As we come together to determine—once and for all—the Saddest Story in Rock, we are reminded of just how painful the road to artistic enlightenment can be. It is not for us to judge why any of the following artists came to such sad conclusions, only to assess which life story is saddest. [Please note the box of tissues sitting on the coffee table between us.]
The nominees and the RTH People’s Poll for the Saddest Story in Rock follow…after the jump!
Elvispants.
Fat Elvis. A couch and TV installed in his bathroom so his crew could hang with him while he was taking a dump. Say no more.
Badfinger. All that potential ending in the suicide of two key members.
Brian Wilson. And his legion of devotees, who still hope he can pick up where he left off and once more offer a glimmer of hope for the hopelessly romantic. Seriously, though, Brian’s inability to overcome mental illness and the ravages of drug abuse are made all the sadder by our inability to give him some space. I hope he appreciates the attention.
Sly Stone. Should have been Nancy Reagan’s poster boy for the Just Say No campaign.
Drummer Jim Gordon. The Hal Blaine of hippie studio drummers fell into a struggle with schizophrenia that ended with the murder of his own mother. Sad.
Ian Curtis. He lived. He loved. He died. He hinted at his death in a pop song before hanging himself.
The Ramones. How could such a fun, simple, cartoon-rock band have resulted in so much strife and bad vibes?
The Day the Music Died. That is, the day rock ‘n roll lost Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper—and possibly sadder yet, thinks the one sober guy at a crowded bar with an acoustic performer leading a closing-time sing-along, cry-in-your-beer anthem, gained the song “American Pie.”
Doug Hopkins from Gin Blossoms. Leader/main songwriter of a popular local band gets booted and ends up killing himself, missing out on the 1-hit wonder success the band enjoyed without him.
Stuart Adamson from Big Country. His chiming guitar work inspired The Edge. Years later he hanged himself in a closet in Honolulu. These details are not related.
Marvin Gaye’s murder at the hands of his own father. Sad! I will never forget the morning my Mom woke me up before school to tell me of his murder. I loved that guy’s music.
Syd Barrett. He offered the hope of actually cool people like ourselves growing up loving Pink Floyd, but that hope was dashed before we got the chance to enjoy the band in our teens. Instead we had to listen to the remaining band members drone on and on, bemoaning the loss of their visionary leader to the tune of platinum records and massive tours.
Nick Drake. After making 3 sad, somber, unique albums through struggles with depression he died from causes that may or may not have been intentional. Like Ian Curtis, Drake’s music truly embodied a depth of sadness that rarely makes it to international television broadcasts.
Elliot Smith. This guy actually got to perform in front of an international television audience. His appearance on the stage of the Academy Awards, performing his Best Song-nominated “Miss Misery” solo in an ill-fitting white suit, was both inspiring and chilling. In his typically unwashed hair, Smith seemed heroically, tragically overmatched by the spotlight.
Judee Sill. She has become legendary in recent years. From what I can gather she made a couple of albums in the early ’70s that were forgotten by the middle of the decade. Then, once all used copies of Nick Drake albums were snatched up and it was clear Joni Mitchell would never make another satisfying record, rock nerds turned to scouring used bins for her forgotten albums. She died over a cocaine overdose in 1979. What I’ve heard of her music actually sounds good, and I’m an ass. So be it. The whole situation is certainly sad.
Tammi Terrell. At the height of a career that took off with a series of stunning duets with Marvin Gaye, Tammi collapsed onstage in her musical partner’s arms. She was diagnosed with a brain tumor and died 3 years and 8 operations later, in 1970, at the age of 24. Tammi and Marvin may be the Brian’s Song of the music world.
Warren Zevon’s farewell media tour. Zevon’s final months were nowhere near as wasted as many of the preceding years. The raconteur and cheerful misanthrope left us with a moving episode-long appearance with friend and fan David Letterman.
The Band. The slow, acrimonious dissolution of this once-tight band of brothers is akin to the story of The Ramones, with Robbie Robertson as the smooth, oily flipside of Johnny Ramone’s little dictator.
John Lennon’s assassination. Lennon stunned the world in death as deeply as he stunned us through his life. He was a great…man!
GG Allin’s premature passing. What more can be said? Who saw this coming?
What's the saddest story in rock?
