The Cruelest and Saddest Deaths in Music History

See: “My ****’s ****ed Up”

 

Exactly. Very, very suspicious.

 

Auto accidents got D. Boon, members of The Jody Grind and For Squirrels.

 

Sam Cooke shot to death at age 33.

 

Randy California drowned in the Pacific Ocean in 1997 at the age of 45 while rescuing his 12-year-old son Quinn ...

 

Dan Fogelberg died from prostate cancer at age 56. Still breaks my heart to think about it.

 

Life lesson: Never let a hooker steal your trousers.

 

Los Angeles-based soul singer Karen Small released two singles and had a #37 hit in 1966 with a gorgeous orchestrated ballad, "Boys Are Made To Love." She was then apparently murdered. Her murder case was never solved.

She was said to be the niece of Don Julian of The Larks, who wrote and produced both her records.

 

Harry Choates. He was suffering from DTs in a jail cell. They think he banged his head on the bars into a coma then died. 28 years old.

 

Greatest guitarists ever...murdered:
Roy Buchanan - "suicide" (by police)
Danny Gatton - "suicide" by ????
Lenny Breau - flat-out homicide

 

'Like' primarily for Richard Manuel.

 

Sounds like one of those jail "suicides" like that of Roy Buchanan. Cops know nothing...nothing...

 

Nat King Cole

Already terminally ill at the beginning of December 1964 while recording his final album, dying ten weeks later. Evidently a closed casket was required due to the wasting effects of his cancer.

 

More like most wasteful... tragic in that sense for sure...

Johnny Ace who "committed suicide" by means of Russian Roulette.

 

I add Judee Sill, who should have been in Joni's and Carole's league.

 

There have been many tragic deaths but surely the saddest one was Elvis. How did a man whose music enriched the lives of so many and who did so much to break down cultural and racial barriers end up the way he did?

If you have ever seen the footage of the concert he did around six weeks before he died, it's heartbreaking to watch even if you're not a fan. Puffy eyes and seriously overweight, he should have been in a hospital, not performing on stage. Perhaps if the people around him had looked after him better, he would have lived a lot longer...

 

When you can move Letterman to tears, ya know ya got something.

Suddenly, I'm getting wistful for my next sandwich.

 

My first answer is Nick Drake. Accidental overdose of sleeping pills, during a very depressing time of his life.

Discovered him literally five years after that, and for years thought I was the only one who knew of this cat. It was exactly 20 years after that, his fame got that serendipitous boost from a song used in a Volkswagen commercial.

 

Yes, and Dick Shawn as well in 1987.

 

Pete Ham and Tom Evans of Badfinger.

 

Gene Clark
Townes Van Zandt

 

The great Bunny Berigan, jazz trumpet player, band leader; he famously sang "I Can't Get Started". Did some GREAT sessions with Dorsey and Sinatra ("East of the Sun") and many others.

Bunny died way too soon at age 33.

 

I'm still not sure I believe the official account of things about his killing.

 

John Lennon is the most devastating, Richard Manuel the saddest....

 

The great Albert Ayler pulled out of the East River in 1970 after a suspected suicide. The light that shines twice as bright, burns half as long...