Gone Too Soon

The music world was left reeling this past Saturday when the news broke that Grammy-winning R&B singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in her home in London. Although this news was not particularly surprising – Winehouse had a well-documented history of substance abuse and health problems – her death at the age of 27 was sadly premature.

Children dream of becoming rich and famous, having their faces recognized as they walk down the street. However, celebrity status is not always a boon; the pressures of fame have a history of causing or contributing to problems that have claimed the lives of many talented young men and women.

Experimentation with drugs was the norm for many people in the 1970s, and musicians seemed especially vulnerable to the dangers of overindulgence.

Jimi Hendrix is considered by many to be the greatest guitar player to ever live, and his influence on music is rarely questioned. The circumstances of Hendrix’s death are unclear, as the original doctor on the scene was of questionable character, but the two main theories are that the guitarist accidentally took too many sleeping pills or he asphyxiated on his own vomit.

Soon after his death in 1970, Janis Joplin died from an overdose of heroin. The “Queen of Rock and Roll” influence on rock and soul is undisputed, and her music is still widely appreciated.

Medical science in the 1970s was not as precise as it is today, and autopsies were not done as frequently, which is why the cause of death for many people is rather murky. For Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, it was no different. He died in Paris in 1971 and was not given an autopsy because French law did not require it; heroin was most likely involved, if not directly responsible for the singer’s death.

The phrase “like Sid and Nancy” is sometimes used to describe a volatile couple, and this is an apt description. The struggles of Sex Pistols’ bassist Sid Vicious and girlfriend Nancy Spungen were well known. In 1978, Vicious woke to find Spungen dead from a knife wound to the stomach. He was charged with the crime, but died of a heroin overdose while on bail.

Kurt Kobain suffered from depression even before he became famous as the frontman of grunge band Nirvana, but his fame seemed to increase his problems. He suffered from several health problems, including an untreated and debilitating stomach condition, and in 1994 committed suicide. Kobain and Nirvana are regularly cited as pioneers of their genre.

The death of R&B sensation Aaliyah was in some ways more upsetting than others, because it wasn’t in any way her fault. The singer was traveling from the Bahamas to Florida in a small twin-engine plane after shooting a music video when it crashed shortly after takeoff. An inquest found that the plane was overloaded, the pilot was not licensed to fly that particular plane, and there were traces of cocaine and alcohol in his blood.

Rappers 2Pac and Notorious B.I.G. were personal and professional rivals, and helped to instigate the East Coast-West Coast rivalry that divided the hip-hop world during the 1990s. 2Pac was gunned down in Las Vegas in September of 1997, and B.I.G. was shot to death five months later in California. The exact reasons for their murders are unknown, but theorists often consider the two deaths to be related.

Modern audiences are more familiar with Joaquin Phoenix, but in the 80s and 90s it was his brother River Phoenix who was most famous. The oldest brother of the Phoenix clan, River earned acclaim for his performances in films such as Stand by Me, Running on Empty, and My Own Private Idaho. The night of River’s death he consumed several different drugs, and an autopsy later revealed fatal amounts of cocaine and other drugs in his bloodstream.

Heath Ledger’s last film was The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, but he will always be remembered for his performance as the mentally-unstable Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight. In 2008, Ledger was found in his New York apartment, apparently unconscious. He was pronounced dead by EMT’s, and there was a large public interest in the circumstances of his death. An autopsy and toxicology report determined that Ledger died from an overdose of prescription medication.

Although many of these deaths were preventable, none of these actors or musicians were over the age of 30 when they died. Their families were deprived of their loved ones, and the world was deprived of the work of some supremely-talented individuals. The deaths of these performers were tragic, but they will always be remembered by their families and their incredible contributions to their respective fields.