Alongside the tragic sense of loss felt by the 2011 passing of one of the greatest soul singers of the 21st Century, Amy Winehouse’s death was also notable for the fact that she became the latest high-profile star to join the ’27 Club.’
Named after the age that a string of hugely influential and iconic musical figures have died, usually through drug or alcohol abuse, the idea of the 27 Club began to grow in stature following a startling number of casualties towards the late 60s/early 70s.
First, there was the ‘death by misadventure’ swimming pool drowning of The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones in 1969. Then revolutionary guitarist Jimi Hendrix was the next to pass away at the awfully young age in 1970 after choking on his own vomit. Just two months later, rock goddess Janis Joplin was found dead in a Hollywood hotel room following a probable heroin overdose, while in 1971, The Doors frontman Jim Morrison died of heart failure.
Although several other musicians including Inner Circle lead singer Jacob Miller, Grateful Dead founding member Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan and Echo & The Bunnymen drummer Pete De Freitas subsequently died at the same age, the theoretical ’27 Club’ then avoided any new high-profile members for 23 years until Nirvana’s troubled anti-hero Kurt Cobain committed suicide by shotgun in 1994, introducing the term to a whole new generation.
The mysterious and often unresolved nature of these five deaths, not to mention a series of strange coincidences (Jones and Morrison died on the same day two years apart, Hendrix was born on November 27 and predicted several times that he would die at the age) have prompted many conspiracy theorists to believe that there are darker forces responsible.
Cobain and Hendrix biographer Charles R. Cross has stated that the number of musicians who died at 27 is truly remarkable by any standard, while a remark from Cobain’s mother following her son’s death (“I told him not to join that stupid club”) has led to theories that the grunge icon deliberately timed his suicide so that he could become a member of the 27 Club.
But many argue that the curse of the number 27 began way back in 1938 with Robert Johnson. Legend has it that the man described by Eric Clapton as ‘the most important blues singer that ever lived’ made a Faustian pact with the devil after transforming from a mediocre guitarist playing on street corners to the man who invented the Delta Blues. Arguably the first real member of the ’27 Club,’ Johnson’s success and subsequent popularity with women then led to fatal consequences when a jealous husband spiked his whiskey with strychnine poisoning.
The whole theory has gathered so much momentum that several medical studies have been conducted to determine if there is any logical link. Researchers from Queensland University of Technology found that musicians in their 20s/30s were three times more likely to die than the general population but that the exact age was merely a coincidence. Likewise, a study in the British Medical Journal, which concluded that although the musicians in question faced an increased risk of death in their 20s/30s due to their consumption of illegal substances, this was not restricted to the age of 27.
Of course, the studies haven’t convinced everyone and the term continues to remain a source of intrigue throughout popular culture. The number has been used in the titles of songs by everyone from Fall Out Boy to Dave Matthews Band, Eric Segalstad’s The 27s: The Greatest Myth Of Rock & Roll weaved together the lives of 34 victims into a coherent narrative, while there was even a 2008 film in which the last surviving member of a rock group attempts to carry out the last wishes of a former bandmate who died at the age.
So whether the number 27 has any serious significance or not, it seems unlikely that its powerful association with the music industry will subside any time soon.
27 Club: Why So Many Promising Musicians Died So Young
Alongside the tragic sense of loss felt by the 2011 passing of one of the greatest soul singers of the 21st Century, Amy Winehouse’s death was also notable for the fact that she became the latest high-profile star to join the ’27 Club.’
Named after the age that a string of hugely influential and iconic musical figures have died, usually through drug or alcohol abuse, the idea of the 27 Club began to grow in stature following a startling number of casualties towards the late 60s/early 70s.
First, there was the ‘death by misadventure’ swimming pool drowning of The Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones in 1969. Then revolutionary guitarist Jimi Hendrix was the next to pass away at the awfully young age in 1970 after choking on his own vomit. Just two months later, rock goddess Janis Joplin was found dead in a Hollywood hotel room following a probable heroin overdose, while in 1971, The Doors frontman Jim Morrison died of heart failure.
Although several other musicians including Inner Circle lead singer Jacob Miller, Grateful Dead founding member Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan and Echo & The Bunnymen drummer Pete De Freitas subsequently died at the same age, the theoretical ’27 Club’ then avoided any new high-profile members for 23 years until Nirvana’s troubled anti-hero Kurt Cobain committed suicide by shotgun in 1994, introducing the term to a whole new generation.
The mysterious and often unresolved nature of these five deaths, not to mention a series of strange coincidences (Jones and Morrison died on the same day two years apart, Hendrix was born on November 27 and predicted several times that he would die at the age) have prompted many conspiracy theorists to believe that there are darker forces responsible.
Cobain and Hendrix biographer Charles R. Cross has stated that the number of musicians who died at 27 is truly remarkable by any standard, while a remark from Cobain’s mother following her son’s death (“I told him not to join that stupid club”) has led to theories that the grunge icon deliberately timed his suicide so that he could become a member of the 27 Club.
But many argue that the curse of the number 27 began way back in 1938 with Robert Johnson. Legend has it that the man described by Eric Clapton as ‘the most important blues singer that ever lived’ made a Faustian pact with the devil after transforming from a mediocre guitarist playing on street corners to the man who invented the Delta Blues. Arguably the first real member of the ’27 Club,’ Johnson’s success and subsequent popularity with women then led to fatal consequences when a jealous husband spiked his whiskey with strychnine poisoning.
The whole theory has gathered so much momentum that several medical studies have been conducted to determine if there is any logical link. Researchers from Queensland University of Technology found that musicians in their 20s/30s were three times more likely to die than the general population but that the exact age was merely a coincidence. Likewise, a study in the British Medical Journal, which concluded that although the musicians in question faced an increased risk of death in their 20s/30s due to their consumption of illegal substances, this was not restricted to the age of 27.
Of course, the studies haven’t convinced everyone and the term continues to remain a source of intrigue throughout popular culture. The number has been used in the titles of songs by everyone from Fall Out Boy to Dave Matthews Band, Eric Segalstad’s The 27s: The Greatest Myth Of Rock & Roll weaved together the lives of 34 victims into a coherent narrative, while there was even a 2008 film in which the last surviving member of a rock group attempts to carry out the last wishes of a former bandmate who died at the age.
So whether the number 27 has any serious significance or not, it seems unlikely that its powerful association with the music industry will subside any time soon.
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