Joey Ramone

popular name: Nat King Cole

date_of_death: February 15, 1965

age: 45

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Nat King Cole, was a phenomanel jazz pianist, singer and national treasure. He first rose to fame as the leader of the Nat King Cole Trio which became the model for small jazz ensembles that followed. He transitioned into more mainstream musical stylings where he recorded over 100 songs that became hits on the pop charts. He later was the first African-American man to host his own television series but died only two months after going in for treatment for stage 4 lung cancer.

popular name: Horace Heidt

date_of_death: December 1, 1986

age: 85

cause_of_death: Pneumonia

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Horace Heidt was an American pianist, big band leader, and radio and television personality. His band, Horace Heidt and his Musical Knights, toured vaudeville and performed on radio and television during the 1930s and 1940s. As leader of the Musical Knights, Mr. Heidt was the host of talent shows on radio and television and was credited with helping the careers of Art Carney, Joel MacRae, trumpeter Al Hirt and the King Sisters. His band recorded such hits as ''I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire,'' ''Deep in the Heart of Texas,'' ''Ti-Pi-Tin,'' ''The Hut Sut Song,'' ''Little Sir Echo,'' ''The Pennsylvania Polka'' and ''Heigh Ho.'' He is also credited with devising the first radio show to conduct ad-lib interviews with an audience, called ''Answers by the Dancers.'' It got started in 1932 when a microphone from the bandstand fell to the dance floor. Mr. Heidt jumped down, grabbed the mike and began chatting up the audience.

popular name: Alain Bashung

date_of_death: March 14, 2009

age: 61

cause_of_death: Lung cancer

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Alain Bashung was a French singer, songwriter and actor credited with reviving the French chanson in "a time of French musical turmoil" and was one of the most influential and admired French singer/songwriters of the last 40 years. His songs were heavily influenced by American blues and rock, but he belonged to the world of Parisian chanson, inheriting the tradition of Charles Trenet, Georges Brassens and Serge Gainsbourg. He is often regarded in his home country as the most important French rock musician after Serge Gainsbourg. He rose to prominence in the early 1980s with hit songs such as "Gaby oh Gaby" and "Vertige de l'amour", and later had a string of hit records from the 1990s onward, such as "Osez Joséphine", "Ma petite entreprise" and "La nuit je mens". He has had an influence on many later French artists, and is the most awarded artist in the Victoires de la Musique history with 12 victories obtained throughout his career. Bashung died at age 61 after a two-year battle with lung cancer.