When Amy Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning on July 23, 2011, the music world lost one of its most promising young talents. She had already demonstrated her natural brilliance on her landmark, Grammy-winning album Back to Black in 2006. Big Mama Thornton was a blues and R&B singer and songwriter, the first to record Leiber and Stoller’s “Hound Dog,” which was written for her. Thornton’s “Ball and Chain” was later made famous by Janis Joplin. Her longstanding alcohol abuse led to her death in 1984 of liver failure at the age of 57.

What is wrong with the popular music industry?

Pam said it was cocaine, and Jim snorted it and immediately had a heart attack. Dr. Paul Adams puts a rough estimate on alcohol’s impact in jazz. Dr. Paul Adams puts a rough estimate on alcohol’s impact on jazz. The age at death of 80 great jazz musicians has suggested that the stressful lifestyle of jazz musicians may lead to a decreased life span (3). The end result of years of alcohol and drug abuse was a high prevalence of cirrhosis among jazz musicians, which led to premature death. It is likely musicians who died from alcohol that many of these cases would be related to both hepatitis B and C, and the chronic effects of alcoholism.

Celebrity Deaths That Changed Music History: Gone Too Soon

27 is a cursed age for rock stars, and Janis Joplin was one of the more high profile of those casualties. Janis Joplin’s performance of”Ball and Chain” at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival has gone on to become the stuff of legend; a captivating display of the singer’s one-of-a-kind emotional release. One of the few classic rock drummers to rival Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, The Who’s Keith Moon possessed a reputation being somewhat of a lovable lunatic on stage and off, with a crazed and manic energy. Moon was eventually prescribed Heminevrin for the alcohol withdrawals he was enduring in his attempts to get sober, only to OD from a lethal dose of the drug in September of 1978. Police at the time said the star took nine sleeping pills and died of suffocation from choking on his vomit, Rolling Stone reported. According to alcoholism symptoms the outlet, English singer-songwriter Eric Burdon said Hendrix left behind a “suicide note” that was actually a poem several pages in length.

John Bonham

Practicing and performing this technical, athletic music required a full physical commitment. Working like a shift worker for long periods on tour can disturb natural biorhythms. This may result in chronic insomnia and lethargy for which artists use uppers during the day and downers during the night to bring on merciful sleep. Her wrenching downward spiral did little to blunt the shock of Winehouse’s death at age 27. As a dramatized version of her life appears on the silver screen in the biopic Back to Black, here’s what to know about what led to the “Rehab” singer’s demise.

• One of the few classic rock drummers to rival Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, The Who’s Keith Moon possessed a reputation being somewhat of a lovable lunatic on stage and off, with a crazed and manic energy.
• He had picked up a drinking habit as an early teen and later self-medicated with alcohol and painkillers for his chronic back pain problems.
• Others deal with mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety and rarely seek professional help, turning to drugs and alcohol to cope.
• The reasons for the high prevalence of substance abuse continue to this day.
• Gerry Rafferty was a Scottish singer and musician, famous for such hits as “Stuck in the Middle with You” (as a member of Stealers Wheel) and “Baker Street”.

Musicians Who Lost Their Lives to Drugs and Alcohol

• Jamerson played on twenty-three Billboard Hot 100 number-one hits, as well as fifty-six R&B number-one hits.
• He was one of the pianists on the classic recording ‘Kind of Blue’ by Miles Davis.
• Veronica Lake, with her iconic peek-a-boo blonde hair, was particularly well-known for playing film noir femme fatales in the 1940s.
• The origins of American jazz can be traced back to New Orleans (USA), and its early pioneers assimilated musical influences from Africa, South America and the Caribbean.
• On September 24th, 1980, Led Zeppelin started rehearsals for their North American tour.

Take a look at this list and you’ll see the people who bit the big one because they couldn’t put down the bottle. The inherent risks in the popular music world cast their ‘evil’ spell equally over male and female popular musicians. Equality of early death was surely not what the feminist movement had in mind when lobbying for equal rights and opportunity for women in the workforce. That fall, the coroner announced that Winehouse had died of accidental alcohol poisoning. Her blood alcohol level was .416% at the time of her death—more than five times the legal U.K.

• Addiction has become a deadly epidemic among recording artists, and it has happened for a number of reasons.
• The world watched as Winehouse malfunctioned, her saga growing sadder by the month.
• The solution to these problems include better health education of musicians, but should also include a system to allow jazz musicians to escape the ravages of poverty.
• Her addiction was very public and want to treatment for it at least three times.