Elvin Shepherd

popular name: T-Bone Walker

date_of_death: March 16, 1975

age: 64

cause_of_death: Bronchial pneumonia

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Infusing the blues with an electrifying, yet, sophisticated uptown flavor, T-Bone Walker was the driving force that redirected the course of the blues - moving it from juke joints and roadhouses to swank nightclubs and theaters. Favoring hot swing rhythms with a big band accompaniment, Walker seamlessly blended jazz and Texas blues to become a seminal figure in the development of rock 'n' roll. In his youth, a 10-year-old T-Bone was called upon to work as lead boy to Blind Lemon Jefferson through the rough neighborhoods of Dallas. In exchange Jefferson taught the young boy the basics of blues guitar. In the fall of 1942 Walker got the chance to record his electric guitar when he cut "I Got a Break Baby" and "Mean Old World" on Capital Records. His biggest hit, "Call it Stormy Monday" was issued in 1947 and made him a household name. In the 1960s, when blues began to lose it's popularity, Walker toured Europe with such legends as Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, John Lee Hooker and Memphis Slim. After 50 years on the road the effects of drinking, gambling, ulcers and arthritis all took their toll and he died of a stroke-induced pneumonia at the age of 64.

popular name: Sun Ra

date_of_death: May 30, 1993

age: 79

cause_of_death: Cumulative effects of congestive heart failure, respiratory failure, and multiple strokes

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: With over 200 albums over his 6 decade career, Sun Ra was revered in Europe as a genius and staged hundreds of concerts, at times with a nearly 100-piece orchestra. Taking the stage with his Arkestra members wearing wild costumes and flowing cloaks, concerts would include extended percussion jams, poetry, light shows, dancers and wicked progressive jazz. In later years the Arkestra, with Ra's eccentric piano style, began to re- create Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington and Jimmy Lunceford jazz classics of the Thirties amongst its more contemporary works to remain somewhat commercially relevant.

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.