In the 1970s, few frontmen shone brighter than Brian Connolly. With blond hair, swagger, and a powerhouse voice, he led The Sweet through an electrifying run of glam-rock hits \u2014 none bigger than \u201cThe Ballroom Blitz.\u201d At their peak, the band sold over 50 million records and scored 13 UK Top-20 singles, including the No. 1 \u201cBlock Buster!\u201d For a while, it seemed unstoppable. Born Brian MacManus in Scotland in 1945, he was abandoned as a baby and raised by adoptive parents. Later, he learned he was the half-brother of actor Mark McManus. By the mid-1960s, Connolly was performing in London clubs before co-founding The Sweet, blending pop hooks with hard-rock riffs that defined a generation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But behind the glitter, cracks appeared. Fame brought pressure and alcohol. \u201cGradually, it just got out of hand,\u201d he later admitted. By 1979 he\u2019d left the band to go solo, but his singles failed to chart, and his health began to collapse. In 1981, Connolly suffered multiple heart attacks, leaving partial paralysis and nerve damage. A crushing tax bill forced him to sell his home in 1983. Still, he kept performing, forming Brian Connolly\u2019s Sweet and touring relentlessly despite poor health and dwindling pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A brief comeback in the mid-1990s brought hope. He released a solo album, Let\u2019s Go<\/em>, in 1995, and welcomed a son with his partner, Jean. Yet his body was failing. A 1996 documentary, Don\u2019t Leave Me This Way<\/em>, showed a fragile Connolly confronting his decline with unflinching honesty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His final performance came that December; two months later, on February 9, 1997, he died at 51 from liver and kidney failure following multiple heart attacks. Connolly\u2019s story is both triumph and tragedy \u2014 a life of talent, turmoil, and resilience. The glitter may have faded, but his voice \u2014 fierce, joyful, unforgettable \u2014 still blazes on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the 1970s, few frontmen shone brighter than Brian Connolly. With blond hair, swagger, and a powerhouse voice, he led The Sweet through an electrifying run of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15176,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":454,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15175"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15175\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15177,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15175\/revisions\/15177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}