6 Music - Music News

Vocalist Ari Up, of British all-girl punk band The Slits, has died aged 48 following a "serious illness", her stepfather John Lydon has announced.

The death of the singer, real name Arianna Forster, was revealed in a statement on Lydon's website which said she would be "sadly missed".

The Slits, who combined punk and reggae, were known for tracks including Shoplifting and their cover of I Heard It Through The Grapevine.

They made an early impact with a raw, unpolished John Peel session in 1977, and their debut album, Cut went to number 30 in the UK two years later.

Released on Island Records, it has frequently featured on critics' best British album lists over the last 30 years.

The band released became more experimental and avant garde in the early 1980s, and split in 1982.

Munich-born Up was 14 when she formed the band with members including Palmolive - real name Paloma Romero - in 1976.

Her mother, German publishing heiress Nora Forster, is married to former Sex Pistols star Lydon, who she has been with for 30 years.

In a tribute on The Slits' My Space page, manager Jeff Jacquin paid tribute to Up's "unyielding passion for music and life".

"She influenced generations of women and created some of the most memorable music of our time, but Ari's true magic was how she affected people on the street, face to face, every day," he said.

"She ate life up and spit it out."

His sentiments were echoed by the band's biographer, Zoe Street Howe, who told 6 Music that Up was a "force of nature".

It wasn't an act. She was like that all the time," said Howe.

"She was that alive, that crazy, that unpredictable. So I think she'll be remembered very much like that - an inspiring free spirit. Someone whose creativity and musicality and humour was unlike anybody else's."

Talking about the band's early career, Howe added: "They went on tour with The Clash, and obviously they knew the Pistols and Subway Sect and all those male bands.

"They were all quite supportive of each other because, in a way, they all felt like outsiders. They all represented the outsider.

"And I think there was a bit of a 'big brother' thing going on because Ari was very young, she was 14, and people like Joe Strummer and Mick Jones were very protective. They used to have pillow fights on the tour bus. It wasn't all sex, drugs and rock'n'roll."

Up's death came at a time of creative resurgence for The Slits, who reformed in 2005 and signed a new recording contract last year.

The band's final work, a video for the 2009 song Lazy Animal, was released posthumously in accordance with Up's wishes.

"I'm afraid there will never be another Ari Up," said Shahin Newalt, president of Narnack Records.

"She made life fun and was so passionate about music. Ariane very much wanted her music to live on. She was smiling and making things happen through the good and the bad.

"We will truly miss her."