Joey Ramone

popular name: Big Mama Thornton

date_of_death: July 25, 1985

age: 57

cause_of_death: Heart and liver disorders due to longstanding alcohol abuse

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Janis Joplin called her one of her inspirations and Living Blues magazine described her as "two hundred pounds of boogaloo." Of course, fans and musicians alike just called her Big Mama Thornton. An aggressive blues shouter, who also played the drums and a biting country-style harmonica, Miss Thornton helped bring to rock-and-roll the legacy of such seminal blues singers as Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Memphis Minnie. A major influence on younger blues and soul singers, including Janis Joplin and Aretha Franklin, her growling, visceral rendition of the Jerry Leiber- Mike Stoller song ''Hound Dog'' directly influenced Presley's version, which became a No. 1 pop hit in 1956. Miss Thornton's own song ''Ball and Chain'' became a signature for Janis Joplin in 1968. A rhythm-and-blues singer and songwriter from Alabama, Thornton was the first to record Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog" in 1952, which became her biggest hit staying seven weeks at number one on the Billboard R&B chart and selling almost two million copies. Thornton's other recordings included the original version of "Ball and Chain", which she wrote. Stop me if you heard this story but this phenomenal blues artist died penniless in a small Los Angeles boarding house near the airport and now shares a grave with two other family members.

popular name: Louis Prima

date_of_death: August 24, 1978

age: 67

cause_of_death: Cerebral hemorrhage followed by a 3 year waking coma

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Proud son of Italian immigrants and a talented band leader, trumpter, composer and singer Louis Prima developed his talent earning the title "King of the Vegas Lounges" and "The Wildest Act in Las Vegas." With poker-faced Keely Smith's cool image and melodic vocals coupled with Prima's inspired clowning and factured Italian dialect scat singer augmented by the backing band of Sam Butera and the Witnesses, Prima would wail wildly into the wee hours of the morning.

popular name: Bessie Smith

date_of_death: September 26, 1937

age: 43

cause_of_death: Severe internal injuries to the entire right side of her body due to car collision

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: The first major blues and jazz singer on record and one of the most powerful voices of all time, Bessie Smith rightly earned the title of "The Empress of the Blues." Bessie Smith was a rough, crude, violent womanl who was also the greatest of the classic Blues singers of the 1920s. The pioneering singer influenced blues, jazz, rock and beyond with her powerful voice and inventive delivery. During her career Bessie recorded 160 singles for Columbia Records and was often accompanied by the finest musicians of the day, notably Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Fletcher Henderson, James P. Johnson, Joe Smith, and Charlie Green. A number of Smith's recordings—such as "Alexander's Ragtime Band" in 1927—quickly became among the best-selling records of their release years. Bessie Smith, the Empress of the Blues, who toured the country in her own 72-foot custom-built railroad car sold hundreds of thousands of records, and was the highest-paid black entertainer of the 1920s. Bessie's first contract with Columbia paid $125 per releasable recording. But in April 1923, her new 8-year contract gave her $1,500 up front plus increased the amount paid for each record to $150. Between 1923 and 1931, Bessie recorded 160 songs and became one of Columbia's best-selling artists. But if that sounds like a lot of money, Smith's version of "Downhearted Blues" sold a reported 780,000 copies in 1923.