Johann Strauss ll

popular name: Adolph Rickenbacker

date_of_death: March 21, 1976

age: 88

cause_of_death: Cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Adolph Rickenbacker was a Swiss-American remembered as one of the co-founders of the Rickenbacker guitar, and one of the key people who was responsible for the creation and adoption of electric guitars that managed to change the shape and sound of the modern music industry altogether. The Rickenbacker International Corporation (RIC) grew out of the first company founded for the sole purpose of creating and manufacturing fully electric musical instruments and amplifiers-the Los Angeles-based Electro String Instrument Corporation. Founded in 1931 by Adolph Rickenbacker and George D. Beauchamp, this pioneering firm produced "Rickenbacker Electro Instruments", the first modern electric guitars. RIC's history now spans 92 years in business on the leading edge of music trends that have changed popular culture forever. Played by Hawaiian musicians of the 1930s to jazz bassists of the 1990s, by the Beatles the Byrds and Tom Petty (to name just a few) the ringing sound of Rickenbacker instruments has helped define music as we know it today.

popular name: Franz Schubert

date_of_death: November 19, 1828

age: 31

cause_of_death: Bacterial typhoid infection brought on by tertiary syphilis

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Franz Schubert was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include "Erlkönig" (D. 328), the Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout Quintet), the Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759 (Unfinished Symphony), the "Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, the String Quintet (D. 956), the three last piano sonatas (D. 958–960), the opera Fierrabras (D. 796), the incidental music to the play Rosamunde (D. 797), and the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795) and Winterreise (D. 911). He gave a concert of his works to critical acclaim in March 1828, the only time he did so in his career. He died eight months later at the age of 31, the cause officially attributed to typhoid fever caused by a long-standing infection of tertiary syphilis. Appreciation of Schubert's music while he was alive was limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased greatly in the decades following his death. Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and other 19th-century composers discovered and championed his works. Today, Schubert is ranked among the greatest composers in the history of Western classical music.

popular name: Richard Berry

date_of_death: January 24, 1997

age: 61

cause_of_death: Aneurysm complications

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Richard Berry's contribution to the world of music does not include a discussion of tonality or form; he did not conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he didn't invent a new form of music and he never had a #1 hit record. Rather Richard Berry wrote and recorded a simple but indelible three-chord, famously slurred song that encouraged even the most tone deaf among us to sing along. Richard Berry wrote what has become the cornerstone of rock 'n' roll. Richard Berry wrote "Louie, Louie". Richard is buried at Inglewood Memorial Park in Inglewood, California.