Shocking Deaths In Rock And Roll I Missed The First Time Around

A few days ago, I wrote about the most shocking deaths in rock history in honor of the 45-year anniversary of Beatles frontman John Lennon's tragic murder.

Since then, my email inbox has received plenty of chatter regarding who I left out.

Some of you were polite, others were a little more forceful, and one guy even questioned my credentials as a self-proclaimed "Boomer."

That kind of hurtful language cuts deep, but I'm willing to make things right, so here are three more deaths that shocked the music world, according to my readers.

Jimi Hendrix Co-Founds The "27 Club" (1970)

One of the most innovative guitarists of any era, Jimi Hendrix was a tour de force in the late 60s, popularizing the distorted and guitar-centric music that would become synonymous with the next few decades.

Sadly, just as Hendrix was achieving his peak, he succumbed to his drug addiction at just 27 years old.

While the mythos of the "27 Club" is well-known now, back in 1970, this was seen as just another tragic byproduct of the hippie culture.

But it was shocking nonetheless, shaking the youth of the nation to its core.

Hendrix wasn't the only musician to die at 27 years of age in the late 60s and early 70s, but his death, along with other "27 Club" members like Janis Joplin, signaled the unofficial end of the "peace and love" movement, and shocked an entire generation in the process.

Elvis Leaves The Building (1977)

By mid-1977, rock 'n roll legend Elvis Presley was a sad and bloated version of his former self.

The former heartthrob had put on a ton of weight and was reportedly suffering from liver damage and an enlarged colon brought on by years of drug abuse.

Despite all of that, The King was still performing fairly regularly, so no one had any idea when he was set to perform in Portland, Maine, on August 16 that he was never going to make it to his scheduled appearance.

The stink of it all (no pun intended) was that he died while on the toilet, and was pronounced dead by the time he arrived at Baptist Memorial Hospital that afternoon.

A man who was seen as one of the inventors of rock music and the archetypal frontman died on the John and left a void in the music community that no one could ever fill.

The Day The Music Died (1959)

Of all the "suggestions" that flooded my inbox following my first attempt at this list, none were more prevalent than this one.

In 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper all boarded a plane bound for Moorhead, North Dakota.

These were three of the most promising young musicians of their day. Buddy Holly had numerous hits, both in his time with The Crickets and as a newly formed solo act, while Valens popularized the Chicano rock movement with his hit single "La Bamba," and the Big Bopper had his own string of hits which included "Chantily Lace."

All three never made it to their destination, as their plane crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa. There were no survivors

The deaths of the three musicians were so shocking that numerous memorials were held decades after the crash, and countless documentaries and movies have been made.

The tragedy became so ubiquitous within rock, that singer/songwriter Don McLean wrote "American Pie" to commemorate "the day the music died."

It's hard to argue there aren't many deaths in rock or pop culture in general that shook a nation and community quite like these did.