Money can't buy life- Bob Marley ~ Chasing the dreams

Couple of weeks ago my sister wanted me to recommend some interesting topics for a research she has to make in her school. As she is very fond of music, I thought automatically that it should somehow be connected to it. But my sister likes classical music. So I figured she should do a research about the music she does not know much of. Rock music or something like that. My kind of music....
I had just read from one article in the newspapers about the "27 club" which was about musicians who never got older than 27. Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain and some more. When I thought about the topic I thought my sis should do a research about famous musicians who died from unnatural deaths like drug abuse or alcohol or committed suicide. There are loads of them and I could have counted many already to her as I know a lot about it.
So today I found out that my sister decided to do a research about this topic. She told me she needed a bit help because she didn't know many. My mom started counting some people and I added some more. Then I told I will look into my "Guitar Gods" book because I could get a lot of names from there. I got into this thing very much today. I started making a list about famous musicians who didn't die the natural way.... I googled and found many similar lists. And oh, there were so many people. I already knew pretty many people who died of drug abuse, because I listen to rock music, and that's the music style where people involved with it, die the most. It is scary and horrifying to make such lists but at the same time it's so damn interesting. I found out so many interesting things about bands and people.

So.... I will share the list I created in here, too. To some names, I will add the band names. To some names I will add the names of the autobiographical movies I have seen and can recommend....

I will start with the most important musicians to me.

Buddy Holly- died in an airplane crash on the 2nd of February 1959 (The so called "Day that the music died), The movie to watch is "The Buddy Holly Story".
Ritchie Valens - died in the same airplane crash, The movie to watch is "La Bamba"
The Big Bopper- died in the same airplane crash
Jimi Hendrix- drowned into his own vomit, the cause was drinking and drugs, conspiracy theories say that he might have been murdered or drowned in a wine(I have seen some kind of documentary about one conspiracy theory, can't recall the name of it)
Kurt Cobain- killed himself in 1994, some people say that he got into this mental stage because of his wife Courtney Love, also some conspiracy theories suggest that he was too high on drugs to kill himself
Jim Morrison- The singer of The Doors, died in the bath of his home, his girlfriend found him, the movie to watch is "The Doors"
Hillel Slovak- The guitarist of The Red Hot Chili Peppers, died of drug abuse, the book to read is "Scar Tissue" which is the autobiography of Anthony Kiedis
Ian Curtis - The singer of Joy Division, hung himself, the movie to watch is "Control"
Jeff Buckley- drowned in 1997
Tim Buckley- died of drug abuse
Eddie Cochran- died in a car accident in London in 1960 soon after releasing a song "Three stars" dedicated to Buddy, Ritchie and Big Bopper
Brian Jones- The Rolling Stones, drowned at his pool, probably killed by the main builder of his house, The movie to watch is "Stoned"
Nick Drake- died of the abuse of antidepressants, probably killed himself, suffered from depression during his life
Dennis Wilson- The Beach Boys, drowned
Gene Vincent- died of alcohol consumption
Sid Vicious- Sex Pistols, died of drug abuse
Bon Scott- AC/DC, died of alcohol consumption
Elvis Presley- died of drug abuse
Freddie Mercury- Queen, died of AIDS the day after he revealed he had the disease
John Lennon- The Beatles, murdered, there are a lot of books made about it, I have read "Outspoken about Lennon" (I hope this is the translation)
John Bonham- Led Zeppelin, died of alcohol consumption
Johnny Cash- died of the complications of diabetes, probably also because of the grief over the death of his wife couple of months earlies, movie to watch is "Walk the line"
Keith Moon- The Who, died of drug abuse
Bob Marley- died of cancer (although he doesn't fit into this list that well, I think I should put him here, because his death was a tragedy and actually unnatural, too. Not caused by himself or anybody else, but still violent.)
George Harrison- The Beatles, died of lung cancer (just to respect the man who wrote such amazing songs as "While my guitar gently weeps" and "Here comes the sun")
Janis Joplin- the overdose of heroin
Michael Jackson- the overdose of medical treatment (I had to put him to the part where are important people to me; the man is just a legend)
Blind Lemon Jefferson- froze to death/suffered from a heart attack at the back seat of his car (the cause of death unsure)

Now I will just count some more people whose names I got from different lists and my book. In the beginning are the names whose way of death had the biggest effect to me- either surprising or shocking or who used to be in the bands I admire.

Stuart Sutcliffe- The Beatles (was 2 years in the band, the so-called 5th Beatle), died of cerebral hemorrage
Carlton Barret- The Wailers, murdered
Peter Tosh- The Wailers, murdered
Mike Bloomfield- drug abuse
Clarence White- The Byrds, Kentucky Colonels- was killed by a drunk driver
Gram Parsons- The Byrds- died of drug abuse
Michael Hutchence- INXS, committed suicide
Pete de Freitas- Echo & The Bunnymen, died in a motorcycle accident

The shocking deaths to me:

Ronnie van Zant- Lynyrd Skynyrd, died in an airplane crash
Cassie Gaines- Lynyrd Skynyrd, died in the same accident
Steven Gaines- Lynyrd Skynyrd, died in the same accident
Allen Collins- Lynyrd Skynyrd, died of pneumonia
Keith Relf- The Yardbirds, was electrocuted
Robert Johnson- was poisoned with strychnine

Just some more deaths that I wrote up:

James Honeyman- The Pretenders, died of drug abuse
Pete Farndon- The Pretenders, died of drug abuse
Marvin Gaye- murdered
Cliff Burton- Metallica, died in a car accident
Aaliyah- died in a plane crash
Ike Turner- Rhythm Kings, Ike&Tina Turner, died of cocain overdose
Eddie Hazel- Funkadelic, died of internal bleeding and liver failure
Barrie B.J. Wilson- Procol Harum, died in a car accident
Paul Williams- The Temptations, suicide
David Ruffin- The Temptations, died of drug abuse
Gary Thain- Uriah Heep, died of drug abuse
Randy Rhoads- Quiet Riot, Ozzy Osbourne, died in a plane crash
Jonathan Melvoin- The Smashing Pumpkins, died of drug abuse
Gregory Herbert- Blood, Sweat and Tears, died of drug abuse
Paul Kossoff- Free, died of a heart attack caused by drug abuse
Charlie Christian- died of drug abuse
Jerry Garcia- Grateful Dead, died heart failure caused by heroin abuse
Guitar Slim- died of alcohol consumption
Karen Carpenter- The Carpenters, anorexia
Duane Allman- Allman Joys/Hour Glass, died in a motorbike accident
Stevie Ray Vaughan- Double Trouble, died in a helicopter accident

Of course, this is a small list of famous musicians who have died tragically.
Here are the links to the places I got most of the names from. There are many more names.....

http://www.av1611.org/rockdead.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club

http://www.classicbands.com/heaven.html