Billy Mackenzie


William MacArthur Mackenzie was a Scottish singer and songwriter, known for his distinctive high tenor voice. He was the co-founder and lead singer of post-punk and new wave band the Associates. He also had a brief solo career releasing his debut album, Outernational, in 1992, his only solo album released during his lifetime.

Biography

William MacArthur Mackenzie was born on 27 March 1957 in Dundee, Scotland. As a youngster, 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.
MacKenzie returned to Scotland where he met 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.

Collaborations

Mackenzie also collaborated with many other artists during his career. Mackenzie had a fruitful partnership with Paul Haig, 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 "Runnin' Away" and Yoko Ono's "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 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 Shirley Bassey and was released as a single. A version sung by MacKenzie was released on the cassette and CD versions of Associates' Popera compilation). MacKenzie also collaborated with B.E.F. for their two albums Music of Quality and Distinction Volume I & Volume II. His final recording was the song "Pain in Any Language", with electronic music group Apollo 440. The band made a dedication to MacKenzie in the album notes to the album Electro Glide in Blue.

Death and legacy

On 22 January 1997, depression and the death of his mother are believed to have contributed to Mackenzie's suicide. He overdosed on a combination of paracetamol and prescription medication in the garden shed of his father's house in Auchterhouse, Angus. He was 39 years old.
He was the subject of a biography by Tom Doyle, The Glamour Chase, in 1998.
Siouxsie Sioux of Siouxsie and the Banshees wrote the song "Say", revealing in the lyrics that they were going to meet just before his death. The song was released as a single by the Creatures in 1999, peaking at No. 72 on the UK Singles Chart. The Cure song "Cut Here" in 2001, written by Robert Smith, a friend of Mackenzie, is about the regret Smith felt about seeing Mackenzie a few weeks before his death backstage at a Cure concert, and not giving him any of his 'precious time' and fobbing him off. For her Medúlla album, Icelandic singer Björk considered singing a beyond the grave duet with Mackenzie using recordings given to her by his father, but eventually decided against it.
Between 9 and 27 June 2009, a play entitled Balgay Hill about the story of Mackenzie's life was showing at Dundee Repertory Theatre, in Mackenzie's home town. It tells the story of his life through the eyes of four fictional characters, and the title of the play derives from the name of the Dundee cemetery where the singer was buried.
The novel Spying on Strange Men by Carole Morin, contains the following section:
Morin said in an interview:
I was devastated by his death which is odd because I didn't know him. My husband did. Mackenzie’s death affected me in a way that Ian Curtis's didn't. Curtis seemed born to die. Mackenzie should have outgrown his gloom and become an eccentric old man. I think our work is similar. It's the duality of glamour and spirituality in his voice that attracts me. His toughness and fragility; darkness and laughter. He could be a character from one of my books. I always meant to send him a copy of Dead Glamorous.

Discography

With the Associates

Albums

Lead vocals

† lyrics by Mackenzie
‡ also appear on Auchtermatic''