Joey Ramone

popular name: Yma Sumac

date_of_death: November 1, 2008

age: 86

cause_of_death: Colon cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Yma Sumac (pronounced Eema) was a Peruvian coloratura soprano who was one of the most famous exponents of exotica music during the 1950s. Sumac became an international success based on her extreme vocal range. It was often reported that she had five octave vocal range. However at the peak of her singing career recordings document closer to a four-and-a-half octave range. Impressive given that even the most classically trained vocalist might reach a range of three octaves on a good day.

popular name: Johnny Burnette

date_of_death: August 14, 1964

age: 30

cause_of_death: Drowning

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: The Burnette brothers, Dorsey and Johnny, are best remembered for their seminal rockabilly recordings for Coral in the mid-1950s. With lead guitarist Paul Burlison and brother Dorsey, Johnny Burnette founded the pioneering, but largely overlooked rockabilly group the Johnny Burnette Rock 'n' Roll Trio in the early 50s. And while they never enjoyed national acclaim like their good friend Elvis Presley, the group produced some of the wildest rockabilly of the era.

popular name: Cootie Williams

date_of_death: September 15, 1985

age: 74

cause_of_death: Kidney disease

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Cootie Williams was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter who is best remembered for his tenure with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Cootie first played professionally with the Young Family Band (which included the future tenor sax superstar Lester Young) when he was 14. In his later teens, he settled in New York and worked with James P. Johnson, Chick Webb, and Fletcher Henderson. Joining the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1929, among the hundreds of Ellington recordings on which he is featured, the “miniature concertos” “Echoes of Harlem” and “Concerto for Cootie” are especially noted; he also led a small ensemble of fellow Ellington band members, Cootie Williams and His Rug Cutters, on outstanding recordings. Williams left Ellington in 1940 and spent a year in Benny Goodman’s band. In the face of the general decline of the big band business, he led a big band for much of the 1940s and rhythm-and-blues units after that. He rejoined Ellington in 1962; by then he was a somewhat coarser but no less dramatic player. After Duke’s death he played in the Mercer Ellington band into the 1970s.