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The Associates: Wild and lonely

Paul Lester, Record Collector, April 2007

In January 1997, Billy Mackenzie, the most astonishing singer of his generation, was found dead. 10 years on, no one quite knows why the mercurial Associates frontman, whose music lit up the early '80s, committed suicide, but on the eve of a tribute concert in London on what would have been his 50th birthday, his ex-Associate Alan Rankine recalls to Paul Lester the highs and lows of an extraordinary life.

Total word count of piece: 3500

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