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Rick Stevens, a vocalist for the funk-soul band Tower of Power who, after leaving the group, was convicted of killing three men in a drug-addicted haze and served 36 years in prison, died in Antioch, Calif., where he lived with a son. He was 77.
The cause was liver cancer, the son, Clarence C. Maloney, said.
Rick Stevens was known especially for the Tower of Power song You"re Still a Young Man
on which he sang lead. The song, about a relationship between an older woman and a younger man, was a track on the band’s 1972 album, “Bump City.” Released as a single, it reached No. 29 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Mr. Stevens joined Tower of Power, a horn-heavy group based in Oakland, Calif., in 1969, but “Bump City” proved to be his peak with the group: Within a few years he had left it and was in the grip of heroin and other narcotics.
In February 1976 he traveled to the Santa Cruz Mountains to meet with two brothers, Andrew and Harry Austin, who, he later said, had been pressuring him over a drug debt and threatening his family. Both brothers were shot dead. A day and a half later, the authorities said, Mr. Stevens killed Elliot Wickliffe, who he said had pulled a gun on him.
