Kinks keyboard player lies in unmarked grave
PLAYING keyboards with rock legends The Kinks, Gordon Edwards looked every inch the star.
But after a life battling drug addiction and depression, the pianist today lies buried in an unmarked grave in south Wales.
He was found dead in a Greenford bedsit, having taken his own life in 2003. His niece Melanie Edwards is the only one who tends plot 1145 at Llanharan Cemetery, where he’s buried with other family members from the area.
“The way he went was very tragic and not a lot of people came to the funeral,” the mum of one said.
“Every now and again I go and put some flowers there, but people come along and move them. It’s a lawn cemetery so they cut the flowers.
“It just breaks my heart when I go there. There is nothing there to say who is there.”
The family had lost touch with Gordon when he died.
“My father had already died so he was on his own,” Melanie, from Cardiff, said. “I got a call from the police saying his body had been found – I don’t know how they got my number. He was living alone and had not paid his rent, so he was probably having financial problems.”
Gordon spent only a short time with the band in 1978. He departed when a split with his long-term girlfriend left him heartbroken.
“I really felt a lot about the relationship and got really depressed,” he said later. “I was drinking a bottle of whisky a day to get completely smashed and to blot everything from my mind.”
That included life with The Kinks. He was sacked when he did not turn up for a flight to New York where the band were due to record. Singer Ray Davies took over on keyboards.
“I’ve found there was a lot more to him than I realised,” Melanie, 51, said. “His mother played the organ in a Welsh chapel and taught him to sing and to play. He was a natural and I remember listening to him. He was one of those people who could just pick up an instrument and play.
“He had big curly hair and he was a superstar to me. We all looked up to him. He was really sweet.”
Melanie has now started raising funds for a headstone for her uncle: “I’ve got about £300 from a GoFundMe page that people are seeing through Facebook. That money will go straight to the headstone fund.”
To donate, visit www.gofundme. com/gordonjohnedwards