- John Lennon's assassination. (39%, 18 Votes)
- Badfinger. (13%, 6 Votes)
- Brian Wilson. (9%, 4 Votes)
- The Day the Music Died. (9%, 4 Votes)
- Tammi Terrell. (7%, 3 Votes)
- Marvin Gaye's murder at the hands of his own father. (4%, 2 Votes)
- The Ramones. (4%, 2 Votes)
- Warren Zevon’s farewell media tour. (4%, 2 Votes)
- The Band. (2%, 1 Votes)
- Elliot Smith. (2%, 1 Votes)
- Fat Elvis. (2%, 1 Votes)
- Syd Barrett. (2%, 1 Votes)
- GG Allin's premature passing. (2%, 1 Votes)
- Judee Sill. (0%, 0 Votes)
- Doug Hopkins from Gin Blossoms. (0%, 0 Votes)
- Ian Curtis. (0%, 0 Votes)
- Jim Gordon. (0%, 0 Votes)
- Sly Stone. (0%, 0 Votes)
- Stuart Adamson from Big Country. (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 46
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The most shocking was having Howard Cosell tell me that John Lennon had been assassinated, but the one I remember tearing up on – ok ok, crying – was being told by my under-the-porch air-guitar playing bandmate that Jimi Hendrix had died…
If I’m honest I think the Buddy Holly story is probably the saddest. I voted for the Ramones though. I don’t think their band dysfunction or even their middle aged dying is sadder than Buddy Holly’s or John Lennon’s or Marvin Gaye’s fates. It’s all of that combined with the cruel irony of being rejected in their prime and only recognized when they’d already lost the will to go on. Then, being even more celebrated after they split, and again, even more so after they died. While it didn’t suck to be them, it probably hurt a lot for most of their relatively short adult lives.
Yeah, I was three years old when Hendrix died. 🙁
Youngster!
Well said.
Speaking of Joey Ramone…
http://www.rrauction.com/preview_itemdetail.cfm?IN=313
Wonder if Joey bought Two Sides of the Moon in the cutouts like I did.
My vote is for Badfinger. I’m not going to take away from Lennon, Hendrix,Gaye, Elvis and the day the music died. To me those deaths were all shocking and premature.
For anybody that had the simple dream of just being in a rock and roll band the story of Badfinger is crushing. They never enjoyed their success in the early 70’s due to the scamming ways of their manager Stan Polley. Just as they were riding high on the charts their momentum was crushed by the terrible business moves of Apple and Columbia they released two of their albums simultaneously. Columbia even released a half finished song as a single. The band put aside personal squabbles and put all their efforts into the brilliant Wish You Were Here just to have Columbia pull the album from shelves after money from an escrow account was stolen by Polley. Pete Ham, who just wanted to write good rock songs became disillusioned and hung himself in 1975. Tom Evans tried to pick up the pieces but fell into the alcoholism and hung himself in 1983. Beautiful music but a very sad story.
Alright, not to make light of the departed, but who has the hard-on for the Gin Blossums around here?
Yes, it is a sad story & all, but it just does not possess any where near the same amount of gravitas that the other options do.
What no Tim & Jeff Buckley or Pretenders option???
I think it’s funny that the only Kinks album he had was Preservation Act 2
I hate to do the old P-N on you, but the second record company involved in the Badfinger mess was Warner Brothers, not Columbia.
Doesn’t seem right. It must be all the albums in very good condition, or something. One assumes the Shangri-La’s and New York Dolls albums are all worn out.
Ah nutz, you’re right. I was going off the top of my head with that comment and must have confused Columbia with another band that got ripped off by WB. I’ve read the book Without You twice even though it depressed the hell out of me the first time.
Good point!
Another story I’d put in the same category as The Band—which is to say, not so much death-related as an incredible waste of talent and opportunity—is John Fogerty and CCR. They burned so insanely brightly for such a brief period of time, and it’s a shame that internal acrimony led to them not only breaking up, but none of them—not even, really, Fogerty—doing much of consequence afterwards, not in comparison to prime CCR.
I initially wanted to avoid any drug deaths since they are largely self-created tragedies, but I can’t get past Elliott Smith. There was a guy so conflicted by the anti-commercial purity thing going around in alternative rock circles in the 90’s that he couldn’t handle his big break. He’d have rather been anywhere other than that Oscar broadcast.
