27: Rock’n’Roll’s Unlucky Number
‘He Whom the Gods Favour...’
By: Nathan Roets
Rock’n’roll has always been associated with a lifestyle composed of hard partying, heavy drinking and even harder drugs. Since the day Chuck Berry first sang ‘Johnny be Goode’, consumption of alcohol, LSD, cocaine, heroin and marijuana has exemplified a life of Rock’n’Roll… as have many other forms of self-destruction.
This generally results in Rock’n’Roll’s Greats taking what Jim Morrison termed ‘the Big Sleep’ all too soon… many corroborate the phrase ‘the good die young’. What few people know is that, in its original form, the cliché read, “He whom the gods favour dies in youth” (Titus Maccius Plautus, Bacchides).
No matter your religious position (excluding Atheism and Agnosticism), you probably consider music a divine gift – hence its importance in worship and rituals. Therefore, let us agree that musicians are those ‘whom the gods favour’. No group is better known than the so-called ‘Twenty-Seven Club’. All of these icons died at the age of 27, and many suffered mysterious deaths that are still blanketed in a thick fog of confusion.
No group is better known than the so-called Twenty-Seven Club. Many of these icons suffered mysterious deaths blanketed in a thick fog of confusion.Here, on your very screens, I shall attempt to clear away some of the cobwebs and spark deeper research into what may or may not have happened to five of these immortal rock’n’rollers. These are but brief accounts: look out for later articles on these individuals.
I shall attempt to clear away some of the misinformation and spark deeper research into what may or may not have happened to five of these immortals. These are but brief accounts: look out for later articles on these individuals.
I shall attempt to clear away some of the misinformation and spark deeper research into what may or may not have happened to five of these immortals. These are but brief accounts: look out for later articles on these individuals.
First on my list for today is Brian Jones, one of the founding members of living-legends-band The Rolling Stones.
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards visited Brian at Cotchford Farm (nicknamed the ‘Winnie-the-Pooh House’ because author A. A. Milne once lived there)
in June 1969. For various reasons spanning the years since the Stones were formed in May 1962, the ‘Glimmer Twins’ told Brian it was over: the guitarist was fired and replaced by Mick Taylor. Two weeks later, Brian was found playing the role of a dead fish... floating about in his swimming pool.
The official report reads ‘Death by misadventure’, but what kind exactly? He was certainly high on Quaaludes and Tuinals (barbiturate drugs are not a good mix with bodies of water) and had bad asthma. Did he fall in accidentally? Or was he pushed in, as Frank Thorogood confessed to doing? Keith doesn’t rule out the possibility, writing in his autobiographical Life: “I can imagine the scenario of Brian being so obnoxious to Thorogood and the building crew he had working on Brian’s house that they were just pissing around with him. He went under and didn’t come up.” Not murder, Keith points out, but certainly manslaughter.
Whether you believe Brian fell in accidentally or was pushed is up to you, but the saddest part of Brian’s story is summed up by Keith again: “He was at that point in his life when there wasn’t any.”
Next in chronological order is legendary guitarist extraordinaire Jimi Hendrix.
Monika Dannemann, Jimi’s last girlfriend, presents a very different version of his last hours to everyone else’s. But it’s certain she knew he was unresponsively unconscious four hours before she called an ambulance on 18 September 1970.
The medics report that Jimi lay alone on the bed, covered in vomit, with no pulse as his skin turned blue… with wine running from his mouth and nose. But there was hardly any alcohol in his stomach or his blood, leading Dr John Bannister to suspect someone had poured wine down his throat to ‘intentionally cause asphyxiation’.
Further evidence – brought to light in 1994 – shows that Jimi died soon after leaving a party with Monika at 03h00 that morning. Sharon Lawrence, British journalist and Jimi-confidante, revealed that Jimi had stopped drinking red wine months before his death. Not only that, but Monika had seemed more excited about a new career than grieved over Jimi’s death.
Sometime before his death, Jimi wrote ‘The Story of Life’, a poem many interpreted as a suicide note. But he’d only taken eight Vesparax (another barbiturate), a modest dose for Jimi, according to his manager Chas Chandler. Had he intended suicide, he would have taken the extra thirty Monika claimed to have... or he would have slit his wrists again.
Once again, I leave you to formulate your own opinion as to whether the ‘Voodoo Chile’ died of accidental overdose, suicide or murder. But as Jimi himself said: “Once you’re dead, you’re made for life.”
