R.I.P. Tony Clarkin, 1946 – 2024
Hard rock has lost an irreplaceable songwriter
Guitarist and songwriter Tony Clarkin, known for his +5 decades of near-constant dedication to his main band Magnum, has left us after a short battle with a rare, degenerative spinal disease. He died peacefully surrounded by his family. But even at 77, it's too soon.
With Clarkin's affliction only announced 3 weeks before his death, Magnum, although forced to cancel their scheduled 2024 spring tour, had no plans of calling it quits, their next full-length album set to hit the streets on January 12th, 2024.
Hailing from the birthplace of heavy metal itself (i.e. Birmingham, England), Clarkin formed Magnum in 1972 with vocalist Bob Catley, the two remaining the band's only original members throughout its entire career, and Clarkin remaining the sole songwriter. Magnum started as a cover band at the Rum Runner nightclub (later home of Duran Duran) and as a live backing group for Del Shannon.
However, it wasn't until they started playing Clarkin's songs that the band began to garner attention. After having supported bands like Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Blue Öyster Cult, and Def Leppard around the turn of the '80s, Magnum enjoyed moderate early-career success with 1982's "Chase the Dragon", their first album with new keyboard player Mark Stanway whose contribution broadened their progressive sound. Songs like "The Spirit" and "Sacred Hour" would remain live staples.
Clarkin's and Magnum's most successful chapter would ensue with their 1985 masterpiece "On a Storyteller's Night". Precluded by its hypnotizing title track and "Just Like an Arrow" as singles, the more straightforward "All England's Eyes" and opener "How Far Jerusalem" became instant live classics. The album gained further artistic acclaim from the eerie war elegy "Les Morts Dansants", and shortly gave Magnum a major label deal with Polydor and an opening slot at the '85 Monsters of Rock festival before Bon Jovi and Metallica, amongst others.
Magnum's mainstream success continued with 1986's Roger Taylor-produced follow-up "Vigilante", spawning singles such as "Lonely Night" and "Midnight (You Won't Be Sleeping)", but also the hard-hitting "Back Street Kid" and ditto title track, and the oozingly sensual "Need a Lot of Love". And arguably, their career peaked with 1988's "Wings of Heaven".
Also produced by Taylor, "Wings of Heaven" not only charted at #5, the band's highest UK placement to date, but also gave them their first Top 10 placements in Norway and Switzerland, and featured three Top 40 singles: Power ballad "It Must Have Been Love", "Start Talking Love", giving the band a Top of the Pops appearance, and opener "Days of No Trust", sounding like the perfect hybrid between intermediate Whitesnake and Bruce Springsteen. A rare case of nearly "all killer, no filler", the album also featured the semi-progressive future live staple suite "Wild Swan" and the breathtakingly epic closer "Don't Wake the Lion (Too Old to Die Young)".
While sometimes faltering, as every artist does over the course of decades, Tony Clarkin always maintained a solid baseline of quality, never penning a bad song.
After that, the Keith Olsen-produced "Goodnight L.A." ('90) was a vain attempt at breaking the band in the US. The band split with Polydor, and amidst various live albums and compilations released another miss, "Sleepwalking" ('92) on Music for Nations. After 1994's "Rock Art", released on EMI, tours started getting canceled, and record label offers ceased. The band disbanded the year after, having succumbed to the ugly reality of the '90s.
Clarkin and Catley continued working together throughout the decade as Hard Rain, but still never enjoyed the same level of success as their main outfit. However, reforming Magnum in 2001 and signing a deal with SPV/Steamhammer, Clarkin and Catley rejoined Stanway and teamed up with former Thunder drummer Harry James to release "Breath of Life", an album partly consisting of shelved Hard Rain material.
Throughout the two decades since, Magnum has put out a new album every second year on average and been able to keep a steady career. 2007's "Princess Alice and the Broken Arrow" charted in the UK for the first time since "Rock Art"; the same thing happened in Switzerland for its 2009 follow-up "Into the Valley of the Moonking".
In January 2022, Magnum released their latest LP, "The Monster Roars" to favorable UK, German, and Swiss chart positions and high critical acclaim, with Metal Hammer's Jason Arnopp stating that "it takes time for the human brain to process so much powerful sentiment". This signature stated, "No matter how much beauty might exist on planet Earth, the world and mankind still aren't good enough for a band like Magnum. No matter how well we might behave, we don't deserve to have people enrich us and our surroundings with such near-immaculate musical magnificence".
And I stand by every word.
With Tony Clarkin, we've lost one of hard rock's not only most proficient, but also artistically most accomplished songwriters. Apart from releasing 24 studio albums over a 50-year career, Clarkin managed to steer Magnum through worlds of classic rock, progressive rock, hard rock, and AOR. And while sometimes faltering, as every artist does over the course of decades, Tony Clarkin always maintained a solid baseline of quality, never penning a bad song.
Apart from his music, Clarkin, according to his daughter Dionne, "had a great affinity with animals". Dionne writes in a public statement from the family, "It is the family's intention to set up a charitable trust in his name to aid this cause, further details to follow. Please do not send flowers or cards, as he would have much preferred expressions of sympathy to go to charity in this way".
I'll be supporting that. And I'll be including it when I add a charity section to Global Metal Blog.
Rock In Peace, maestro.