5 brilliant musicians who were world stars but died young - the club 27

Every age has its own great singers and musicians, but we can always find some individuals whose work, genius and uniqueness determined not only the life of their own generation, but also the followings. We try to complete the difficult task to introduce five famous people shortly in this article who conquered millions with their songs and styles, but all of them died sadly and often tragically at the age of 27.

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The famous American rock singer Jim Morrison was born on December 8, 1943,in Melbourne, Florida, and was the self-destructive and rebellious front man of the band Doors. His father was an admiral of the United States Navy, and besides this he was a skilled pianist and therefore he raised his children for the love of music. One of the most defining experiences of his life was when he witnessed a serious truck accident involving an overloaded vehicle with Native-American workers at the age of five. He later captured his freezing fears of seeing the mutilated bodies in his song Peace Frog.

He formed one of the most influential bands in rock history, the Doors in the year of 1965, with his friend Ray Manzarek, a keyboardist from the same university where he studied. Robbie Krieger, a guitarist, and John Densmore, a drummer, also joined to the formation. The singer of the Doors became Morrison with his impressive personality, and he also wrote his unique lyrics for himself. The band released their debut album in 1967, the "Light My Fire", which put them at the top of the charts.

Combining Morrison's dark lyricism, his unusual, frenetic theatrical behaviour, with the band's unique, eclectic, psychedelic music, they released successive albums in the following years. They created many songs which became classics by now, such as the "When The Music’s Over", the "The End", the "Break On Trough", the "Roadhouse Blues" and the "Riders On The Storm".

While the band dominated the music world, Morrison's private life and public appearances slowly became out of control.His alcoholism and drug addiction increased at that time, and as a result of his violent theatrical outbursts, dozens of policemen and club owners were angered by him. Like many other rock stars, he has changed the women around himself like others their shoes, but despite of this he had one real love and muse throughout his life, Pamela Courson. They lived in an opened relationship, which was impetuous and rich in loud quarrels.

Due to the series of scandals and deep point in his private life, Morrison became increasingly introvert, and turned to the alcohol for salvation. He was arrested on March 1, 1969, after a concert in Florida for his scandal on the stage.The "Morison Hotel" and the "Absolutely Live" were debuted in the year of 1970, and on his 27th birthday in the same year he recorded dozes of poems in a studio. The "American Prayer" was created from these recorded poems with the music composed by the other members of the band, which debuted in 1978.

Jim was found dead in his bathtub on July 3, 1971, and according to the announcement of the police his death was caused by a heart attack. Because of that the news of his death was released only a few days later for the public,the circumstances of his death led to many speculations: there are many people who believe he was killed by the CIA, but many believe he has just staged his death and has been living happily and lonely ever since. Morison was buried in the Pere-Lachaise Cementry in Paris, and his tomb is a pilgrimage site for fans nowadays.

Cobain had a pretty hard life since his childhood. He left his home in 1982 when he was only fifteen years old, and he migrated from one of his relatives to another to find intermittent accommodations. Kurt slept under bridges or in waiting rooms not once. He abandoned the school and started going to punk concerts, and became an ancillary of the band Melvins. He formed a band called Fecal Matters in the year of 1985, and a few months later he formed the Nirvana with the bassist Krist Novoselic.

The Nirvana recorded its first album, the "Bleach", within three days in 1989, and they spent $ 60,617 for the recording which funds were paid by Jason Everman. Everman became acquainted with the Nirvana by one of Cobain’s best friends and after he spent more and more time with the band, he offered to lend the amount needed to the record.The release of their most popular hit, the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in 1991, signalled the dramatic shift in the mainstream rock from popular trends of the 1980s to grunge and alternative rock.

The breakthrough in the career of the band and that of the grunge style became presentable due to their album "Nevermind", which debuted in 1991. The album, which also included the great song "Smells Like Teen Spirit", led the chart of Billboard and it has sold over 30 million copies to this day. Of this huge volume, only 10.6 million were sold in the US, and it is regularly ranked among the best albums of the world.

The music media referred directly to the song as an anthem of the current generation worldwide, making Cobain unwittingly a spokesman for Generation X.In addition to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" the "Come as You Are"," Lithium", "In Bloom", "Heart-Shaped Box", "All Apologies" and "About a Girl" are still generational songs.

In the last few years of his life the singer became addicted to drugs, and moreover he had to deal with the media, which encroached to the private life of his wife, Courtney Love. The drugsbrought his extremely depressive traits to the surface, and he escaped from rehabilitation and hid for a long time.Finally, on April 5, 1994, he was found in his house, in Seattle, but he was already dead four days ago. The authorities have officially labelled suicide as the cause of death, under the influence of drugs he shot himself into the head. However, the circumstances surrounding his deathhave been the subjects of discussions ever since.

James Marshall Hendrix, the legendary guitarist, who died young and was probably the greatest talent in rock history, was born on November 27, 1942, in Seattle. He died at the age of 28 on September 18, 1970, in London.What lies between these two dates are one of the most exciting, beautiful, and tragic chapters in the rock history.

The Afro-American musician, who had partly Native-American origin, has been accompanying the performances of the stars and soloists of that time, since 1963. We can found him with B. B. King, Little Richard and Wilson Picket, and also in the band of Isley Brothers. After a while a manager named Chas Chandler, the bassist of the Animals has noticed him and took him to London. Chandler accreted a band for him there including the guitarist Noel Redding and the drummer Mitch Mitchell. In this way they formed the band Jimmy Hendrix Experience and their debut performance took place at the Paris Olympics stage.