On 4 October that same year, Janis Joplin followed Jimi’s footsteps to the grave.
She was engaged to Seth Morgan, a sleazy cocaine dealer who had stood her up the night of the third of October - either over Janis’ refusal to buy him a shirt (he had a fortune of his own) or the prenuptial agreement her lawyers had written up.
Janis had downed several screwdrivers (vodka and orange juice) and swallowed a pair of Valium (a benzodiazepine drug) at Barney’s Beanery. Back in her hotel room, she shot up with some heroin that her dealer George had dropped off. George promised it was ‘primo’ but neglected to mention that his tester was out of town and so he didn’t know how strong it was.
That evening John Cooke, Janis’ road manager, entered the hotel room and found her wedged between the bed and night table. She was already eighteen hours into rigor mortis, putting her time of death between 01h00 and 02h00.
At 21h10, she was officially pronounced ‘dead’. Doctor Thomas T. Noguchi tested her heroin and found it to be 50 percent pure (five times stronger than the average). Ten others fatally overdosed on the same batch that weekend, ruling out murder. Suicide was highly unlikely.
Janis once said: “People... like their blues singers miserable. They like their blues singers to die afterwards.” In a profound manner, the Queen of Blues was a martyr… dying before she could record “Buried in the Blues” for her album Pearl.
“You’re drinking with number three,” Jim Morrison announced prophetically upon hearing of Janis’ death.
Pamela Courson was having an affair with Count Jean de Breteuil, who was also her dealer. He was undoubtedly at the Rock’n’Roll Circus (a Left Bank nightclub) on 2 July 1971 when Jim allegedly arrived just after midnight. After downing vodka and beer, Jim supposedly conversed with the count’s salesmen and locked himself in the bathroom. Sam Bernett, the Circus’ owner and Jim’s friend, helped break the door down after Jim failed to reappear... only to find him motionless on the floor, head between his knees and frothing at the mouth. Patrick Chauvel – another friend – told Time magazine in 2007 that ‘we carried him [Jim] in a blanket and got him the hell out of there’.
The next morning, Pam found him in the bathtub, his nose bleeding. She did a line of heroin and hit a bad trip... it’s was a while before she woke Alain with a phone call, asking that he call an ambulance. Doctor Max Vassile did a cursory examination that evening, found no evidence of foul play and recorded the cause of death as ‘heart failure’.
Whether you believe the dubious Rock’n’Roll Circus version of events or the more likely story of Pamela helping him to the bathroom after he complained about having trouble breathing, one thing is agreed upon: the Lizard King died from following William Blake’s line: “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
Last, we come to Kurt Cobain, the voice of Nineties youthful angst.
Electricians found Kurt’s corpse in the greenhouse of his Lake Washington house on 8 April 1994. The coroner, Dr Nikolas Hartsthorne (nicknamed ‘Dr Death’), announced it an ‘open-and-shut case of suicide’. Tom Grant, a private detective, did not share this opinion.
Beside Kurt, at least two others had handled the shotgun: the gun dealer and Dylan Carlson, one of Kurt’s best friends. Yet there were only four prints: the gun had been wiped clean. The pen stabbed through Kurt’s last letter was devoid of any prints. His hair looked like it had been combed by a hairdresser – and the usually messy house was spotless.
There was thrice the lethal dose of heroin in his bloodstream. Denise Marshall, another coroner, said such an overdose would have killed Kurt immediately... yet the paraphernalia was neatly packed away before he allegedly shot himself.
Then there’s the question of the letter itself. Top handwriting analysts Marcel Matley and Reginald Alton agree the first line ‘To Boddah’ (Kurt’s imaginary childhood friend) and the last four were forged. The body of the letter said nothing about the addressee, Courtney or their daughter Frances. It was an apology to Nirvana fans and a letter of resignation. Even the idea of suicide is only found in the allegedly forged lines:
‘Please keep going, CourtneyFor FrancesFor her life, which will be so much happierWithout me, I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!’
Friedrich Nietzsche said, “One has to pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.”
Jones, Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison and Cobain certainly are (some of) Rock’n’Roll’s immortals – and they truly died many a time during their short lives.
There is little doubt that someone murdered the King of Grunge... for my money Courtney, whom he was about to divorce.
