Members of The 27 Club

"The 27 Club" or "Club 27" is the colloquial name given to a group of influential rock musicians that died at the young age of 27. There are a few "members" who are always listed in "27 Club" groupings - such as Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain, and more recently Amy Winehouse - while other musicians who were 27 at the time of their death are included sporadically, depending on who has composed the list (another term for this club-that-nobody-wants-to join is the Forever 27 club).Though the official causes of death for these famous people vary between the different musicians - from suicide to overdoses on sleeping pills to, yes, choking to death on vomit - drug and alcohol abuse is often cited as a primary cause behind many of these deaths. Everyone on this list will never turn 28 – they will be forever 27.

Kurt Cobain

Controversy still swirls around the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain who, on April 8, 1994, was found dead in his Lake Washington home by an electrician. The coroner's report estimated Cobain's time of death to be around April 5 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Also Ranked

#24 on The Best Rock Vocalists

#93 on The Best Singers of All Time

#30 on The Greatest Singers of the Past 30 Years

#10 on The Best Frontmen in Rock

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Amy Winehouse

Long troubled with drugs and alcohol, Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London home July 23, 2011 and would later be reveled to have died of an alcohol overdose. At the time of her death, Winehouse's BAC (blood alcohol content) was .416, far beyond any legal or recommended limits.

Also Ranked

#29 on The Best Singers of All Time

#16 on The Best Female Vocalists Ever

#2 on The Female Singer You Most Wish You Could Sound Like

#16 on The Greatest Singers of the Past 30 Years

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Rock Stars Who Died at Age 29 The Best Rock Vocalists

Jimi Hendrix

An overdose of barbiturates in the form of nine prescription sleeping pills are said to have caused rock guitar legend Jimi Hendrix to asphyxiate on his own vomit, killing him the morning of September 18, 1970 after being found unconscious in a London flat.

Also Ranked

#15 on The Greatest Musical Artists of All Time

#52 on The Best Rock Vocalists

#81 on The Best Singers of All Time

#71 on The Greatest Jazz Guitarists of All Time

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Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin, the legendary singer-songwriter who started with the psychedelic-acid rock band Big Brother and the Holding Company and would later go on to perform as a solo act with her own backing groups, died of an assumed heroin overdose on October 4, 1970. The OD, influenced by alcohol and what is thought to be a particularly potent batch of heroin that incited several other overdoses, felled the singer in her Hollywood house.

Also Ranked

#52 on The Greatest Musical Artists of All Time

#17 on The Best Rock Vocalists

#36 on The Best Singers of All Time

#15 on The Best Female Vocalists Ever

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Rock Stars Who Died at Age 30 16 Celebrities Whose Children Committed Suicide

Jim Morrison

Though an official police report depicts Doors frontman as having died in a bathtub of a heroin overdose, myriad other versions of the singer's death exist, including accounts that he accidentally snorted some of girlfriend Pamela Courson's heroin- having mistaken it for cocaine- and died from this accidental ingestion. Regardless of the exact method, Morrison died on July 3, 1971.

Also Ranked

#5 on The Best Rock Vocalists

#28 on The Best Singers of All Time

#4 on The Best Frontmen in Rock

#2 on The Greatest Musicians Who Died Before 30

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Robert Johnson

Blues singer and musician Robert Johnson died of possible strychnine poisoning on August 16, 1938 after receiving whisky that was likely tampered with in a Greenwood, MS bar.

Also Ranked

#5 on The Best Blues Artists of All Time

#17 on The Greatest Musicians Who Died Before 30

#28 on Rock Stars Whose Deaths Were The Most Untimely

#22 on Artists Who Have Inspired the Best Covers

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Famous Suicides List 16 Celebrity Drug Overdoses We Should Have Seen Coming

Alan Wilson

Singer and frontman of blues outfit Canned Heat, Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, died of an apparent drug overdose in Topanga Canyon, CA on September 3, 1970.

Also Ranked

#91 on The Greatest Musicians Who Died Before 40

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Brian Jones

One of the original founders of The Rolling Stones, frontman Brian Jones was quickly overshadowed by the team of Keith Richards and Mick Jagger and subsequently developed a drug problem that would lead to his dismissal from the group in June 1969. Less than a month later on July 3, Jones was found in the bottom of his pool and his death was entered as a drowning "death by misadventure".

Also Ranked

#14 on The Greatest Musicians Who Died Before 30

#29 on Rock Stars Whose Deaths Were The Most Untimely

#82 on The Greatest Rock Songwriters of All Time

#11 on The Greatest Rock Stars Who Died Before 40

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