Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Ask the Chatbot
In 1994 Kurt Cobain, front man of the grunge band Nirvana, died by suicide at age 27. After his death Cobain’s grieving mother told the Associated Press, “Now he’s gone and joined that stupid club.” The “club” she was referring to is the 27 Club, so called because of the tragic roster of musicians who died when they were 27. Although there have been many recording artists who died even younger—Ritchie Valens at 17, Sid Vicious at 21, Tupac Shakur at 25, and Gram Parsons and Mac Miller at 26—urban legend has it that 27 is an especially deadly age for musicians. Sadly, Cobain wasn’t the last rocker to succumb at that age, and the myth of the 27 Club persists. The following is a list of notable members of the 27 Club.
Robert Johnson’s death in 1938 predates the concept of the 27 Club by decades, yet most fans didn’t discover him until the 1960s, after a collection of his recordings was posthumously released in 1961. Johnson was a Delta blues artist who had only one minor hit in his lifetime (“Terraplane Blues”), but his music profoundly shaped rock and roll. Born in Mississippi in 1911 (some sources say 1912), he sang in an eerie falsetto and was a master of the slide guitar. According to legend, Johnson met the Devil at a local crossroads and made a deal in which he would acquire his talent as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter in exchange for only eight more years to live. He died after drinking poisoned whiskey in a juke joint. His recordings—including the original compositions “Me and the Devil Blues,” “Sweet Home Chicago,” and “Love in Vain”—had a major impact on other musicians, from Muddy Waters to the Rolling Stones.
Rudy Lewis
Born in Philadelphia in 1936, Rudy Lewis replaced Ben E. King in 1960 as the lead singer of the influential R&B group the Drifters. His rich, supple voice, which was trained on gospel music early in his career, can be heard on such singles as “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “On Broadway,” and “Up on the Roof.” In May 1964 the Drifters were scheduled to record a new song called “Under the Boardwalk,” with Lewis singing lead vocals. The night before the recording session, however, Lewis died in a hotel in Harlem, New York City. The cause of death is disputed: some say he experienced a drug overdose or a heart attack, and others say he choked in his sleep after binge eating. In his place vocalist Johnny Moore took the lead on “Under the Boardwalk,” which became one of the group’s classic hits.
Brian Jones
The Rolling Stones formed in London in the early 1960s as a group of students and bohemians who shared an affinity for Chicago blues. The original members were singer Mick Jagger, lead guitarist Keith Richards, drummer Charlie Watts, bassist Bill Wyman, and multi-instrumentalist Brian Jones. Born in 1942, Jones played both rhythm and slide guitar as well as piano, saxophone, flute, marimba, Mellotron, sitar, harpsichord, and harmonica. Jagger, Richards, and Jones became notorious, making headlines for their drug use and “all-purpose degeneracy.” Jones, however, also had a reputation for being self-centered and difficult to work with. Fired from the Stones in June 1969, he was found dead in his swimming pool a month later, supposedly from drowning after ingesting alcohol and drugs. Some believe his death wasn’t accidental. Richards once said of Jones’s end, “I don’t know what happened, but there was some nasty business going on.”
One of the defining musicians of the 1960s, guitar god Jimi Hendrix was born in Seattle in 1942. He briefly served as a paratrooper in the U.S. Army, followed by several years working as a sideman for such musicians as Little Richard and the Isley Brothers. After being discovered in 1966 while playing in a club in New York City, Hendrix headed to England and blew the audiences there away with his instrumental virtuosity and extroverted showmanship. His fellow blues-rock guitarists, such as Eric Clapton, were equally impressed. By the end of the ’60s Hendrix was a superstar, but he was also beset by financial disputes with his record company and frustrated by audiences’ expectations that he continue playing in the same style that made him famous. Before he could solve these problems, he died of an overdose of barbiturates on September 18, 1970.
Known for her raspy vocals and fierce and uninhibited musical style, Janis Joplin was born in Texas in 1943. A social misfit from a young age, she grew up loving the music of great blues artists such as Bessie Smith. Joplin began singing folk and blues in clubs as a teenager, moving back and forth between Texas and San Francisco. In 1966 she became the vocalist for the San Francisco-based Big Brother and the Holding Company and stunned audiences the following year with a blistering performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. In 1970, engaged to be married, her life seemingly on track, Joplin was recording an album with her new group, the Full Tilt Boogie Band, when she died of an overdose of heroin. A year after her death, her album Pearl and the poignant single “Me and Bobby McGee,” featuring the iconic line “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose,” went to number one on the Billboard album and singles charts, respectively.
Jim Morrison was a naval officer’s son who rebelled against the conventions of his military-brat upbringing to become the lead singer of the Doors and rock’s mysterious “Lizard King.” He was born in Florida in 1943 and eventually studied film at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he met keyboardist Ray Manzarek. The two friends formed the Doors in 1965 with guitarist Robby Krieger and drummer John Densmore. Morrison brought to the group baritone vocals, darkly poetic songwriting, and a shamanistic performance style. In 1971 he left the group to write poetry and moved to Paris with his longtime girlfriend, Pamela Courson. On July 3, 1971, Courson found Morrison dead in the bathtub of their apartment. The cause of death was officially listed as heart failure, but there was no autopsy, leading to various conspiracy theories. Courson died three years later of a heroin overdose; she too was only 27.
