DENNIS “FERGIE” FREDERIKSEN
Fergie Frederiksen (born Dennis Hardy Frederiksen; May 15, 1951 – January 18, 2014) was an American rock singer best known as the former lead singer of Trillion, Angel, Le Roux, and Toto, as well as providing backing vocals for Survivor. He was occasionally credited as just Fergie. He contributed to hit singles in three consecutive years, all with different bands: Survivor’s “American Heartbeat” in 1982, LeRoux’s “Carrie’s Gone” in 1983, and Toto”s “Stranger in Town” in 1984. (More from Wikipedia)
Trillion was founded by Chicago musicians Patrick Leonard (keyboards) and Bill Wilkins (drums); they initially went by the name of Whisper. Joined by alumni from Chicago area bands – Dennis “Fergie” Frederiksen (vocals), Frank Barbalace (guitar), and Ron Anaman (bass/vocals) – Trillion was quickly signed by Epic Records and went to work on their first album.
For the second album, Trillion went back to the drawing board. First, lead singer Fergie Frederiksen was sacked in favor of Thom Griffin; evidently before the second album was released, bandleader Patrick Leonard left as well, though he did contribute to the music on the album.
Fergie Frederiksen has enjoyed a long, prosperous and highly varied career in music; Tom Demalon of Allmusic has written of him: “If a music fan was desiring to create a game similar to the one based upon actor Kevin Bacon and his seemingly endless ties to other actors, singer Fergie Fredericksen might find himself to be a suitable candidate.” Frederiksen was in a band called the Common People at age 15 that played in the Grand Rapids, MI area. In 1975, while still in college, Frederiksen was asked by his friend Tommy Shaw (W) to replace him as lead singer in a band called MSFunk, the final permutation of the Smoke Ring that had formed from the combination of two earlier bands from Norfolk, Nebraska dating back to as early as 1959, Little Joe & the Ramrods and the Strollers. Tommy Shaw had been asked to join Styx, where he became one of their key bandmembers up to the present day.
After he left Trillion, Fergie Frederiksen was involved with a disco movie called Can’t Stop the Music, featuring Village People. Can’t Stop the Music is notorious as the first recipient of the Golden Raspberry Award (“Razzie”) for Worst Picture of the Year; in fact, Razzies founder John J. B. Wilson got the idea for the Razzies after reading of a double billing of that movie with Xanadu, a film of the same time period that featured Olivia Newton-John. The soundtrack album Can’t Stop the Music, however, fared better and reached the Top 50 in the Billboard album charts. Under the pseudonym “David London” (in order to keep his rock image separate), Frederiksen had two songs on the soundtrack album. He also released a solo album in 1981, David London.
While working on Can’t Stop the Music at Casablanca Records, Fergie Frederiksen met Gregg Giuffria, whose heavy metal band Angel (another Casablanca artist) had recently broken up. Angel was sort of the anti-KISS, dressing in all white for instance; they never made it big but had a strong following and released several albums. Together with bassist Ricky Philips (W), they discussed the possibility of forming a new Angel line-up and laid down three tracks in late 1981. These songs were later released on a compilation album Angel Rarities. In 1995, Fergie Frederiksen and Ricky Philips released an album in the name, Frederiksen/Philips.
Fergie Frederiksen later connected with Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan of the band Survivor (W) while their lead singer Dave Bickler was ailing. Although Bickler recovered, and credited only as “Fergie”, Frederiksen wound up contributing background vocals to several tracks on their biggest album, Eye of the Tiger (1982); the title song “Eye of the Tiger” was featured in the film Rocky III.
Fergie Frederiksen next became the lead singer for the band Le Roux – formerly known as Louisiana’s LeRoux – and performed on their 1983 album, So Fired Up. The only single from the album, “Carrie’s Gone” reached #81 on the Billboard singles chart; it was co-written by Frederiksen after he broke up with girlfriend Carrie Hamilton, the daughter of Carol Burnett.
For their fifth album Isolation (1984), Toto asked Fergie Frederiksen to join the band as their primary vocalist. While he was with the band only a short time, he also performed on the soundtrack album Dune for the 1984 science-fiction film Dune, Toto’s only soundtrack experience. Frederiksen has said that his time with Toto was the highlight of his career. He even started touring under the name “Toto”, which angered other bandmembers who filed suit to stop him; they reconciled in 2007, and Frederiksen now sometimes appears as a guest star at Toto concerts. More recently, Fergie Frederiksen has released two solo albums, Equilibrium (1999) and Happiness is the Road (2011).
(October 2012)
