When Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain shot himself with a shotgun in 1994, his mother told a reporter, “Now he’s gone and joined that stupid club,” referring not just to the long list of rock stars who also succumbed to drugs, drink and fame, but also to the roster of legends who left the stage forever at the age of 27.
The stories of the short lives and sometimes drawn-out deaths of rock’s most iconic names — Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison among them — might be familiar. In his compelling new book from Da Capo Press, 27, Howard Sounes traces the lives of six of rock’s tragic heroes, revealing that from Rolling Stone founder Brian Jones to Amy Winehouse, fame and mental instability have often been a fatal combination.
