A Rockapaedia Obituary
John Du Cann
Bands: The Attack, Andromeda, Atomic Rooster, Hard Stuff
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John Du Cann died aged sixty-five on at his home in Norwich, Norfolkshire,
United Kingdom, on 21st September 2011 from a heart attack. He was buried at Greenacres Burial Ground at Colney, near Norwich, UK and his gravestone inscribed with the first line of his "Devil's Answer" composition.
John was born John William Cann on 2nd June 1946 in
Leicester, United Kingdom.
His early bands included the Wiltshire-based The Sonics and London-based The Attack. He went on to lead a psychedelic, progressive, hard rock band called Andromeda, before being asked to join Atomic Rooster, featuring re-recorded guitar parts and vocals for their 1970 self-titled debut album, and the albums 'Death Walks Behind You' in 1970 and 'In Hearing of Atomic Rooster' in 1971. John wrote "Devil's Answer", Atomic Rooster's biggest hit, which reached No.4 in the UK singles charts in July 1971.
Upon departing Atomic Rooster in 1971 John formed Daemon, later renamed Bullet, then Hard Stuff, releasing two albums on Purple Records based more heavily on his aggressive guitar work. In 1974 he was a temporary guitarist in Thin Lizzy for a tour of Germany. Sometime following this, his manager suggested a name change for him from John Cann to John Du Cann.
As a result of being signed to the same management company, 1977 saw the pairing of John Du Cann with Francis Rossi of the British rock band Status Quo. Rossi was invited to produce John Du Cann's proposed new album, 'The World's Not Big Enough', which remained unreleased until 1992. The session musicians for this album included Francis Rossi on guitar, Andy Bown on keyboards, future Quo drummer Pete Kircher and bassist John McCoy. The album was described in Record Collector magazine at the time as sounding like "Quo mixed with the Sex Pistols".
In September 1979 John Du Cann had a hit on the UK Singles Chart with "Don't Be A Dummy" which reached number 33 in the UK Singles Chart.
In 1979, John Du Cann and Vincent Crane re-formed Atomic Rooster with Preston Heyman on drums. In 1981, the Atomic Rooster were booked at the Reading Festival, but John was unable to make it. In late 1982, John Du Cann left Atomic Rooster for the final time.
In the late 1990's John Du Cann was introduced to the Angel Air record label and later catalogued and remastered his personal tape archive and compiled reissues for the label, for which he received full credit and royalties.[