CLASS OF 2016

I was about to finish this article that I left in the can about the 27 Club that has shocked millions of rock fans along with the music industry of course until something more sinister has risen right from the wrong side of the tracks that I need not to miss documenting it.

A lot of people were wondering on what will become or at least where music is heading now that we are slowly running out of talented musicians and songwriters as a lot of them are  dying one by one.You can blame  the old age on some of them or perhaps diseases that has struck, but c'mon we almost hear one celebrity(if not a rock star) dying almost every month, not counting some musicians of the local underground acts of present day punk and heavy metal.

(Pictured above,First row: Nick Menza, David Bowie,Prince
Second row: Glenn Frey, Sir George Martin, George Michael
Third Row: Paul Kantner, Greg Lake)

Is music really dead the way it was presented?  This weird phenomena actually started off as early as last year around December 2015 when Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots was found dead on a tour bus of his latest band the Wildabouts on an apparent overdose,then 2016 opened the year with passings of David Bowie,then a week later it was Glenn Frey and was followed by several other musicians the following weeks thereafter.Among them were Prince Rogers Nelson who is known shortly as Prince,Maurice White of Earth,Wind & Fire, Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship with the list just keeps on piling up till the last remaining days of the year.


Prince,on the other hand is known as a loner in both pop and rock music.Loner in a sense that he sings,plays all the instruments,mixes and produces his own records.Releasing his debut album in 1977,the flamboyant rock star became a subject of controversy on several award giving bodies, on the subject of album releases and name changes before he was found dead in an elevator of his home/studio.While several heavy metal superstars such as Nick Menza formerly of Megadeth suffered a heart attack after a usual night gig.

Glenn Frey was one of the founders of the Eagles who drove Country rock to prominence in the seventies.Sad fact is that the Eagles had called it quits for good after he passed away citing that he is in fact irreplaceable.

 On the other side of the  industry,two icons of the Beatles' in crowd joined perhaps the saddest year of music and entertainment history.George Martin,who produces the fab fours' albums laying that meticulous ground layer of sound if not complicated,passed away at the ripe old age of 90.Leaving behind or should I say passing over the torch to his son Giles who went on to mix several reissues and forever keeping the flame of the greatest rock band on earth alive and kicking.But goddamn 2016 isn't finished,it also took away the band's early concert promoter shortly before Christmas.

...and if that's not good enough,singer George Michael was found dead in his home on the exact yuletide day.

With a certain degree of consistency,these celebrity deaths whether a rock star or not,one cannot help but compare it to the infamous 27 Club which mysteriously took the lives of rock stars eerily at a young age of 27.So the superstitions or perhaps the numerology somehow sets in on how strange it is that the year 2016 has toppled the former regarding the number of lives it took.

Alas, as the year comes to an end all we can do is pray that these rock star deaths will somehow put to a halt.

IN MEMORIAM:

David Bowie

Dale Griffin

Paul Kantner

Glenn Frey

Maurice White


Merle Haggard

George Martin

Keith Emerson

Prince

Nick Menza


Henry McCullough

Leon Russell


Pete Burns

Greg Lake


Rick Parfitt

George Michael

(c) 2016 Keith Vernon Adagio