I also firmly remember a story about a show in Chicago w/ Wilco where he aborted every song in an hour set claiming he couldn’t feel his arm. I still love some of his stuff but someone like that may be fundamentally incompatible with the entertainment business.
That’s very true, especially considering that CCR was on top of the musical world in 1969-72. There was also that brother conflict between John & Tom Fogerty which lasted even on the latter’s deathbed when he told John that Saul Zantez was his friend.
I think all those are sad, but to me the saddest is The Exploding Hearts. They released Guitar Romantic in April of 2003, and people in the Northwest kind of just started to take notice. In July they were driving home from a show and their van crashed and everyone except their guitar player died. Now their album Guitar Romantic is one of those underground rock nerd classics. At least most bands that wind up as footnotes and rock nerd favorites get to have a career for as long as they can stand the business. These were kids. The oldest one was 23.
It has be to be Buddy Holly for me. He was only twenty-two and just scratching the surface of what seemed to be an immense amount of talent. He’s the youngest person on this list and I think the greatest loss in terms of future work. That one of his biggest proponents, Bobby Fuller, died in an unsolved murder at the age of twenty-three, is also an extremely sad story.
I have to put in my vote for The Band. I’m not sure it really is the saddest but it was the genesis for this whole Once & For All February thing. The story behind the story follows. Try and hear it in a Paul Harvey voice.
I was listening to a concert I downloaded of Rick Danko & Richard Manuel. It’s from the Cubby Bear Lounge in Chicago in 1984. They were supposed to appear with Paul Butterfield but he was ill so it was just the duo.
Nice audience recording. I’m not familiar with the venue and couldn’t find the capacity online. What I could find makes it seem likely that it’s a reasonable size but given the name it couldn’t be too big. The taper’s notes say the “crowd was small but appreciative”. Vocals are upfront and clear so the taper must have a great location for there seems to be a lot of background conversation going on.
As I was listening I was thinking how sad it was, these two legends reduced to playing a small club in front of a small noisy audience. And how sad the whole Band story is. One suicide, one overdose, Levon’s cancer, the Robbie/Levon acrimony, the whole Robbie a-holeness.
And that led me to thinking of other sad rock stories and that led to a series of categories (much like the Academy Awards) and that led to Once & For All February.
I went to shows at the Cubby Bear in the early ’80s. If memory serves it wad small, maybe 500 capacity?
Another piece for the sad story of THe Band:
GARTH HUDSON’S BELONGINGS SOLD OFF AT GARAGE SALE
The Band’s Garth Hudson saw some of his belongings sold off this weekend by his landlord in a Kingston, New York, garage sale after failing to pay rent on his loft space for about seven years, the Times Herald-Record reports. He stored everything from personal possessions and household items to handwritten sheet music, and among the goodies are uncashed checks, including one issued from EMI in 1979 for $26,000. Hudson originally moved into the 2,000-square-foot loft in 2002 after his house was foreclosed on, but later reduced his space and moved twice. Mike Piazza, owner of the loft Hudson occupied, said rent checks from Hudson stopped six months after he moved in. Though Piazza tracked down Hudson’s representatives in Canada and the U.S., managing to secure some installments from them and Hudson himself, the payments weren’t lasting. Piazza estimates the unpaid bill to be between $60,000 and $70,000 over the past 11 years.
Piazza had also attempted to partner with Hudson’s former bandmates Robbie Robertson and the late Levon Helm to sell the items as a fundraiser, but Piazza said neither showed interest. The History Channel program American Pickers also made offers to Piazza but Piazza and the show’s producers were unable to reach Hudson’s lawyers for clearance. Hudson’s Facebook page had a note to fans encouraging them to attend the garage sale and purchase items to allow Hudson to buy them back. “We were told everything there was sold,” read the note. “We were not seeking funds, but were asking purchasers to allow us to reimburse them for what they bought as we were not on premises ourselves.”
Piazza maintains it’s either sell the items or lose out on a sizable chunk of rent. “My intent was just to get rid of it,” he said. “I’m a real estate person, not a collector.” He has already made an agreement with an online auction company to sell off the music-related items on April 1st. As for the fans, they’re already on it: one woman bought Hudson’s household items and personal belongings for a few thousand dollars with the apparent intention to return them to him.