Joey Ramone

popular name: Kristen Pfaff

date_of_death: June 16, 1994

age: 27

cause_of_death: Drug overdose - heroin

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Kristen Pfaff came from a family of musicians so it came as no surprise, while attending the University of Minnesota, Kristen played in a number of local groups. In 1991, she joined Janitor Joe as bassist and co-songwriter/vocalist. While on tour with Janitor Joe in 1993, she was recruited by Hole (led by Courtney Love) and moved to Seattle to help write and record the Live Through This album. At the time Seattle was ground zero for the nationwide heroin epidemic Kristen Pfaff wanted to escape Seattle's rock drug culture. Pfaff, 27, was found dead in the bathtub of her Seattle apartment. The moving van in the parking lot was packed and ready for her to move back home.

popular name: Ricky Wilson

date_of_death: October 12, 1985

age: 32

cause_of_death: AIDS related cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: With their bouffant coifs, thrift store fashion and dance-infected retrofitted sound, The B-52's rocked the house in the early 80s by capturing the attentions of the "so what?" generation. Founded by Ricky Wilson and his fellow killer B's, they appropriated everything that was tragically unhip and whipped up (via hook-laden pop songs) an ultra-cool, total fab pop confection. When they recorded their first album, they were picked up by Chris Blackwell of Island Records where they secured airplay and 500,000 in sales with the first two singles - Rock Lobster and Private Idaho. Unfortunately the party came to a halt when Ricky Wilson was diagnosed with AIDS during the recording of Whammy and died two years later. After four years on hiatus, the B-52’s staged a stunning comeback with their hit album Cosmic Thing. In a short time the album climbed to Number Five on the charts and selling 200,000 copies a week. The single “Love Shack” shot up to Number Three and sold over a million copies worldwide. With all that success from one album the band graduated from 1,300 seats in San Francisco’s to 14,000 seats arenas by the end of the tour,

popular name: Bob Wills

date_of_death: May 13, 1975

age: 70

cause_of_death: Complications from a stroke and pneumonia

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Bob Wills was a bandleader, fiddler, singer, and songwriter who is the most famous exponent of the popular musical genre now known as western swing, which synthesized ragtime, traditional fiddling, New Orleans jazz, blues, Mexican songs, and big band swing. Wills, along with his band the Texas Playboys, toured and recorded nonstop throughout the 1940s and early 1950s amassing dozens of hits including "Steel Guitar Rag", "New San Antonio Rose", "Smoke On The Water", "New Spanish Two Step" and "Faded Love." Wills had a heart attack in 1962 and a second one the next year, which forced him to disband the Playboys, although Wills continued to perform solo. He was recording an album with fan Merle Haggard in 1973 when a stroke left him comatose for 17 months until his death in 1975. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Wills and the Texas Playboys in 1999.