“Hope I die before I get old,†sang the Who in “My Generation†(1965), but of that foursome only drummer Keith Moon, who died in 1978, achieved the wished-for consummation. Moon’s death at 32, however, excludes him from the so-called 27 Club—the strangely long, and lengthening, list of pop stars who’ve passed away at age 27. Members of this doleful club include Jimi Hendrix (d. 1970), Janis Joplin (d. 1970), Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain (d. 1994), Amy Winehouse (d. 2011) and Doors frontman Jim Morrison (d. 1971), whose melancholy lyric “When the music’s over / Turn out the lights†may serve as an epitaph for this whole sad clan.
“Not Fade Away,†in turn, could be the motto of the superannuated Rolling Stones, who continue to perform well into their 70s. But the Stones also lost a founding member to the 27 Club: Brian Jones, found drowned in the swimming pool of his East Sussex home in July 1969. The circumstances of his death remain murky, but it seems the music was already over for the drug-abusing Jones by the time he died. He’d recently left the Stones and been replaced by guitarist Mick Taylor.
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