The 27 Club is the name given to a haunting pattern in music and art history: an extraordinary number of influential musicians, artists, and performers who died at the age of 27. The idea took hold in the early 1970s, when Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all died at 27 within a two-year span. Kurt Cobain's death in 1994 and Amy Winehouse's in 2011 cemented the 27 Club in popular culture.
Statisticians have found no true spike in deaths at 27 compared to other young ages, but the myth endures because of who these people were. They were pioneers who reshaped blues, rock, soul, reggae, punk, grunge, hip-hop, and visual art, and then vanished at the height of their powers. This page is a tribute to their lives and what they left behind.
The Members
In order of their passing. Click any name to read their full story.
- Robert Johnson — King of the Delta blues
- Jesse Belvin — the voice of “Earth Angel”
- Rudy Lewis — lead singer of The Drifters
- Malcolm Hale — the engine of Spanky and Our Gang
- Brian Jones — founder of the Rolling Stones
- Alan “Blind Owl” Wilson — Canned Heat's gentle genius
- Jimi Hendrix — the guitar's greatest innovator
- Janis Joplin — the first queen of rock
- Dyke Christian — the funk pioneer behind “Funky Broadway”
- Jim Morrison — poet and voice of The Doors
- Linda Jones — soul's lost empress
- Les Harvey — Stone the Crows guitarist
- Pigpen McKernan — the Grateful Dead's blues soul
- Dave Alexander — original bassist of The Stooges
- Pete Ham — Badfinger's brilliant songwriter
- Gary Thain — Uriah Heep's singing bassline
- Helmut Köllen — the voice of Triumvirat's Spartacus
- Chris Bell — Big Star's other genius
- Jacob Miller — reggae's irrepressible giant
- D. Boon — the heart of the Minutemen
- Jean-Michel Basquiat — from SAMO© to the summit of American art
- Pete de Freitas — the drummer who made the Bunnymen soar
- Mia Zapata — the ferocious voice of The Gits
- Kurt Cobain — Nirvana's reluctant voice of a generation
- Kristen Pfaff — the bassist who shaped Live Through This
- Richey Edwards — the vanished poet of the Manic Street Preachers
- Stretch — Live Squad's giant, Tupac's first brother
- Fat Pat — the voice of Houston's Screwed Up Click
- Rodrigo Bueno — “El Potro,” superstar of Argentine cuarteto
- Jeremy Michael Ward — The Mars Volta's sound manipulator
- Jonathan Brandis — the 90s idol who deserved a second act
- Valentín Elizalde — “El Gallo de Oro” of banda
- Amy Winehouse — the voice that brought soul back
- Thomas Fekete — Surfer Blood's bright spark
- Anton Yelchin — the actor who did everything early
- Jonghyun — SHINee's voice and K-pop's poet
- Fredo Santana — Chicago drill's big homie
The 27 Club is not a curse, it's a reminder. Behind the myth are real people. Sons and daughters, bandmates and friends, artists who compressed lifetimes of creativity into just a few years. The best way to remember them is the simplest one: listen to the records, look at the paintings, watch the films. Their work is still here.