Sam Cooke: Age 33
( b. 22 January 1931, Clarksdale, Mississippi, d. 11 December 1964, Los Angeles, California,).
Cooke first performed publicly with his brother and two sisters in their Baptist quartet, the Soul
Children…The purity of such music made his tawdry fate all the more perplexing. On 11 December
1964, following an altercation with a girl he had picked up, the singer was fatally shot by the manageress
of a Los Angeles motel. The ebullient Shake became a posthumous hit, but its serene coupling, A
Change Is Gonna Come, was a more melancholic epitaph.  (Bobby Womack of the Valentinos
married Sam’s widow).
 

Marvin Gaye: Age 44
(Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., b. 2 April 1939, Washington, DC, d. 1 April 1984).
Gaye was named after his father, a minister in the Apostolic Church… He returned to the USA,
where he took up residence at his parents' home. The intensity of his cocaine addiction made it
impossible for him to work on another album, and he fell into a prolonged bout of depression.
He repeatedly announced his wish to commit suicide in the early weeks of 1984, and his abrupt
shifts of mood brought him into heated conflict with his father, rekindling animosity that had festered
since Gaye's adolescence. On 1 April 1984, another violent disagreement provoked Marvin Gaye, Sr.
to shoot his son dead. [Just prior to this], he found himself living with his parents...where the resentments
between Marvin and his father ran deep. On the day before Marvin's forty- fifth birthday they
quarreled over his father's treatment of his mother.  Marvin lashed out at him, attacking him and
beating him. His father calmly left the room, went down the hall to his own room, and returned with
a gun. He shot Marvin twice in the chest, the second time at point-blank range. Marvin Gaye died
instantly. (Jeff Pike’s Death of R & R)
 

Cornell Gunther: Age 54
The Coasters
 (b. 14 November 1936, Los Angeles, California, USA d. 26 February 1990).
 

Al Jackson:
MG's
Drummer.  Shot by intruder into his house.
 

Eddie Jefferson: Age 60
(b. August 1918, Detroit, Michigan, USA, d. 9 May 1979, Detroit, Michigan).
In the early '70s Jefferson sang with Richie Cole...on 9 May 1979, during an engagement
at the Showcase in Detroit and within days of being filmed in performance there, he was
fatally shot in the street outside the club.
 

John Lennon: Age 40
(b. 9 October 1940, Liverpool, England, d. 8 December 1980, New York, USA).
John Winston Ono Lennon has been exhumed in print more than any other popular musical
figure, including the late Elvis Presley, of whom John said ‘died when he went into the army’.
[Just prior to his death] a new album was released to a relieved public and went straight to number 1,
almost worldwide. The following month, with fans still jubilant at Lennon's return, he was suddenly
brutally murdered by a gunman outside his apartment building in Manhattan. Almost from
the moment that John's heart stopped in the Roosevelt Hospital the whole world reacted in
unprecedented mourning.

Lee Morgan: Age 33
(b. 10 July 1938, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 19 February 1972).
Prodigiously talented, Morgan played trumpet professionally at the age of 15 and three years
later joined Dizzy Gillespie's big band. During this same period he recorded with John Coltrane,
Hank Mobley and others.  In the late '60s, Morgan's career was damaged for a while by personal
problems but a woman friend helped him recover. Unfortunately, this same woman became jealous
of a new relationship he had formed and on 19 February 1972 she shot and killed him at the
New York's, Slug's Club, where his quintet were performing.

Notorious B.I.G:

Chano Pozo: Age 33
(b. Luciano Pozo y Gonzales, 7 June 1915, Havana, Cuba, d. 2 December 1948, New York).
Drummer and vocalist Pozo's first appearance in the USA was at a Carnegie Hall concert in
September 1947, at which he played with Dizzy Gillespie. Thereafter he worked regularly with
Gillespie, making a number of records which were enormously influential on many jazzmen who
responded to the intriguing Latin-American rhythms he used. In December 1948, before the two
men could fully exploit what was clearly a potentially exciting musical relationship, Pozo was
murdered, shot in a Harlem bar.

Selena:

Tupac Shakur: Age 25
In Las Vegas an hour and a half after the Tyson/Seldon fight, Suge Knight was
driving the black BMW 1996 model, Tupac was in the passenger's seat.  Along the
passenger's side came a late model white Cadillac. From inside, shots were fired,
14 of them. Tupac was hit four times, twice in the chest, once in the arm,
and once in the thigh. Knight was mildly injured by some bullet fragments; 
Tupac Shakur died of the bullet  wounds on Friday 13 September 1996.
MTV Report on death.
 
James Sheppard: Age 33
Shep & The Limelights
(b. c.1936, Queens, New York, USA, d. 24 January 1970).
Sheppard was shot dead on 24 January 1970.  (Note:Double check
that he wasn't robbed and beaten to death, his body found in his car
on the LIE ).

Stringbean: Age 58
(b. June 17th, 1915, d. November 10, 1973).
Murdered (shot?) along with wife by burglar.  Subject of  book,
The Stringbean Murders.  (Tribute).
 
Stacy Sutherland:
13th Floor Elevator
Despite an occasional reunion, the Elevators disintegrated when [leader],
Erickson, was committed to a mental institution and Sutherland was imprisoned.
Reissues and archive compilations have furthered their reputation, but the group's
personal tragedies culminated in 1978 when Sutherland was shot dead by his wife.
 

Peter Tosh: Age 42
(b. Winston Hubert McIntosh, 19 Oct. 1944, Westmoreland, Jamaica, d. 11 Sept. 1987).
[Notes on Tosh's career:] His first album...sold well, but MYSTIC MAN and WANTED,
DREAD & ALIVE, did not. NO NUCLEAR WAR, his best since LEGALIZE IT...won
the first best reggae album Grammy Award in March 1988, but by then Tosh was dead,
shot in a robbery on his home in Kingston in September 1987. The tuffest reggae singer
of all had finally succumbed to the gun.