Musicians often lead crazy lives, full of excesses and unique experiences, so it’s only normal that their deaths should be just as memorable. Here are ten examples that prove the point.
10. Keith Relf
Nowadays, the ’60s London rock band The Yardbirds is primarily remembered for launching the careers of not one, not two, but three of the greatest guitarists in music history: Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck. And yet, it is none of them that interest us today. Instead, we’re focusing on the original lead singer of the Yardbirds, Keith Relf, who accidentally electrocuted himself while playing his electric guitar.
This happened in 1976, years after Relf had left the band. The 33-year-old rocker was in the basement of his own home when he accidentally electrocuted himself with an ungrounded guitar. Relf was in poor health, which could further explain why the electric shock killed him, but the truth is that we simply don’t know any details about how his death actually occurred. His family remained fiercely private regarding Relf’s demise, which only led to the rise of rumors and legends, particularly the idea that he died while playing his guitar in the bathtub.
9. Bobby Fuller
In 1966, the Bobby Fuller Four found its greatest success when it scored a Top 10 hit with its cover of “I Fought the Law.” Unfortunately, the group did not get the chance to capitalize on its newfound fame. Just a few months later, the leader of the band, Bobby Fuller, was sitting dead in his car outside of his apartment, under some pretty fishy circumstances.
Ostensibly, Fuller’s death was ruled a suicide, although with some heavy question marks. Some claim that his body was found covered in gasoline. Others that it had several stab wounds. Either way, not something one would inflict on themselves before taking their own life. And some have also accused the police of quickly closing the case without a proper investigation, not even bothering to search for fingerprints or interview possible witnesses. And last, but not least, there have also been reports that Fuller’s body was in an advanced state of rigor mortis, suggesting that he had been dead for hours even though his car had only been parked for 30 minutes.
We don’t know how many of these claims are true, but they do seem to indicate that something more sinister happened to Bobby Fuller. As far as who could have done it is concerned, ideas are all over the place – a pissed-off nightclub owner, the mob, and even Charles Manson got a mention. But there isn’t any solid enough evidence to point the finger at any of them.
8. Steve Peregrin Took
The rock band T. Rex could not survive the death of its frontman Marc Bolan, disbanding soon after his untimely death in a car crash in 1977. But just a few years later, another one of the band’s founding members, Steve Peregrin Took, passed away in a much more bizarre and unique way – by choking on a cocktail cherry.
By the time of his death, Took had long been away from T. Rex. He had been fired from the band in 1969 due to his extensive drug use and party antics which were, apparently, too much even by ’60s rockers standards. Anyway, after his departure from T. Rex, Took embarked on various solo and group musical projects, the most notable of which was probably the band Shagrat which included original Motörhead member Larry Wallis.
The 31-year-old Took died on October 27, 1980, at his home in London, as we said, after choking on a cherry. Some versions of the story reported that it was a cocktail onion, and drugs were also involved, which is why his official cause of death was listed as “death by drug misadventure.”
7. Al Jackson Jr.
During the 1960s, Booker T & the M.G.’s was one of the funkiest instrumental bands around, made up of a bunch of experienced session musicians signed to Stax Records who decided to start their own band after playing on hundreds of records for other artists. The original lineup included Al Jackson Jr. on the drums, known as the “Human Timekeeper” for his intuitive ability to keep the beat.
Unfortunately, Jackson’s time with the band was cut tragically short in 1975 when he was murdered in his own home in Memphis. It was September 30 and Jackson was supposed to fly to Detroit that night for a recording session. However, that was the night of the iconic “Thrilla in Manila” boxing match between Ali and Frazier. Jackson didn’t want to miss it so he postponed his travel and went to the Mid-South Coliseum to watch the fight televised. When he got back home, he found an intruder in his house. He forced Jackson onto his knees and shot him in the back five times. Later, his wife Barbara ran into the streets screaming for help, shouting that a burglar killed her husband.
Because Jackson’s murder remains unsolved, it has given rise to suggestions that all may not be what it seems. After all, the robber had complete control of the situation, and yet he still shot Jackson five times. Even the police noted that the intruder really wanted to make sure Jackson was dead. And the wife testified that she heard the killer refer to Jackson by his first name, indicating that they knew each other. Rumors say that Jackson’s record label may have had a hand in this, or even his wife since the two were in the middle of a divorce and she had already shot him once a few months earlier.
6. Licorice McKechnie
Many artists perish by giving in to their demons, which is usually a nicer way of saying that they die from drugs. Another sizable chunk gets taken out by plane and car crashes, while a few of them are killed and their murders go unsolved, like the aforementioned Al Jackson Jr. And every now and then, some of them simply disappear, never to be heard from again.
That last one was the fate of Christina “Licorice” McKechnie, a Scottish singer with The Incredible String Band. They reached their peak when they performed at Woodstock in 1969, but a bad breakup with one of the other members forced McKechnie to leave the group in 1972.
After that, her movements become much more obscure. She moved to California at one point. She married and later divorced another musician named Brian Lambert. She did return to her native Edinburgh once to see her family, but around 1990 McKechnie seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth. All reports claim that she was last seen hiking across the Arizona Desert.
