Joey Ramone

popular name: Brian Jones

date_of_death: July 3, 1969

age: 27

cause_of_death: Homicide - drowning (disputed)

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Long-time Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman said of Brian Jones, "He formed the band. He chose the members. He named the band. He chose the music we played. He got us gigs. ... he was very influential, very important, and then slowly lost it – highly intelligent – and just kind of wasted it and blew it all away. Best known as the founder and original leader of the Rolling Stones Brian Jones, initially a slide guitarist, went on to play a wide variety of instruments on Rolling Stones recordings and in concerts, including rhythm guitar, lead guitar, sitar, dulcimer, various keyboard instruments such as piano. After he was dismissed from his own band, he died tragically in the former A. A. Milne estate when he was murdered (disputed) in the swimming pool.

popular name: Lucio Dalla

date_of_death: March 1, 2012

age: 68

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Lucio Dalla was a popular Italian singer-songwriter, musician and actor who belonged to a genre of Italian songwriters known as “cantautori,” whose lyrics gave voice to the aspirations and frustrations of a postwar generation seeking societal change. Even at a young age he was playing professionally and at 16 he performed with Chet Baker, the American jazz trumpeter, whom he credited as one of his main influences. However it wasn't until 1971 when he catapulted to fame with a series of albums that sold well and drew critical acclaim. One of his best-known songs, “Caruso,” sold millions of copies and has been recorded by a long list of singers including Julio Iglesias, Luciano Pavarotti and Josh Groban. Dalla’s popularity continued and spanned decades and even the month before his death, he participated in the San Remo Festival of Italian song, a popular competition. In addition to his own albums, Dalla also composed songs for famous Italian film directors such as Mario Monicelli, Michelangelo Antonioni, Pupi Avati, Carlo Verdone and Michele Placido. He also wrote an opera inspired by Puccini’s Tosca. Interested in all forms of art, Dalla was also the curator of a contemporary art gallery in Bologna.

popular name: France Gall

date_of_death: January 7, 2018

age: 70

cause_of_death: Severe infection complicated by cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: France Gall was a French yé-yé singer who first rose to fame in 1965 when, at the age of 17, she won the Eurovision Song Contest for Luxembourg. What little did she know at the time was the song that she won the Eurovision Song Contest, Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son, was later adapted for the song My Way made famous by Frank Sinatra. Between 1973 and 1992 she collaborated with singer-songwriter Michel Berger who she later married. Although she had a long and successful career, it wasn't without it's troubles and tragedies. Serge Gainsbourg later plunged Gall into controversy when she had a massive hit with his sexually suggestive song, Les Sucettes (Lollipops), complete with promotional images of her dressed in a skimpy bikini and licking a lollypop. She said later she had been too young to understand the double entendre of the lyrics, and refused either to perform it or to work with Gainsbourg again. She had another major international hit in 1987 with the album Babacar – including the song Ella, elle l’a, her tribute to Ella Fitzgerald – with music and lyrics by her husband and musical partner Michel Berger, who died in 1992 aged 44. She retired from recording and performing in 1997, following the death from cystic fibrosis of their eldest child, Pauline. She devoted herself largely to humanitarian work until a comeback performance in a 2015 stage show based on her and her husband’s songs.