Angela McCluskey, Singer for the Wild Colonials, Dies at 64
15.03.2024 - 23:03
/ variety.com
Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic Angela McCluskey, the Scottish-born, L.A.-based frontwoman for the popular ’90s band the Wild Colonials, died Thursday at age 64. The singer died after being in a coma following emergency surgery for an arterial tear. The death was announced in a post on McCluskey’s Instagram account Thursday night.
“We are devastated to tell you that our beloved Angela McCluskey has left us to be with her fellow angels,” said the post. “Never did anyone live life more fully, love more generously, sing more… well, just… more. Angela sang just as she breathed.
Her life was a song, and she was music. She will be missed more than any of us can say, but our love for her and her love for her beloved Paul, her siblings Gerard, Alan and Muriel, and all her family and friends will live forever. Please light a candle for our darling.” After making a splash on the L.A.
alternative rock scene, the Wild Colonials were signed to DGC/Geffen and amassed a cult following with their two albums, 1994’s “Fruit of Life” and its followup “This Can’t Be Life” two years later. McCluskey formed the band with her pianist-composer husband, Paul Cantelon, and several other musicians. Following their breakup, McCluskey’s first solo album, “The Things We Do,” was released by Manhattan/Blue Note in 2004, followed by a half-dozen subsequent albums or EPs.
Fellow musicians who shared spaces and stages with her, from Garbage’s Shirley Manson to Lone Justice’s Maria McKee, mourned McCluskey’s loss on social media. “Darling… I’m broken-hearted,” wrote her fellow countrywoman, Manson. “A Scottish treasure.