Joey Ramone

popular name: Aaliyah

date_of_death: August 25, 2001

age: 22

cause_of_death: Blunt force trauma (airplane crash)

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: In her heyday, it seemed like the Grammy-nominated singer was destined for a long career, having made the leap from music to modeling and acting. But sadly that career ended suddenly when she died in a tragically, yet totally preventable, plane crash in the Bahamas in 2001.

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: Bunny Berigan

date_of_death: June 2, 1942

age: 33

cause_of_death: Cirrhosis of the liver

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Bunny Berigan was an American jazz trumpeter and bandleader who rose to fame during the swing era of the 1930s and early 40s. Although he composed some jazz instrumentals such as "Chicken and Waffles" and "Blues", Berigan was best known for his virtuoso jazz trumpeting, successfully fuse the nuanced tonal palette of Bix Beiderbecke with the bravura power of Louis Armstrong. A tall handsome dark-haired Irishman, Berigan was a charming, popular and charismatic performer deeply adored by his fans and admired by fellow musicians. The road to fame was long and hard for Berigan. He labored in less than stellar ensembles during his early years, grinding out distracted dance music in hotel orchestras at uninspiring residencies. But starting around 1930 there was growing demand for his gifts from the Dorsey Brothers, the Boswell Sisters, Paul Whiteman, Red Norvo, Artie Shaw, Bing Crosby, the CBS and NBC radio networks and the Columbia, Vocalion, Decca, Victor and Brunswick record companies. More than 600 surviving records, transcriptions and airchecks are evidence of Berigan’s brilliant gift for making a song his own. Playing the trumpet equally well from the bottom to the top of its range, his horn soared above the finest bands of the Swing era, gracing the biggest hits of Glenn Miller, Billie Holiday, Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey. His 1937 classic recording "I Can't Get Started" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1975 and he was inducted in the ASCAP Jazz Wall of Fame in 2008.