Ron (“Pigpen”) McKernan
In 1964 three friends in Palo Alto, California—guitarists and vocalists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir and keyboard player Ron (“Pigpen”) McKernan—formed a jug band called Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions. By late 1965 they’d brought in bassist Phil Lesh and drummer Bill Kreutzmann and rechristened themselves the Grateful Dead. Born in 1945, Pigpen became known for his iconic hippie-biker style and his gruff singing voice, featured on such songs as “Death Don’t Have No Mercy” and “Bring Me My Shotgun.” He also had a longtime habit of heavy alcohol use, having begun drinking at age 12. His alcohol use led to health problems, including cirrhosis of the liver. He stopped touring with the Dead in 1972, and he died the following year of liver disease.
Mia Zapata
Mia Zapata was the lead vocalist of the Seattle-based punk rock group the Gits. Born in Chicago in 1965 and raised in Louisville, Kentucky, she fell in with a group of musicians while a student at Antioch College in Ohio in the 1980s. With guitarist Joe Spleen, bassist Matt Dresdner, and drummer Steve Moriarty, she formed the Sniveling Little Rat-Faced Gits. In 1989 the band, now known simply as the Gits, moved to Seattle, where grunge was about to explode. Confident and charismatic, Zapata embodied the feminist attitude of the riot grrrl movement, another local scene that was on the verge of international notoriety. In 1992 the Gits released their debut album, Frenching the Bully. They were at work on their second album when Zapata was raped and murdered in Seattle on July 7, 1993, while walking home after a night out with friends. Her death spawned numerous tribute projects such as Joan Jett’s side band Evil Stig (“Gits Live” spelled backward). Her fellow musicians, especially in the riot grrrl movement, also memorialized her by founding Home Alive, a women’s self-defense organization in Seattle. Zapata’s murderer was identified in 2002 and convicted in 2004.
Before he became Nirvana’s lead singer and an icon for Generation X, Kurt Cobain was a bright kid growing up in the Pacific Northwest. Born in 1967, he was nine years old when his parents divorced, and he turned to music and petty acts of rebellion to cope with the emotional pain of that split. In 1987 he formed Nirvana with bassist Krist Novoselic, and the new band cycled through several drummers before Dave Grohl joined in 1990. By then Nirvana had released its first album, Bleach (1989). The buzz surrounding Nirvana’s debut grew into a scream with Nevermind (1991), featuring the crossover hit “Smells like Teen Spirit.” Showing a gift for ironic, allusive lyrics, Cobain was anointed the voice of his generation, a title he was never comfortable with. He also struggled with depression and chronic pain, which he treated with painkillers, including heroin. In April 1994, one month after a nonfatal suicide attempt in Rome, Cobain shot and killed himself at his home in Seattle.
Born in London in 1983, Amy Winehouse skyrocketed to fame after the release of her critically acclaimed Grammy Award-winning album Back to Black (2006). Like Cobain, she was deeply affected by her parents’ divorce when she was a child, and she developed a rebellious streak. She loved jazz, especially such singers as Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington, and she was performing in local jazz clubs by age 16. In 2003 she released her first album, Frank, which showed her to be a shrewd, caustic lyricist. Back to Black, featuring the hit single “Rehab,” made her into a star. Her song lyrics reflected her troubled relationship with husband Blake Fielder-Civil and her frequent use of alcohol and drugs. As her personal life became more chaotic, her career also unraveled. In June 2011 a comeback tour was canceled after Winehouse appeared to be intoxicated at the opening concert. She died of alcohol poisoning in July.
Jonghyun
K-pop star Kim Jong-Hyun was born in Seoul in 1990. As a teenager, he was discovered after performing with his schoolmates in a band at a music festival. SM Entertainment, a South Korean record label and entertainment company, recruited him as a vocalist for a new boy band, SHINee, which debuted in 2008. He performed as Jonghyun, dropping his surname. Two years later Jonghyun joined the project SM the Ballad and performed on the single “Let’s Go,” the theme song for the 2010 G20 summit in Seoul. Jonghyun went solo in 2015 and released the EP Base, which topped the Billboard World Albums chart. Next came a memoir and his first LP, She Is (2016). After wrapping up a concert tour in December 2017, Jonghyun died by suicide that month. His album Poet/Artist was posthumously released in January 2018 and cracked the Billboard 200 list.
Other members of the 27 Club
Other celebrities, including actors and artists, who died at 27 include:
Alan (“Blind Owl”) Wilson (1943–70), American guitarist, songwriter, and founding member of the blues-rock band Canned Heat
- Dave Alexander (1947–75), American bassist and founding member of the proto-punk band the Stooges
Peter Ham (1947–75), Welsh guitarist, songwriter, and lead vocalist of the British rock band Badfinger
- Chris Bell (1951–78), American guitarist and songwriter of the influential power pop band Big Star
D. Boon (byname of Dennes Boon; 1958–85), American singer-songwriter and guitarist of the punk band the Minutemen
- Randy (“Stretch”) Walker (1968–95), American rapper and record producer who collaborated with Tupac Shakur
Jeremy Michael Ward (1976–2003), American guitarist, sound technician, and vocal operator who cofounded the bands the Mars Volta and De Facto
- Jonathan Brandis (1976–2003), American actor whose television and film credits include The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990), It (1990), Ladybugs (1992), Aladdin (1994–95), and SeaQuest 2032 (1993–96)
Anton Yelchin (1989–2016), American actor who appeared in Star Trek (2009), Like Crazy (2011), Fright Night (2011), and Star Trek Beyond (2016)
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.britannica.com ’
