Too young to die

[Good Old Days]

If you could've prevented the deaths of three musicians, who would you choose?

[Good Old Days]

My choices :
Heidi Bruhl
Sarah Harding (from Girls Aloud)
Mindy McCready

[-Big Dan-]

Amy Winehouse
Kurt Cobain
Aaliyah

[suedehead]

Freddie Mercury
Buddy Holly

I'll think of a third later.

[Mark]

George Michael
Whitney Houston
Sarah Harding

[TheThorne]

Jeff Buckley
Chester Bennington
Amy Winehouse

[Whitneyfan]

There's so many who have gone too soon, I'd be hard pressed to think of just 3.

[Earl Purple]

I guess one might stop the 1959 plane crash saving Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper in one go.

Assuming they need to be contemporary musicians, I'll go for:
- Buddy Holly
- John Lennon
- Freddie Mercury

[vastar iner]

Buddy Holly

J Dilla

Robert Johnson

All looked like they could have changed music in a radical way but were denied the chance to do so.

[Earl Purple]

I'd be tempted to swap one of my choices for Otis Redding. He also was just getting to the peak of his career when he died.

[Mic1812]

Elvis Presley
Marc Bolan
John Lennon

[ManicKangaroo]

Prince
George Michael
Whitney Houston

[woz123]

Ian Curtis
Keith Flint
Avicii

[Robin]

Marvin Gaye
Freddie Mercury
Michael Hutchence

[Dave]

Buddy Holly
Freddie Mercury
Falco

[Earl Purple]

no votes for Kirsty yet? I thought she was very popular.

[lewis17]

I'll go with ...

Sam Cooke
Marc Bolan
Otis Redding

Michael Jackson & Whitney Houston died too young, but musically their best days were behind them.

[raliverpool]

OK, I'm slightly over thinking this, but I have to go on who would had the most left to give musically at the time of their untimely death...

Hence, I'm excluding those who had an early death due to alcohol or drug abuse. Example: Amy Winehouse we now know could have died a good two years earlier had she not been staying with her good friend actress Sheridan Smith who struggled to wake her ... and it all got hushed up ... plus had she lived she could easily be a near zombie creatively like Lee Mavers (the La's) & Lauryn Hill (The Fugees) still awaiting a follow up to seminal albums.

Also, I'm not including John Lennon, as in a sliding doors scenario that would have meant he was successful in going through and assassinating David Bowie backstage after performing in The Elephant Man on Broadway 24 hours earlier having also signed a copy of his latest album (Scary Monsters). In which case David Bowie would have been the first name on the list.

1. Buddy Holly - He had split from The Crickets & his manager/producer Norman Petty .. and wanted to get into more into production, arrangement & songwriting. I think the 1960s musically would have been very different had he lived. Plus The Big Bopper & Ritchie Valens would have survived. Who knows maybe a decade later Ritchie Valens would have ended up as a member of Santana, or producer of San Franscisco psychedelic rock bands... Another plus being Don McLean's signature tune would be the wonderful Vincent instead of the corny singalong American Pie! (Except maybe Buddy Holly might have been its record producer!).

2. Marc Bolan - By 1977 a newly healthy drug free dad had got his life together and his last album made Dandy In The Underworld was his best album in 5 years. He had arranged plans to write songs with David Bowie and have Tony Visconti back as producer for his next album. He had embraced the punk new wave scene. He had bags of charisma (even if he came across as try-hard uncool compared to his old mate/frienemeny David Bowie) and would have embraced the New Romantics scene. He would have bound to have cropped up in an Adam Ant video; and maybe produced Adam Ant (whom the Prince Charming hitmaker idolized) or Culture Club. If Slade, Gary Glitter & Alvin Stardust could have minor comebacks in the early 1980s then T-Rex would have been a certainty. Plus his TV presenter and his enthusiasm for new music would have made him a contender to continue presenting music shows. Had he lived into the 1990s and beyond He surely would have got a cameo in one of the Tolkien Lord Of The Rings movies; and possibly become one of the early Radio presenters on BBC 6 Music. Maybe the TV show would be called Later ... With Marc Bolan.

3 Aaliyah - I can't help but think had she lived she would be in the same critically acclaimed/commercially successful position today that Beyonce finds herself in.

[Good Old Days]

Nov 15, 2022 14:26:38 GMT 1 Earl Purple said:

no votes for Kirsty yet? I thought she was very popular.

For me it was "almost coin flip" between her and Mindy McCready + I thought that anybody else will add her in "life list".

Of course Kirsty's death is a big tragedy, but in my opinion the cancer (in any age) is the worst possible death.

Heidi Bruhl's end always will be the most painful death for me (even if I loved Sarah very much). There are something wrong if you won a hard fight against the cancer in young age and died at 49 after the another form of this awful illness.