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: Antonio Salieri

date_of_death: May 7, 1825

age: 74

cause_of_death: Effects of dementia caused by a head wound

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Antonio Salieri was an Italian classical composer, conductor, and teacher. Salieri was a pivotal figure in the development of late 18th-century opera. As a student of Florian Leopold Gassmann, and a protégé of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Salieri was a cosmopolitan composer who wrote operas in three languages. Salieri helped to develop and shape many of the features of operatic compositional vocabulary, and his music was a powerful influence on contemporary composers. Appointed the director of the Italian opera by the Habsburg court, a post he held from 1774 until 1792, Salieri dominated Italian-language opera in Vienna. During his career, he also spent time writing works for opera houses in Paris, Rome, and Venice, and his dramatic works were widely performed throughout Europe during his lifetime. Even as his works dropped from performance, and he wrote no new operas after 1804, he still remained one of the most important and sought-after teachers of his generation, and his influence was felt in every aspect of Vienna's musical life. Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Eberl, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart were among the most famous of his pupils. In the last year of his life he struggled with health issues related to a head injury and passed away at the age of 74.

popular name: Jacques Higelin

date_of_death: April 6, 2018

age: 77

cause_of_death: Colorectal cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Jacques Higelin (1940–2018) was a pioneering French singer-songwriter and performer who helped reshape French popular music by blending chanson, rock, jazz, and theatrical performance. He began his career in the 1960s as an actor and avant-garde musician, collaborating with artists such as Brigitte Fontaine and Areski Belkacem on experimental, countercultural projects. In the 1970s, he shifted toward a more energetic rock sound, achieving major success with albums like BBH 75, Irradié, and Champagne pour tout le monde, which established him as a central figure in French rock. Known for his electrifying, improvisational live shows, he reached peak popularity in the 1980s with large-scale concerts and widely celebrated albums, while continuing to evolve artistically in later decades. A fiercely independent and poetic voice, Higelin remained active into the 2010s, releasing his final album in 2016.