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Ronald Belford “Bon” Scott was born on July 9, 1946 in the Scottish Forfar before emigrating to Australia with his family. He shared an important thing with the Young brothers, but until he met them, passed for a few years. As a drummer and singer, he worked on his reputation in the Australian music scene in various bands. In 1974 the time had come: Bon Scott replaced Dave Evans as a singer of AC/DC.
With AC/DC to the world fame
After the musician’s death, Scott’s ex-wife Irene Thornton reported on his first encounter with his future band. In August 1974 AC/DC came to Adelaide and played a show in the Pooraka Hotel – but without a singer. It was the first time that Bon Scott AC/DC saw playing. A friend encouraged him to jump onto the stage throughout the concert to fill the instrumental interpretations of old rock ‘n’ roll classics. Scott was persuaded and made the evening something very special. According to Thornton, Scott’s Scottish origin and the Young brothers played a crucial role that helped them find a direct line to each other.
From then on, things went uphill. With “Highway to Hell”, the final breakthrough, which was accompanied by all its dark sides. “I’ve been on tour for 13 years”singer Bon Scott complained a year earlier. “Aviation, hotels, groupies, alk. That scratches a lot on one.” Maybe something like a harbinger of the nearby end. And so “Highway to Hell” became the last will and will: he screams in front of Angus Young’s guitar solo “Don’t stop me!”. Nobody managed that either.
On the Highway to Hell
Hardly any song shaped the image of AC/DC more than “Highway to Hell”. But apparently the Atlantic Records, her label in the USA, was a bit too hot.
As the band recently explained their own fans with an Instagram post, a little retouched in 1979 to drive the band the purgatory. Means: The Fire Inferno, which the band frames and that can be seen on the Australian version of the album, was “saved” to the rest of the world.
The logo of AC/DC is also a little darker in the uncensored original and the title “Highway to Hell” is written yellow on the underside of the bass neck.
https://www.instagram.com/p/b0tfnffguhz/?utm_source=ig_embed
For comparison: the well -known artwork from “Highway to Hell”
The end – Bon Scott dies in London
In February 1980 there were AC/DC in London. They also arrived in the global rock circus. Angus and Malcom Young worked on February 15 on the first songs for “Back in Black”, “Have a Drink on Me” and “Let me put my love into you”. Bon Scott came to the session and brought his ideas, but more on drums than on singing. A few days earlier, Scott visited the French of Trust, who also worked in the English capital of new materials. The jam session recorded there is the last recording on which Scott can be heard.
A short time later he was dead. On the evening of February 18, 1980, Scott and his friend Alistair Kinnear went on a drinking tour to the Club Music Machine, today known as a coco. Kinnear, who could not wake the sleeping rock star on the back seat of his Renault 5, finally took him to the Overhill Road 67. The next day, Alistair Kinnear stepped on the doorstep to look for his friend. Bon Scott was lifeless in the car, whereupon Kinnear immediately called an ambulance. Too late. In King’s College Hospital, only death could be determined. Bon Scott was just 33 years old.
The cause of death and unanswered questions
Bon Scott’s official cause of death is given by London forensic medicine as acute alcohol poisoning and accident. Scott was suffocated on his vomit. However, the author Jesse Fink doubts these circumstances. In his book “Bon: The Last Highway” published in 2017, he claims that Scott’s vomiting was brought about by an overdose of heroin.
Fink quotes the UFO guitarist Paul Chapman that Bon Scott and another friend, Joe Fury, were together in his apartment on the evening of February 18. Scott left the apartment shortly afterwards to buy Heroin. Fury Chapman also announced on the morning of February 19 that Scott was dead – only in the afternoon Kinnear’s emergency call made the outpatient clinic. In addition, Scott and Kinnear are not said to have been alone in Overhaill Road. The musician Peter Berrett and his wife Zena Kakoulli were also present in the Kinnear’s apartment.
After the death of the AC/DC singer, conspiracy theories quickly ranked for his death. Alistair Kinnear did not exist at all and Bon Scott was deliberately killed with the exhaust gases of the Renault, which had been directed inside. However, Jesse Fink himself demonstrated Kinnear’s existence by finding his death certificate in Spain. Also, temperatures had nothing to do with Scott’s death at freezing, since Fink, based on meteorological records, proved that it had not frozen in the night of February 19-18, 1980 in London.
“Back in Black”
Immediately after Bonn Scott’s death, the other members of AC/DC played with the idea of dissolving the band, but the considerations were quickly rejected. The conclusion came to the conclusion that Scott hadn’t wanted it otherwise. AC/DC also received support from the family of the deceased, who explicitly emphasized how much they welcomed further.
Now a new singer had to be found. When searching for a suitable successor, the band got help from none other than Bon Scott himself. Before his death, he told Angus Young about the then organizer Brian Johnson. Young later reported: “”I remember that Bon played me Little Richard and then told me the story when he saw Brian singing.. “
According to Young’s statement, Scott said: “This guy is up there, who screams from my heart, and next he lies on the stage. He lies on the floor, turns around and screams. I thought it was great. To crown the whole thing – you couldn’t get any better encore – the guy was brought from the stage with a wheelchair.” Later that night Johnson was diagnosed with appendicitis, which was the cause of his “show performances”.
More about AC/DC
Just five months after Bon Scott’s death, AC/DC ended the work on “Back in Black”, which they published as a tribute to their dead musicians. The rest is history.