Joey Ramone

popular name: Lightnin' Hopkins

date_of_death: January 30, 1982

age: 69

cause_of_death: Esophageal cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Sam Lightnin' Hopkins began his blues trail as Blind Lemon Jefferson's guide before spending 30 years on the weekend juke joint circuit. As a soloist who loved to drink, smoke, gamble, fight and chase women, Hopkins had the scars from the prison leg irons of which he sang. Before his death he recorded over 80 albums and Rolling Stone magazine included Hopkins at number 71 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time.

popular name: Richard Street

date_of_death: February 27, 2013

age: 70

cause_of_death: Pulmonary embolism

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Richard Street was an American soul and R&B singer, most notable as a member of Motown vocal group The Temptations from 1971 to 1993. Street was the lead singer of an early Temptations predecessor, Otis Williams & the Distants, and takes the spotlight on their local hit "Come On". The Distants also included future Temptations Otis Williams, Melvin Franklin and Elbridge "Al" Bryant. By the late-1960s, Street was being called upon to travel with The Temptations and sing Paul Williams' parts from off-stage, while Paul Williams, who suffered from both alcoholism and sickle-cell disease, danced and lip-synched onstage. Street officially replaced Paul Williams in mid-1971, after both he and Eddie Kendricks left the group. A number of the Temptations' best-selling hits feature Street's lead vocals, including "Superstar (Remember How You Got Where You Are)" (1971), "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" (1972), "Masterpiece" (1973), and was featured solo on "Hey Girl (I Like Your Style)" (1973) as well as the album cuts "The First Time I Saw Your Face" and "Firefly" from the All Directions (1972) and A Song for You albums (1975), respectively. Street and Damon Harris traded leads on "1990"'s tune "Heavenly". At the time of his death, Street was completing his autobiography, Ball of Confusion. Completed by his co-author, Gary Flanigan, Ball of Confusion: My Life as a Temptin' Temptation was published in 2014.

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.