Al Jackson Jr.

popular name: Scrapper Blackwell

date_of_death: October 7, 1962

age: 59

cause_of_death: Murdered (solved but no arrest)

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Scrapper Blackwell, together with Leroy Carr are arguably the two most underrated blues musicians of the 1920s and 1930s. What is undeniable is the two together created some of the most recorded blues classics including How Long, How Long Blues, Mean Mistreater Mama and When the Sun Goes Down

popular name: Keith Emerson

date_of_death: March 11, 2016

age: 71

cause_of_death: Self-Inflicted gunshot wound to the head

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Keith Emerson was an English keyboardist, songwriter, and record producer who was perhaps best known as one-third of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. He played keyboards in a number of bands before finding his first commercial success with the Nice in the late 1960s. After leaving the Nice in 1970, he was a founding member of Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP), one of the early progressive rock supergroups. Emerson, Lake & Palmer were commercially successful through much of the 1970s, becoming one of the best-known progressive rock groups of the era. He proved, without a shadow of doubt, that through his work with the Nice and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, who were both able to demonstrate that pop, classical music and jazz could not only co-exist but feed fruitfully off each other. Emerson reached a summit of success with ELP in the early 70s, when the group achieved a string of hit albums including Tarkus and Brain Salad Surgery, exploiting cutting-edge musical technology alongside outrageous showmanship. Emerson was a pioneer in the use of the Moog synthesiser and was the first musician to take the instrument on tour. Emerson remained active with ELP reunions and his own solo material. Suffering from depression, health and marital problems he took his own life at his home in Santa Monica, California.

popular name: Cowboy Copas

date_of_death: March 5, 1963

age: 49

cause_of_death: Plane crash

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Cowboy Copas was an American country music singer who was popular from the 1940s until his death in the 1963 plane crash that also killed country stars Patsy Cline and Hawkshaw Hawkins. In 1943 Copas achieved national fame when he replaced Eddy Arnold as a vocalist in the Pee Wee King band, and began performing on the Grand Ole Opry. His first solo single, "Filipino Baby", released by King Records in 1946, hit number four on the Billboard country chart, and sparked the most successful period of his career. While continuing to appear on the Opry, Copas recorded several other hits during the late 1940s and early 1950s, including "Signed Sealed and Delivered", "The Tennessee Waltz", "Tennessee Moon", "Breeze", "I'm Waltzing with Tears in My Eyes", "Candy Kisses", "Hangman's Boogie", and "The Strange Little Girl". Copas' 1952 single, "'Tis Sweet to Be Remembered", reached number eight on the Billboard country chart, but it was his final top-40 hit for eight years. Although Copas did not maintain his popularity of the late 1940s through the next decade, he continued to perform regularly at the Grand Ole Opry, and appeared on ABC-TV's Ozark Jubilee. After a lackluster partnership with Dot Records, Copas surged to the top of the charts again in 1960 with the biggest hit of his career, "Alabam", which remained number one for three months.