Musicians who have suffered permanent injuries

Jackson C Frank received extensive burns and scarring from a fire at his school, aged 11.

 

Leslie West of Mountain had a leg amputated. Still plays guitar.

 

A friend of mine is an expert on concussions - he was on both the NFL owners and NFL players concussion committees - and he says there is no safe amount of headbanging.

Rev Peyton developed cysts on the tendons in both hands after a long night playing guitar at party as a teen. The doctor he saw said he'd never be able to play again and he spent a year working as a night manager at a motel, saving up money for an operation and dreaming about playing guitar. The surgery at the Indiana Hand Center was successful, and wound up giving him greater flexibility, and when he recovered, he was able to play fingerstyle.

“I’m on the hyper flexibility spectrum,” Peyton said. “Some of the things that I can do on the guitar are a result of it, but it can also be very debilitating and the cysts are a result of it. I can play the first fret with my ring finger and stretch my pinky finger to the eighth fret.”

 

I think he actually ruptured his vocal cords from vomiting so violently during a bout of nasty food poisoning while on vacation in Latin America. The doctors told him to not sing for a year but DT had a tour coming up and he went ahead and did it. It took him several years to get back to normal and for the cords to heal.

 

Jimmie Rodgers was either beaten or fell and suffered serious head injuries on December 1, 1967. This has been discussed for 50 years now but I don't think there has been a definite determination of what happened. As far as the impact on his career, it didn't amount to much after that incident but he continued to perform once he had healed enough to do so.

 

I believe you.

 

Actually, Jim Pilster was, and still is a singer with the Cryan' Shames .

He was born without a left hand so he was fitted with a hook as a child.

He never played an instrument in the band although he would shake a tambourine.
The drummer during their glory years was Denny Conroy.

 

Pilster was not the drummer for the Shames, but one of the vocalists (along with Toad). Not sure what took his hand, but it was an injury that predated his being in the band and I think he still performs with them occasionally, 50 years later.

 

Claude Coleman Jr. of Ween was almost killed in a car crash in 2002. He was in a coma for several months and has had some brain damage, meaning that he had to basically learn to play drums again. Also if I'm not mistaken, one side of his body is costantly tingling because of this. The good news is that the guy's wit hasn't been touched and today his playing is stonger than ever.

 

How does one "break a lung?"

(Edit: just read this explanation on his Wikipedia page. Ouch!)
"On December 29, 1994, while vacationing in Cuba, LaBrie was stricken with a severe case of food poisoning from contaminated shrimp and while vomiting, he ruptured his vocal cords."

 

Wow, I beat you to the punch by seconds....

It's a dog eat dog world around here.

 

Would James Hetfield's pyrotechnics accident in 1992 be considered a permanent injury?

 

Haha...and I even checked to see that I wasn't just repeating someone else's post! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

Dave Clark apparently quit drumming after breaking his knuckles in a tragic tobogganing mishap.

His bandmate Mike Smith fared far worse.

 

Pretty sure that was the result of diabetes, so it may not count for the OP's purposes.

To which, I will only add:



Hip/joint issues caused by jumps, spins (technically repeated-stress injuries).

Can't believe this went 4 pages without him....

 

Yes, in post # 32.

 

What happened to Mike Smith?

 

Ella Fitzgerald had both her legs amputated. I don't know if this qualifies, because she was quite old at this point, and maybe not active as an artist anymore.

 

A paralyzing fall. He lived for a few years before developing pneumonia as a result of the injury.

 

Doesn't Dennis DeYoung suffer from some sort of ocular disorder?

 

Always thought it was more of an occult disorder....

 

My brother and a bunch of family and friends were treated to a Dennis DeYoung show/meet'n'greet and his people were very serious about no flash photos during the meet.

 

He didn’t advertise it, but Beck Hansen suffered a debilitating back injury filming a video and maintains it changed his stage show and even his singing / guitar playing for a long time

Why Beck Thought He'd Never Tour Again