Musicians who have suffered permanent injuries

American pianist Leon Fleischer.

 

Tommy Makem's left hand was crushed by a printing press in 1956. He seemed to fully recover...

 

Say, no one's mentioned Robert Schumann? Ruined his career as a pianist by permanently injuring his hand, either with a stretching device (as his future father-in-law claimed) or simply by overpracticing.

 

Robert Johnson
George Harrison
John Lennon
Marvin Gay
Ray Davies
Chet Baker
Brian Epstein
Stu Sutcliffe

 

Oh, oh, I sense a future thread on how catastrophic injuries acquired :0

 

Ry Cooder

He has had a glass eye since he was four, when he accidentally stuck a knife in his left eye.

Cooder: "I stuck a knife in my left eye. I was playing with this toy car. I had it in one hand, the knife in the other, and the knife slipped. It was just a weird accident."

The eye had to be replaced with a glass one.

"I was a little self-conscious, of course. But luckily, at such an early age, I was able to make adjustments physically."

Even so, Cooder is still somewhat bothered by the eye, and is sensitive about being photographed.

 

Crossover artist Bobby Helms had hits with 'Jingle Bell Rock' and 'My Special Angel.' Sadly, he was forced to wear a patch (or sometimes sunglasses) in later years after losing vision in his right eye.

 

Jon Mark

He played guitar for John Mayall, Marianne Faithfull, Mark-Almond, and Sweet Thursday, but after the losing his left-hand ring finger in an accident in Hawaii in 1972, Jon Mark switched to keyboards.

 

Harry "KC" Casey from KC and the Sunshine Band suffered permanent nerve damage when another driver crossed the center line and hit his car head-on in 1982.

That same year, Billy Joel injured both his hands when a car ran a red light and hit his motorcycle. He lost part of the bone in his left thumb.