The morning after we learned of Amy Winehouse's death my friend, an indie musician doggedly loyal to the legends, posted on Facebook: "Did Amy say to herself: %^$# it, I'm 27, I want to be a legend and OD?"
The Forever 27 Club, a sort of modern-day Dead Poets Society that posthumously enfolds Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones and now, Winehouse, has been much fussed about. I'm tempted to imagine that my friend may be right, especially since Winehouse didn't have much going for herself in her last years. Then again, looking at the bright side (everything has one, doesn't it?), I'm relieved that it wasn't Britney Spears, who turns 30 in December, or Avril Lavigne — wait, she still has time.
For better or for worse, the members of the 27 Club were falling stars in their own right. Joplin fell to heroin and Morrison to alcohol. Jones' rollicking career with the Rolling Stones began early but, going by Keith Richards' account of his sometime bandmate in his memoir Life, his musical career was careening in an alcohol-fueled tailspin when he drowned in a swimming pool at 27. Death saved Jones from wasting away and accorded a modicum of respect to his memory.
Hendrix, unquestionably the greatest electric guitarist of all time, was tortured by his own genius and uncontainable nervous energy. Besides being a prolific drug user, he also had a rambunctious appetite for casual sex. Had he carried on into the 1980s, perhaps AIDS would have claimed him as it did Freddie Mercury.
I could never imagine Kurt Cobain growing old. All the fire and angst of extended adolescence elevated him to a prophetic place in the musical pantheon. For one so young, he tottered under the burden of imposed godliness. Perhaps, as he sang in "On a Plain", he loved himself better than anybody else. He had to die young or risk being left out.
I imagine that Don McLean, who scoffs at anything, would think uncharitably of the 27 Club. Remember how he sang famously (and, true to character, cryptically) of the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, all aged under 30, as "the day the music died"?
Of others who didn't make it to 27, the genius of Otis Redding stands out. By 26, the "King of Soul" had issued six studio albums. So prolific was he that when he died in 1967 (in an air-crash whose circumstances eerily mirrored the one that McLean alluded to), Stax, the small-time label that had promoted him, was left with enough material for three posthumous releases.
Who remembers Tim Buckley, though his songwriting craft and lyrical poignancy were leagues ahead of his time? Spurned in love and deserted by record labels, he struggled phoenix-like to reinvent his career many times over. Eventually, bitter and broken, he took his life in 1975. He had essayed nine albums, but most of his popularity came much after his death. Tragedy pursued the Buckley family. His musician son Jeff, remembered for his only complete album Grace (Columbia, 1994), never saw his father alive. He was just 31 when he died in a drowning accident.
Those whose eyes have misted over listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" will recall that the song was performed in memory of three band members — Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines, aged 29, 28 and 29 respectively — who died in a plane crash. For many years after the tragedy, the band played the song instrumentally with a solitary microphone placed symbolically at stage centre.
This list of musical martyrs is incomplete without mention of the evergreen Hank Williams, Metallica's Cliff Burton, Sid Vicious of The Sex Pistols, Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon, Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band, Aaliyah and rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.
Amy Winehouse
For better or for worse, the members of the 27 Club were falling stars in their own right. Joplin fell to heroin and Morrison to alcohol. Jones' rollicking career with the Rolling Stones began early but, going by Keith Richards' account of his sometime bandmate in his memoir Life, his musical career was careening in an alcohol-fueled tailspin when he drowned in a swimming pool at 27. Death saved Jones from wasting away and accorded a modicum of respect to his memory.
Hendrix, unquestionably the greatest electric guitarist of all time, was tortured by his own genius and uncontainable nervous energy. Besides being a prolific drug user, he also had a rambunctious appetite for casual sex. Had he carried on into the 1980s, perhaps AIDS would have claimed him as it did Freddie Mercury.
I could never imagine Kurt Cobain growing old. All the fire and angst of extended adolescence elevated him to a prophetic place in the musical pantheon. For one so young, he tottered under the burden of imposed godliness. Perhaps, as he sang in "On a Plain", he loved himself better than anybody else. He had to die young or risk being left out.
I imagine that Don McLean, who scoffs at anything, would think uncharitably of the 27 Club. Remember how he sang famously (and, true to character, cryptically) of the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper, all aged under 30, as "the day the music died"?
Of others who didn't make it to 27, the genius of Otis Redding stands out. By 26, the "King of Soul" had issued six studio albums. So prolific was he that when he died in 1967 (in an air-crash whose circumstances eerily mirrored the one that McLean alluded to), Stax, the small-time label that had promoted him, was left with enough material for three posthumous releases.
Who remembers Tim Buckley, though his songwriting craft and lyrical poignancy were leagues ahead of his time? Spurned in love and deserted by record labels, he struggled phoenix-like to reinvent his career many times over. Eventually, bitter and broken, he took his life in 1975. He had essayed nine albums, but most of his popularity came much after his death. Tragedy pursued the Buckley family. His musician son Jeff, remembered for his only complete album Grace (Columbia, 1994), never saw his father alive. He was just 31 when he died in a drowning accident.
Those whose eyes have misted over listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird" will recall that the song was performed in memory of three band members — Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines and Cassie Gaines, aged 29, 28 and 29 respectively — who died in a plane crash. For many years after the tragedy, the band played the song instrumentally with a solitary microphone placed symbolically at stage centre.
This list of musical martyrs is incomplete without mention of the evergreen Hank Williams, Metallica's Cliff Burton, Sid Vicious of The Sex Pistols, Shannon Hoon of Blind Melon, Duane Allman of the Allman Brothers Band, Aaliyah and rappers Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G.
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