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: Jerome Kern

date_of_death: November 11, 1945

age: 60

cause_of_death: Cerebral hemorrhage

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: If he had only written the score for Showboat, Jerome Kern's position as a musical genius would be secure. Instead he also wrote Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, The Way You Look Tonight and countless other songs for Broadway and the movies. Later in life he worked in Hollywood with Dorothy Fields and Johnny Mercer, creating Oscar-winning works with the films Swingtime and Lady Be Good. While in Hollywood Kern wrote hit songs for Dinah Shore, Glenn Miller, Peggy Lee and Bing Crosby. It all came to a sudden end when while walking to rehearsals for a revival of Showboat he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while walking at the corner of Park Avenue and 57th Street. He never regained consciousness and his long-time friend Oscar Hammerstein II remained at his side until his death six days later, all the while humming one of Kern’s favorite songs they had written together, “I’ve Told Ev’ry Little Star”.

popular name: Gene Vincent

date_of_death: October 12, 1971

age: 36

cause_of_death: Combination of a ruptured ulcer, internal haemorrhage and heart failure

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: More threatening than Elvis, wilder than Jerry Lee Lewis and sexier than Buddy Holley, Gene Vincent was the real thing. A swaggering, unrepentant rock 'n' roll singer and guitarist, he represented a dangerous embodiment of the defiant tension that gave birth to rock 'n' roll in the 1950s. While Presley made the transition from a defiant, rebellious rock icon to a bloat Vegas lounge singer, Gene Vincent was, remained, and died a rocker. The grave of Gene Vincent can be found at Eternal Valley Memorial Park in Newhall, California.