Joey Ramone

popular name: Del Shannon

date_of_death: February 8, 1990

age: 55

cause_of_death: Self-inflicted gunshot wound

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: His heyday as a chart-friendly star in the U.S. may have been brief, but on the strength of his biggest hit "Runaway" Del Shannon deserves to be regarded as a rock and roll legend. In 1999 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

popular name: Brent Mydland

date_of_death: July 26, 1990

age: 37

cause_of_death: Drug overdose - acute cocaine and morphine intoxication ("speedball")

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Brent Mydland was a talented keyboardist, vocalist, and songwriter best remembered as a member of The Grateful Dead from 1979 to 1990, a longer tenure than any other keyboardist (aka The Hot Seat) in the band. No previous keyboard player contributed any enduring original songs to the Dead’s repertoire. Brent immediately made his impact felt with the songs “Far From Me” and “Easy to Love You,” which appeared on the Grateful Dead’s 1980 album “Go to Heaven,” released almost exactly a year after he joined the band. On 1987’s “In the Dark,” Brent brought “Tons of Steel” to the table, and he co-wrote the house rocker that opened many an ‘80s show, “Hell in a Bucket,” with Bob Weir and frequent collaborator John Perry Barlow.

popular name: Sam Phillips

date_of_death: July 30, 2003

age: 80

cause_of_death: Respiratory failure

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Sam Phillips was one of the true musical pioneers of the 20th century. A man who redefined the cultural landscape by producing and engineering local talent in his modest studio and distributing the results on his own Sun Records label. And while he may have only had moderate results with such discoveries as Johnny Cash, Howlin' Wolf, BB King and Roy Orbison, he became a legend recording and producing Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and, of course, Elvis Presley. In the end, Sam was one of the main people responsible for breaking down the barriers between white and black music, melding country with blues, and creating the genre that we now refer to as rock & roll.