The 27 Club

Popularized in the last decades, you have surely heard of the club 27. With an illustrious membership, you could only join this exclusive club mostly if you are a popular musician (although the club welcomes artists or actors too) and you die at the age of 27. Keep reading to discover a bit of the history of this remarkably tragic club and its most notorious members!

Between the years of 1969 and 1971 music legends Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison died at the age of 27. However it would not be until Kurt Cobain would shoot himself to death in 1994 when the 27 Club began to catch on in public perception. Later on, it would be the Blues musician Robert Johnson who died in 1938, the first one to be included in such a particular club.

According to Hendrix and Cobain's biographer Charles R. Cross, the growing importance of the media (Internet, magazines, and television) and the response to an interview of Cobain's mother in the Aberdeen newspaper The Daily World where she said “Now he's gone and joined that stupid club. I told him not to join that stupid club" were jointly responsible for such theories. Although there are many other ones on the origin of the term.

Brian Jones (28 February 1942 - 3 July 1969)

Founder and original leader of the Rolling Stones, Brian Jones died under strange circumstances. He was discovered motionless at the bottom of his swimming pool and his Swedish girlfriend, Anna Wohlin, was convinced he was alive when he was taken out of the pool, insisting he still had a pulse. However, by the time the doctors arrived, it was too late and he was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital, at the age of 27. The coroner's report stated "death by misadventure", and noted his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by past drug and alcohol abuse. Until today, there are many theories that indicate that Jones was murdered and even Rolling Stone members expressed their doubts, although none has been ever proven.

Jimi Hendrix (27 November 1942 – 18 September 1970)

Despite his short career, Jimi is widely regarded as one of the most influential guitarists in history and one of the most celebrated musicians of the 20th century. He also died too young, after a life of alcohol and drug abuse and violence (Hendrix would often become angry and violent when he drank too much alcohol or when he mixed alcohol with drugs). 

Details are disputed concerning Hendrix's last day and death. He spent much of his last day alive with Monika Dannemann in London, the only witness to his final hours. After what she told was a normal day, they went to sleep at 7am and when she woke up four hours later, Hendrix was breathing but unconscious and unresponsive. He would die in the Hospital two hours later. The forensic examination concluded that Hendrix aspirated his own vomit and died of asphyxia while intoxicated with barbiturates. Dannemann later revealed that Hendrix had taken nine of her prescribed Vesparax sleeping tablets, 18 times the recommended dosage.

Janis Joplin (19 January 1943 - 4 October 1970)

Joplin rose to fame after performing at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, only three years before being found dead on the floor beside her bed at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood where Joplin was staying, consequence of an accidental heroin overdose. Joplin had been given heroin that was much more potent than normal, as several of her dealer's other customers also overdosed that week. Nevertheless, in those three years she had time to become one of the most successful and widely known rock stars of her era, known for her powerful and particular mezzo-soprano voice and wild stage presence.

Jim Morrison (8 December 1943 - 3 July 1971)

Jim Morrison, lead vocalist of the Doors and one of the most iconic and influential frontmen in rock history. His death boosted him as one of popular culture's most rebellious and oft-displayed icons, representing the generation gap and youth counterculture and like others. He was found by Pamela Courson in a bathtub at his rented apartment in Le Marais (Paris), where they were spending some days after recording L.A. Woman in Los Angeles. The official cause of death was listed as heart failure, although no autopsy was performed, as it was not required by French law. 

Mia Zapata (25 August 1965 - 7 July 1993)

Not as well known as other members of this club, Mia Zapata was the lead singer of Seattle´s punk band The Gits. She was a punk and the foremost female voice of the 90s grunge scene, and she was brutally beaten, raped and strangled to death in 1993 while on her way home from a music venue. The crime, that went unsolved for a decade, caused a lot of noise and popular Grunge bands such as Nirvana or Pearl Jam helped raising money to hire a private investigator in an attempt to clarify her murder.

Kurt Cobain (20 February 1967 - 5 April 1994)

Probably the club´s most prominent member, Kurt Cobain, guitarist and frontman of Nirvana, Generation X icon and one of the most influential rock musicians in the history of music committed suicide after years of heroin addiction and a fame that he never got used to. As it happens with other members, there are many theories that aim to target murder rather than suicide as the cause of his death.

Diagnosed with bronchitis and severe laryngitis, Cobain played for the last time on March 1st in Munich, one month before his death. Read more about Kurt Cobain and those last days here.

Amy Winehouse (14 September 1983 - 23 July 2011)

Hers was a death foretold after years plagued by drug and alcohol addiction, and an environment that squeezed everything out of her until the day her bodyguard found her lying dead on her bed of what the authorities considered accidental alcohol poisoning. His brother Alex years later would say that Amy's eating disorder, and the consequent physical weakness, had been the primary cause of her death. In any case, the day Amy died, a powerless world cried at the loss of an incredible talent and a magnificent voice. 

Members of this macabre club are also Alan Wilson (Canned Heat), Peter Ham (Badfinger), Dave Alexander (The Stooges), Chris Bell (Big Star), D. Boon (Minutemen), Kristen Pfaff (Hole), Pete de Freitas (Echo & The Bunnymen), Richey Edwards (Manic Street Preachers), painter Jean-Michel Basquiat and actors Jonathan Brandis and Anton Yelchin among many others.

Cover photograph by Joel Brodsky