# Tragedies in rock/pop/folk



## Onslow (Apr 11, 2020)

We all know the usual ones....Drake,Denny,Pastorius, and likely the ultimate tradgedy: Badfinger.

I was looking up Skip Spence and found out about Bob Mosley (Spence's bass-playing bandmate in Moby Grape).
After Grape quickly collapsed, I read Mosley joined the marines but was ruled shizophrenic - as was Spence). 
That he was homeless for the longest period of time, and lived in a cardboard box( 25 years I read somewhere! Hard to believe;stainless steel maybe. Okay...should not make a joke).


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

If I recall correctly Danny Kirwan of Fleetwood Mac was homeless, too. It was booze with him as well as drugs but I think he also had psychological problems. He ended up in a care home but by then too much damage had been done.

When I last saw some footage of Bob Mosley he looked - and sounded - quite well. I hope he still is. Sadly Spence was never destined to be.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Just hours after finishing his last album, Jimmie Spheeris was struck and killed by a drunk driver while riding his motorcycle in Santa Monica, California. He was 34. He never wrote a top 40 hit nor had commercial success with any album release. However, his first album, _Isle of View_, is stunning and holds up well today.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Room2201974 said:


> Just hours after finishing his last album, Jimmie Spheeris was struck and killed by a drunk driver while riding his motorcycle in Santa Monica, California. He was 34. He never wrote a top 40 hit nor had commercial success with any album release. However, his first album, _Isle of View_, is stunning and holds up well today.


The album not to be confused with The Pretenders _Isle of View_, 1995.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

One wonders if, statistically, the life of a popular musician/performer is any shorter than that of the general population. But if one sits with pencil and paper and begins a list all of the prematurely fallen, one quickly finds it to be a long and dispiriting one. The suicides (Phil Ochs), the fatal overdoses (Janis Joplin), the deaths "by misadventure" (Jeff Buckley), the murders (Selena Quintanilla), fatal crashes of motorcycles, helicopters, airplanes, cars (Duane Allman).......


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

*Three Dog Night

Chuck Negron*

Placed in an orphanage for two years by their mom after a divorce. The success of TDN took its 'Sex, Drugs, & Rock 'n' Roll' toll, leaving Negron with a serious heroin addiction, and an arrest for possession of cocaine.

Chuck was a multimillionaire by age thirty-talented, rich, and famous. A few years later, he was living in a corrugated cardboard box on L.A.'s skid row.

I seem to remember that he pawned one of his gold records for crack cash.

*The Harder They Fall': Fame and Addiction: Chuck Negron* https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4530549


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Bobby Fuller.

His big hit in 1964 was I Fought The Law and the Law Won. A few months later, he was found dead in his car. Nobody knows if it was murder or suicide. 

As a kid, that was probably my first celebrity death. I was going to be a fan, and then he was gone.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

I was too young to have been aware of "The Day the Music Died".

On February 3, 1959, American rock and roll musicians *Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens*, and *"The Big Bopper"* (J. P. Richardson) were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, together with pilot Roger Peterson.

*Waylon Jennings*, the bass player in Holly's band, was supposed to be on board, but gave up his seat for the flu-stricken Bopper, and Holly's guitarist,*Tommy Allsup*, lost his seat to Valens on a coin toss.

There's actually been a surprisingly high number of pop and rock stars that have died in airplane (and helicopter) crashes:
1935: *Will Rogers*
1944: *Glenn Miller*
1949: *Buddy Clark*
1959: *Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, Richie Valens*
1963: *Patsy Cline*, *Cowboy Copas, Hawkshaw Hawkins*
1964: *Jim Reeves*
1967: *Otis Redding*, and 4/6 of Redding's backing band, *the Bar-Kays*, (Jimmy King, Phalon Jones, Ronnie Caldwell, Carl Cunningham)
1973: *Jim Croce*
1977: *Ronnie Van Zandt, Steve Zandt* and *Cassie Gaines*
1981: *Jud Strunk*
1982: *Randy Rhoads*
1983: *Stan Rogers*
1985: *Ricky Nelson*, and bandmates bass guitarist Patrick Woodward, drummer Rick Intveld, keyboardist Andy Chapin, guitarist Bobby Neal
1987: *Dean Paul Martin*
1990: *Stevie Ray Vaughan*
1991: Eight members of *Reba McEntire's band*
1991: *Bill Graham*
1996: *Marcel Dadi* and his band, & composer *David Hogan*. All 230 people on board TWA flight 800 died.
1997: *John Denver*
2001: *Aaliyah*
2001: *Melanie Thornton*
2009: Two members of Chuck Mangione's band, *Gerry Niewood* and *Coleman Mellett* (and 48 others)
2012: *Jenni Rivera*
2017: *Troy Gentry*


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

pianozach said:


> 2009: Two members of Chuck Mangione's band, *Gerry Niewood* and *Coleman Mellett* (and 48 others)


I was unaware of that one.

In 1982, Christian rock star Keith Green also perished in an airplane crash with two of his children and 9 others.


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## ldiat (Jan 27, 2016)

Roberto Clemente ball player-hall of fame.  was doing a good deed when the plane crashed in the ocean.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

This may be close enough, since the Red Army Choir specializes in “folk tunes, hymns, operatic arias and popular music.” 

On 25 December 2016, its artistic director, Valery Khalilov, and 63 other members of the Ensemble were killed in the crash of their 1983 Tupolev Tu-154 into the Black Sea.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Randy California (Randy Craig Wolfe) was a singer, songwriter, and guitarist in the band _Spirit_. He wrote the guitar riff that _Led Zeppelin_ appropriated (the two bands had shared the same bill twice in 1969) for the song "Stairway to Heaven," resulting in lengthy and dollar-rich lawsuits in recent years. He also wrote some of _Spirit's _best songs, including "Nature's Way."

California drowned in 1997 while saving his 12-year old son from the surf off Molokai, Hawaii. His son was saved but he perished.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

There are over 300 early deaths in rock music....very easily. Just have to keep up with the forums to find out. That's not counting musicians given over to a "rock and roll lifestyle" who never become famous and just die from addiction.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

We've seen some deaths inspire great music:

Danny Whitten's death by drug overdose inspired much of this album:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL94gOvpr5yt3Gz94uu1UztA5cD_iIq_k-

Nick Drake's supposed suicide inspired this song:






Richard Manuel's suicide inspired this song:






Paul Hester's suicide inspired this album:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9F169397EA46809A


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