King Oliver

popular name: Art Pepper

date_of_death: June 15, 1982

age: 56

cause_of_death: Stroke

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Considered by many to be the the world's great altoist of his generation, Art Pepper was an alto saxophonist anda longtime fixture in West Coast jazz circles. He first started jamming at the age of 13 on Central Avenue (the black nightclub district in South Central L.A. in the 1940s). At the age of 17, he began playing professionally with Benny Carter and then became part of the Stan Kenton orchestra, touring with that band until 1943. After he played primarily with his own group. Despite his addiction to heroin, his substance abuse and legal travails did not affect the quality of his recordings, which maintained a high level of musicianship throughout his career until his death in 1982.

popular name: Felix Pappalardi

date_of_death: April 17, 1983

age: 43

cause_of_death: Homicide - gunshot wound

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Felix Pappalardi was once a big name. Born in The Bronx on Dec. 30, 1939, and classically trained, he’d been a regular among the Greenwich Village folk crowd in the mid-’60s, first as an arranger for singer-songwriters like Tom Paxton and Fred Neil and then producing albums for Joan Baez and the Youngbloods, among others. His big moment came in 1967 when Cream - the rising British blues-rock trio featuring Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker - hired him to produce their second album. Disraeli Gears catapulted Cream onto rock’s A-list and with it Pappalardi. He also produced their Wheels of Fire and Goodbye albums. After his work with Cream he formed the group Mountain and quickly rose to the top with a performance at Woodstock followed by the hit song Mississippi Queen. His career ended very suddenly with a single bullet to the neck when his wife, Gail Collins, shot him dead in the bedroom of their New York City apartment.

popular name: Alan Freed

date_of_death: January 20, 1965

age: 43

cause_of_death: Kidney failure and cirrhosis of the liver

claim_to_fame: Music

best_know_for: Alan Freed was an American disc jockey and Rock and Roll’s first great evangelist and martyr. Freed became associated with the genre on July 11, 1951, when he started hosting a radio show with the purpose of exposing white teenagers to the music. Sponsored by record retailer Leo Mintz, the show was originally called “Freeditorium,” but its host soon adopted the goofy on-air nickname “Moondog” and the show was re-titled “Moondog House.” The playlist featured what was known as “race music” before Billboard magazine renamed it “rhythm and blues” in 1949. The tunes had a heavy beat conducive to dancing but were rarely enjoyed by white audiences prior to Freed. It was not just the music that Freed introduced to the wider world. Freed also produced and promoted large traveling concerts with various acts including Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Bill Haley and the Burnette Brothers helping to spread the importance of rock and roll music throughout North America. Sadly in the early 1960s, Freed's career was destroyed by the payola scandal that hit the broadcasting industry (even thought his fine was a mere $300). A downward spiral began with the legal fees from the scandal that forced him into bankruptcy, chain smoking, heavy drinking, unemployment, tax evasion charges and internal injuries from a car accident in 1953. Moving to Palm Springs, California Freed died alone at the young age of 43.