Joey Ramone

popular name: Jimmy Reed

date_of_death: August 29, 1976

age: 50

cause_of_death: Respiratory failure due to epileptic seizure

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Jimmy Reed was an American blues musician and songwriter whose particular style of electric blues was popular with blues as well as non-blues audiences. Reed's songs such as "Honest I Do" (1957), "Baby What You Want Me to Do" (1960), "Big Boss Man" (1961), and "Bright Lights, Big City" (1961) appeared on both Billboard magazine's rhythm and blues and Hot 100 singles charts. In the beginning Reed learned the rudiments of guitar from his friend Eddie Taylor, a far more accomplished guitarist who would serve as Reed’s accompanist for much of his career. By the 1950s, Reed had established himself as a popular musician yet failed to gain a recording contract with Chess Records, but signed with Vee-Jay and began playing again with Eddie Taylor and soon released "You Don't Have to Go", his first hit record. It was followed by a long string of hit songs. Reed maintained his reputation despite his rampant alcoholism; his wife sometimes had to help him remember the lyrics to his songs while recording. In 1957, Reed developed epilepsy, though the condition was not correctly diagnosed for a long time, as Reed and doctors assumed it was delirium tremens. After his death his songs have been covered innumerable times, by artists as diverse as Tina Turner, The Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Etta James, Neil Young and The Righteous Brothers. BMI lists over 30 covers of “Baby What You Want Me to Do” alone, while Elvis Presley chose to sing “Big Boss Man” (one of the few Reed hits that was not from his own pen) on his 1968 television comeback special. Reed was posthumously inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame in 1980 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

popular name: Dave Brockie

date_of_death: March 23, 2014

age: 50

cause_of_death: Heroin overdose

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Dave Brockie was a Canadian-American musician, songwriter, performer and mastermind / lead singer of the heavy metal band GWAR, in which he performed as Oderus Urungus. If you've never seen or heard GWAR, then imagine if KISS had a love child with Alice Cooper using sperm donation from Leatherface from the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And even then you're only at 50% of what GWAR brings to the table. Brockie formed GWAR in 1984 as a joke side project to his Richmond band Death Piggy. With the help of several co-conspirators, the group became an outlet for Brockie's wildly creative and outrageous imagination. Band members dressed in elaborate and grotesque latex costumes, took on stage names (Brockie was known as Oderus Urungus) and created elaborate shows that saw characters eviscerated and audiences spattered with fake blood. After the 1988 debut Hell-O, which leaned in a punk rock direction and was produced by New York institution Mark Kramer, GWAR switched to a more metal-oriented style on the 1990 follow-up, Scumdogs of the Universe. Aided greatly by the heavily-played video for "Sick Of You," the group was quickly embraced by the metal crowd and Scumdogs went on to become the band's biggest-selling album. Exposure on the hit TV series Beavis And Butt-Head only heightened GWAR's profile in the early 1990s, and the band would go on to be a mainstay in the American metal scene for the next two decades.

popular name: Carl Wilson

date_of_death: February 6, 1998

age: 51

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Carl Wilson playing the guitar as a teenager when brothers Brian and Dennis, cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine formed a music group called the Beach Boys in 1961. In addition to guitar Brian's vocals can be heard on Good Vibrations, God Only Knows and Kokomo. After Brian left the group due to drug and mental issues, Carl was the music director and de facto leader of the band up until his death. Upon his passing from lung cancer, the grave of Carl Wilson can be found at Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.