27 Rockers Who Died at Age 27
"Now he's gone and joined that stupid club," Kurt Cobain's mom, Wendy Fradenburg Cobain O'Connor, infamously said in April 1994 upon hearing of the Nirvana frontman's suicide death at the age of 27. "I told him not to join that stupid club." Despite Wendy's heartfelt plea, it was too late for Cobain, who had the dubious honor of being the latest member at the time of the group of rock stars who had passed away at 27 years old.
Obviously, it wasn't until rock star deaths at 27 had become a statistical anomaly -- after the tragic passings of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin in the late '60s and early '70s -- that the age was even considered cursed, and only after Cobain's death did the idea of a 27 Club seep its way into public perception. After that, every additional death made the club seem all-the-more real, its members truly cursed. The 2011 death of Amy Winehouse -- already considered a tragic figure even before her demise -- was the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. Any doubt about the connection between rock star deaths and 27 candles on a birthday cake was forever silenced. Here, along with Ultimate Classic Rock and Loudwire, we've compiled a list of artists who lost their lives at age 27.