One Cockney Rebel star sadly died penniless and living in a council flat despite finding fame with the iconic 70s rock band. Frontman Steve Harley died aged 73 last year from cancer, but several of his bandmates tragically preceded him – including Paul Jeffreys at the age of just 36 in the Lockerbie disaster.
But it was guitarist Nick Jones who died without a penny to his name. His sister Liz Jones admitted to The Mail on Sunday that her brother died aged 62 after becoming a “recluse”, dying a “penniless failure in a council flat”.
At the time, she said: “It might have been different […] had the lead singer of [Cockney Rebel] been nicer and allowed Nick to dine off royalties from Cockney Rebel’s huge 1975 hit Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), one of the most played records of all time.
“Alas, Nick and Steve had fallen out and my brother, bitter and unfulfilled, always called him a ‘c**k’ who had ruined his career.”
However, Steve later clarified that it was him who had written the song, not Nick – so he wasn’t entitled to royalties. In fact, he refused to let his bandmates write any of the band’s material, telling them in 1974: “I started the band and I auditioned you, and I told you the deal at the time. We’re not moving the goalposts.”
Nick’s nickname in Cockney Rebel became “Shoe Gazer”, because he was so “painfully shy” that he couldn’t look at the audience during gigs. Liz admitted: “He didn’t even tell anyone when he got married. He became a recluse in his final years.
“He wanted to be a writer but couldn’t get anything published. He was too belligerent to remain in a band for long; at his funeral a friend who first met Nick at Essex University described him as ‘crazy, angry but hugely articulate’. No wonder my brother was expelled.”