In April, for the first time in ages, I am going to a wedding. At least it will make a change from all the funerals. The middle-aged pop fan feels this all the more deeply, because few of our favourite musicians seem to make old bones. Or, more accurately, they make old bones, but at three or four times the speed that everyone else does.
Some of these rock deaths are relatively mundane: falling down stairs (Sandy Denny), car crashing into a tree (Marc Bolan), ski-ing into a tree (Sonny Bono). Others are bizarre. It was Chicago’s guitarist Terry Kath, of course, whose career came to a premature end during a boozy game of Russian roulette. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘it’s not loaded.’ Jim Morrison was always thought to have breathed his last in the bath, but it now seems to be widely accepted that the mighty drugs hoover overdosed in a nightclub, and various friends and acquaintances carried him back to his hotel room under cover of darkness. Half a dozen years later, the French singer Claude François really did die in the bath. The lightbulb was flickering so he decided to change it. On balance, he probably should have got out of the bath first.
These, though, are familiar and much- loved tales from the golden age of ridiculous rock deaths. These days, some musicians actually die of natural causes. And they are pegging out in ever-greater profusion. The recent departure of the Monkees’ Davy Jones (aged 66) swiftly followed that of Whitney Houston (48), which itself seemed to end the long period of mourning for poor little Amy Winehouse (27). Some funerals become a celebration of a life well lived, and you leave feeling faintly cheered, having shared this important ritual with other survivors.
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