar and bass to sitar and the many esoteric percussion doo dads gathered during his frequent forays to faraway lands, including Morocco and Brazil. He was also celebrated for his stylish fitted trousers, which left little to the imagination, flared Byron-esque sleeves and dramatic headdresses — sometimes a velvet cap with a jaunty feather, sometimes a literal crown, made of flowers or gold. He will forever be equated with effortless “it boy” cool, as personified by actor Jude Law in his BAFTA-winning performance in the biopic Mad Mal. Devastatingly, Mal drowned in the swimming pool of the band’s Los Angeles rental house in August 1969, the night before the Ramblers’ celebrated free show at the Hollywood Bowl. Although the incident was ruled “death by misadventure” because of the epic mix of drugs in his blood at the time, his loyal fans have always considered it suspicious that he was left out of rehearsal that night. It has long been debated: Was he really alone in the water, and what secrets might be held in the vault by his then-wife, Anke Berben, who was also home? Such rumors were fueled by the torn-from-the-headlines book The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers, written by the band’s American chauffeur, Syd Nelson, who published his tell-all in 1970, only to overdose on heroin that year. Whatever the truth, although Mal’s flame burned far too briefly, it has never dimmed in our hearts, where his transcendent music will live on forever.

Anke Berben

A beautiful phoenix, arising from the rubble of Europe’s darkest decade, she was born in Germany after World War II. Her father died from injuries incurred at the Battle of Berlin, leaving her mother to raise her, although Anke has long claimed her identity as a self-made lone wolf. Working as a shop girl — surely the coolest, most daring, fashionable young woman then on the street, she was discovered as a model at 16. While filling her portfolio with stunning shots, she became the first woman to pose topless on the cover of an international art magazine, making her the desirable date for artists and rockers alike, including Mal, who swept her up into his glittery entourage when she attended the Ramblers’ 1968 show in Berlin. For the next eight years, Anke would be like a sixth member of the band, feeding its fashion sense, exuding influence during rehearsals, shows, and a million backstage moments. Although Mal was seeing another young woman, who was pregnant at the time of his death, Anke was his wife, and she will always be his widow. But she never slept alone for long in her gilded youth and would soon go on to form a love square within the band. Drawn close by their raw grief over Mal’s passing, she and Dante fell together and had a son, Ody (named for Odin, the God of War). While Anke was candid about her struggles with heroin, she remained a timeless beauty and style setter, and had a five-year relationship with Ramblers frontman Jack Edwards, in the ’70s. Her legend grew when she left the raucousness of rock and ’n’ roll, taking up residence on a sailboat with Ody and her final love, Fritz, picking up inspiration in their many ports of call. Having lived more than her nine lives, as a love child of the world, she gathered her influences and experiences into her jewelry line, sought after for decades by rockers and fashionistas. Known for her effortless elegance, elevated Boho fashion, and dry wit, Anke remains a cultural force in her own right.

Dante Ashcombe

There are musicians and then there are certifiable guitar gods, one with their instrument with a level of attunement that is almost mystical — think B.B. King and Lucille, Willie Nelson and Trigger, George Harrison and Lucy, and, of course, Dante Ashcombe and his Fender Telecaster, the Duchess. Known for his unique tuning style and his ability to embellish every Ramblers song with the perfect mix of grit and finesse, all he needed was the right alchemic conditions to ignite his genius, which he found when he caught a set by Jack’s first band, the Lads. The two bonded over their passion for American blues and gender-bending fashion, forging a friendship with enough one-upmanship for each to incite the other to write, practice, and perform with greater intention and intensity, pushing their style and sound to the limits of respectability and beyond. Dante’s potential for revealing aspects of this iconic relationship, as well as his previously unrevealed insights into what happened at the band’s rental house the night Mal met his terrible end, have made Dante’s memoir eagerly anticipated. A modern-day Renaissance rocker, he has quite a story to tell. While there is no Dante without Duchess, the instrument is really just one component of his total rock persona. With his effortless pirate-captain style, Cleopatra-esque black eyeliner, and an easy laugh for all he meets, like a schoolboy on holiday, Dante created the mold in which the next four generations of rockers would hope to be forged into a player and performer with an ounce of his verve. Perhaps no moment in his life better exemplifies his bohemian supremacy than the 18 months he and Anke were pop culture’s golden couple, deeply in love and perfectly matched, forming a family and inspiring Dante’s most heartfelt songwriting. How ever much Dante has always loved to perform, and never met a party he wouldn’t crash, in later years, he would go on to keep his home life a priority, becoming known as much for being a family man as a musical mythmaker.

Jack Edwards

What does it take to front the world’s biggest, boldest rock band for more than five decades, and to keep the songwriting, stage show, and sex appeal as fresh and fraught as on day one? The kind of peacock-feathered charisma and purely radiant star power seen only once or twice each generation. We’re talking about an Oscar Wilde. A Little Richard. A Kurt Cobain. A true original. On top of a totally matchless creativity, add in a keen eye for trend setting fashion and a level head for business, not to mention the skills of a strong leader and an astute diplomat, and the wordsmithing genius of one of the greatest street poets of the rock ’n’ roll era. A hunger for experience has led Jack to form liaisons of the sexual, romantic, and creative stripe with a who’s who of fellow musicians, artists, designers, and more than his fair share of models — adding up to eight children with six different women (and that’s just the official count), plus whispers that he was the lover of several of his generation’s hottest male rock stars. A chameleon, an enigma, he is always perfectly put together and gracious, whether leaving the club at dawn or high tea at noon, and yet, he gives away little of his true thoughts and feelings. Perhaps he chooses to save his deepest musings for his songs, which continue to be as distinctive and potent as anything he wrote when he dropped out of university, taking up with Dante and Mal with little more than a second-hand guitar, a tambourine, and a daring new vision for the blues. While Jack has been wise enough to let his legacy speak for itself, shying away from addressing rumors of friction in his creative partnership with Dante or any other inner workings of the band, he is always eager to discuss his own artistic wellspring—which he notoriously feeds by reading poetry, traveling the world, and indulging in passionate love affairs.

Mal drowned at the Midnight Rambler’s Los Angeles rental house in 1969. He was found to have Quaaludes, alcohol, marijuana, and acid in his system so many have thought he just lived too hard and died too young. But then the band’s chauffeur, Syd, alleged that there may have been foul play.

0 notes