5. Alessandro Stradella
Unusual musician deaths are not solely contained in modern times. We travel back almost 350 years to 17th-century Genoa to explore the strange demise of Baroque composer Alessandro Stradella.
Stradella was, undoubtedly, a talented and prolific artist who produced hundreds of works, but he was also quite a shady character. “He led a dissolute life” is the polite way of saying it and he saw his fair share of scandals that resulted in not one, but two assassination attempts.
Stradella’s first brush with death occurred in Venice. He was freelancing as a music teacher, but he tried to seduce and abduct a pupil named Agnese van Uffele. Unfortunately for him, she also happened to be the doge’s niece, and he did not take kindly to Stradella’s actions. In fact, the doge sent his goons after the music teacher, and they beat him up, stabbed him, and left him for dead.
Stradella survived this first encounter and, wisely, decided that it was time for a change of scenery. He fled to Genoa but, clearly, made no attempt to mend his ways. It wasn’t long before he made some new enemies and these were more successful in their assault on the composer. Stradella was attacked and stabbed in the street again, and he died at the age of 42.
4. Gram Parsons
The death of country rock pioneer Gram Parsons is not particularly notable. The artist died of a drug overdose, which is not exactly unheard of in the world of music. But what happened afterward makes this a unique entry.
Parsons was a big fan of the Joshua Tree National Park in southeastern California. After visiting it several times, he expressed his wishes to his closest friends that, when he died, he would like his ashes to be scattered there. His road manager, Phil Kaufman, wanted to fulfill Gram’s last wish, but there was one problem – Parsons’ family wanted to give him a standard burial in a cemetery and, legally, they had the final say. So Kaufman did what any true friend would do in that situation – he stole the body.
Kaufman and another friend, Michael Martin, arrived at LAX as they were getting ready to ship Parsons’ remains to New Orleans. The duo had rented a Cadillac hearse and pretended to work for the funeral parlor, saying there was a change of plans and that the body would be flown from Van Nuys Airport. The LAX employees were a bit dubious but, ultimately, they released the body. The pair then raced to Joshua Tree National Park where they set the casket on fire.
Unfortunately, they didn’t get the job done. Some campers spotted them and alerted the authorities. Kaufman and Martin were arrested before the body had been fully cremated and what was left of it was eventually returned to Parsons’ family and was buried. For their role in this little escapade, Kaufman and Martin were each fined $300.
3. Terry Kath
“What do you think I’m going to do? Blow my brains out?”
Reportedly, those were the last words of Terry Kath, guitarist and founding member of the rock band Chicago. And you can probably guess what happened next. That’s right, Kath had a heart attack. No, not really, he shot himself.
Kath was a big gun enthusiast, which is fine in itself, but he was also a big drug enthusiast, and he often liked to combine his two favorite pastimes. Many of his friends felt it was only a matter of time until this ended in tragedy, and they were right. It was January 23, 1978, just a week shy of Kath’s 32nd birthday, and the guitarist was hanging out with one of the band’s roadies, Don Johnson, at his home in Los Angeles.
As per usual, Kath had a few guns with him and was playing with them, spinning them around, pointing them at his own head and even pulling the trigger. Understandably, this was making Johnson a little nervous so, in a bid to reassure him, Kath wanted to show him that all of his guns were empty. He picked up a 9mm, showed the roadie the empty clip, inserted it into the weapon, put it to his own temple, and pulled the trigger. Unfortunately, he forgot a bullet in the chamber and Kath just shot himself in the head.
2. Glenn Miller
There was a time during the early 1940s when conductor Glenn Miller had the best-selling music act in America. And yet, when World War II rolled around, Miller decided to forego the safety of his country in order to entertain the troops, and he paid for this with his life.
On December 15, 1944, Miller boarded a small airplane to cross the English Channel from London to Paris. He was never seen again and the wreckage of the aircraft has never been recovered.
As to what exactly happened, the most obvious answer is that Miller died in a plane crash alongside two other officers who were aboard the aircraft. The reason for the crash is up for debate. Some believe it was due to bad weather which forced the pilot to fly low and caused the fuel intakes to freeze. Others think that he could have been killed by friendly fire, specifically by Allied bombers jettisoning bombs after returning from a failed raid over Germany.
And that is, of course, assuming that Miller was actually killed in the crash. More outlandish ideas suggest that the big band leader faked his death and moved to South America, or that he actually died in a Paris bordello and the army concocted the story to protect his image. Or even that he was assassinated while on a secret mission from the US Government to negotiate with Nazi Germany.
1. Mike Edwards
As far as bizarre musicians’ deaths are concerned, it will be hard to top the “freak” accident that took the life of Mike Edwards in 2010, when he was crushed by a giant hay bale.
Edwards was most famous as the cellist of the 1970s rock band Electric Light Orchestra, playing with them in their early years before leaving the group in 1975. Fast forward to September 3, 2010, and the 62-year-old Edwards was driving through the countryside of Devon when a hay bale tumbled down a hill and struck the front of his van. Weighing over 600 kilograms, the hay bale killed Edwards instantly.
Two men were investigated by the police for possible criminal negligence for allowing the hay bale to tumble out of control, but an inquest jury cleared them of any wrongdoing, labeling Edwards’s death as “a farming accident, but one that was easily preventable.”