His first big songs, the "Hey Joe" and the "Purple Haze" got out in 1967, which gave the starter impetus to the musician to achieve real success. He managed to impress everyone with his brilliant jazz technique that no one has ever been able to provide to the audience. Besides of this, using the so-called wah-wah pedal, he also evoked unusual sounds in his music. He used pyrotechnic tricks in his stage performances as well as playing with his teeth on the guitar, thus conjured better sounds from the instrument.

The year of 1968 was one of the most successful years of his career, when he released two gold albums, the "Axis Bold As Love" and the "Electric Ladyland". For a fact, the cover of the latter album originally featured by pictures of naked women, but they had to be replaced by a pure brown background.

Hendrix soon became a superstar,but meanwhile the pleasurablebenefits that came with it, dangerous problems had also grown in his life: he became a drug addict. In the final phase of his life, at a concert in the Federal Republic of Germany, he played very confused in the first part of the show, but after he gave himself the right dose at the backstage he returned and amazed his audience with the virtuosity of the original Jimmy. In 1969 he impressed half million people in Woodstock in the same way and wrote the brightest pages in the book of rock history.

On New Year's Eve of the same year he gave a concert on New York's Filmore East stage, accompanied by Buddy Miles drummer and bassist Billy Cox. The music of the show released in the album named "Band Of Gypsies".

He performed at the Wright Island Festival in August 1970, and then one month later he was found dead in his hotel room, in London. As it turned out, a mass of drugs and sleeping pills were found in his body, which made him fall asleep forever. We can find a variety of special music in his albums, including jazz, blues, soul and hard rock. He is also known as the creator of heavy metal due to his blues-based hard music.

Janis Joplin was born on January 19, 1943, and she was the greatest female blues singer. To be faithful to her later slogan, which sounds like "Live fast, love hard and die young", she moved away from home at a young age, where she had a good but boring life, surrounded by her totally usual family.

She got around the United States between 1961 and 1966, earned her income from casual works and also went to college for a while in this phase of her life. Later, she sang country and blues music, Bessie Smith and Leadbelly songs accompanied by a bluegrass band.

In the year of 1966 she became a member of the band Big Brother And The Holding Company in San Francisco. In the following year they performed at the Monterey Pop Festival, where Joplin emerged from the other singers with her hoarse blues voice. Their debut album, the "Big Brother And The Holding Company", was a big success. The band toured with the greatest musicians on the West Coast many times. Their music blends the styles of soul, blues and the early hard rock.

In 1968 Albert Grossman, who was the talented manager of Bob Dylan, started to patronize Joplin. In the same year their second album, the "Cheap Trills", has been released, featuring the musicians and Joplin as elements of a puzzle game on its cover. The short but more advanced career of Joplin began whit this great album and her concerts were always in a good mood.She liked to shake the tension against social expectations in her performances, for example once she appeared on the stage accompanied by two menand declared that she could love two men at the same time.

Despite the popularity of the band, Joplin left them, and started her own career. She was accompanied by the guitarist of the band, Sam Andrew, throughout her solo career.

She could not celebrate the debut of her next album, which was also rock historical significance. Due to her lifestyle Joplin consumed more than a bottle of Whiskey and drugs, mostly heroin, every day, therefore on October 4, 1970, the 27 years old American singer, the blues legend passed away. Just the day before her death, she recorded her last song of his life, "Me And Bobby McGee" by Kriss Kristofferson.

Her $ 2000 property, which remained after her death, had been utilized for make a party by her bandmates to her memory, in accordance with her will. As she desired, her ashes were flown to the Pacific Ocean instead of burial. She was the admired female figure of the hippy culture, and after her death she finally became a symbol of this lifestyle.

Amy Jade Winehouse was born on September 14, 1983, in London. It is perhaps not an exaggeration to say that Amy Winehouse was one of the most successful female singers of all time. Her talent was noticed very early in her childhood by her grandmother who persuaded the parents to enrol the child into a music school.

Her first album "Frank", which debuted in 2003, was nominated for Mercury Award. The singer has been assigned for two Ivor Novello awards, firstly in 2004 for her song "Stronger than Me" and the other in May 2007 for her first single plate "Rehab" on her Back to Black album. She won the love of the audience and caught the attention of the critics with her jazz-like first album. Amy's style combines the soul and jazz music, as well as the nature of rhythm and blues.

Throughout her career, the media has been very intense about her private life. She could never overcome the fact that her father had left the family at her young age thus Amy had eating problems and bipolar disorder. She met with Blake Fielder-Civil in a Camden pub, who was five years older than herself and with whom she married in 2007. Blake has always had troubles like serious assault or theft, and he introduced the singer to crack and heroin and played a part in her becoming addicted to alcohol.

Amy Winehouse's second and final studio album, the "Back to Black", was released in 2006.It includes hits such as "Tears Dry on their Own" or "Rehab", which made her worldwide famous and led the charts for weeks. For a factthe latter track has hundreds of adaptations for today.The album is about love, drugs, addiction and the love war, and the singer won five Grammy Awards for it. We cannot find jazz-like songs on the album Back to Black anymore but the sounds of girl group, Motown and Stax are dominating just like in the 60’s, of course, neatly blended with modern, contemporary elements.

She first went to a rehabilitation in 2008 and then in January 2009, but she escaped several times.Her husband went to jail several times which was a very sensitive point for Amy. Her concerts during this period were wretched, she was visibly stunned, forgot her lyrics, and could not sing some voices and even the microphone fell out of her hand.

On July 23, 2011, Amy was found dead at her home in London.No drugs were found in Amy's apartment, and one of her neighbours said she heard screaming and yelling at dawn. In contrast the forensic medical examination said that the cause of death was alcohol poisoning. Due toher strong attachment to London's famous Camden Town market, in 2014 a sculpture was set for Amy in the borough. Lots of fans were present from all over the world on the inauguration event of the statue to commemorate the beloved singer together.

Donát Novák

March 2020