The tragic death of Kirsty MacColl would fit this depressing thread, although it's perhaps more tragic than bizarre: Kirsty MacColl Death by Boat Propeller How about Johnny Ace's death either by a game of Russian Roulette or by waving his gun around and pointing it at himself, pulling the trigger, saying "It's okay, gun's not loaded, see?": https://americanbluesnews.blogspot.com/2010/08/true-story-of-death-of-johnny-ace-by.html
Kevin Gilbert. It was not unheard of, but certainly quite unusual. Erotic asphyxiation - Wikipedia Dan
Florida folk legend Gamble Rogers also drowned attempting to rescue a man off a Florida beach in 1991,but sadly they both lost their lives.
First page, and I am struck by how few seem to be able to distinguish between bizarre, tragic and mundane.
R & B singer Tommy Tucker was working on his hardwood floors in 1982 when he was supposedly killed by carbon chloride fumes.
Similar to the Jeff Porcaro “bug spray” story, in the early/mid 90’s my band shared a practice space with a band that had just gotten signed to a big major label deal in the alt-rock feeding frenzy. Their debut record had been out for a few weeks and they were waiting to go one their first big national tour when the singer died of “an undiagnosed heart condition”. At least that’s what they told the press (and his family). His heart condition was actually a crack habit, the evidence was all over that studio. No names for obvious reasons.
Surely the way for a dedicated musician to go. On stage. Nashville singer-songwriter David Olney has died while performing on stage after he apologised to the crowd and closed his eyes. The 71-year-old Nashville artist suffered an apparent heart attack during the performance Bruce Hampton may be the only person to have died at his own wake. The guitarist/singer/bandleader collapsed on stage of Atlanta’s Fox Theater on Monday, May 1, at the climax of Hampton70, a birthday celebration featuring dozens of his acolytes, including members of the Allman Brothers Band, the Rolling Stones, Phish, Widespread Panic, REM, Blues Traveler and Widespread Panic. The sold out show concluded with over 30 musicians on stage smiling broadly as Hampton led them through Bobby Bland’s “Turn On Your Lovelight.” He pointed to 14-year-old Brandon Niederauer to solo, then went to one knee and collapsed. The band, thinking it was a theatrical end to a celebratory night, kept playing for several minutes before they stopped and EMTs rushed on stage to try and revive Hampton.
The fact that he died in a car accident after writing a well-known song about driving a car is coincidental, but not ironic. If he’d written a song about what a careful and safe driver he was, and then he died in a car accident, that would be ironic.
Billy Dolls one of the original members of the New York Dolls passed out at a party in London after a copious amount of drugs, worried he was about to die they put him in a cold bath and poured a lot of coffee down his throat which he asphyxiated on and died.
He did indeed contract necrotizing fasciitis but he recovered, only to die of plain old alcohol-induced liver failure soon after.
In 2003, up-and-coming teen rocker Shelby Starner died of complications from bulimia -- at age 19. At 15, she'd had a minor AOR hit with "Don't Let Them." She was also featured alongside fellow teenage newcomer Britney Spears in a Spin magazine article when both of them released debut CDs in early 1999. According to various sources, hers was the first death officially documented as being from bulimia in the state of Pennsylvania.
Mia Zapata, the lead singer the Seattle punk band the Gits, was beaten, raped, and strangled in summer 1993 while walking home late at night. When her body was found, she had no I.D. on her. She was only identified by the medical examiner because he'd gone to her gigs and knew who she was. Her killer was not found until ten years later, when his DNA turned up as a match in a national registry...after he'd been arrested for domestic abuse.
OK, here is one more because deaths come in threes, as they say: In Nov. 2000, Loverboy bassist Scott Smith went sailing off the San Francisco coast when he was swept overboard by a gigantic wave. His body was never found, despite searches by the Coast Guard. His death is listed as "missing presumed dead, lost at sea."
