Tuesday Top Ten: Dead Rock Stars, Part 2

Following up on last week's Tuesday Top Ten (Top Ten Dead Musicians Whose Death Most Helped Their Legacy and/or Rock and Roll), as promised, this week will feature those musicians whose death most hurt either their legacy and/or rock and roll. For the guidelines, click on the link in the previous sentence.

Top Ten Dead Musicians Whose Death Most Hurt Their Legacy and/or Rock and Roll (in chronological order):
10. Buddy Holly (Feb. 3, 1959, plane crash, 22). He was the first major rock and roller to write nearly all of his own songs. His death started a four-year low period for rock and roll, marred by bubble gum pop and uninspired, cheesy crap that bridged the gap until The Beatles. Had Buddy Holly not died, perhaps he could have saved us from the likes of the Bobbies (Bobby Vinton, Bobby Vee, Bobby Rydell, Bobby Curtola, etc.), Neil Sedaka, and Paul Anka, and expanded his repertoire during the sixties.
9. Ritchie Valens (Feb. 3, 1959, plane crash, 17). He was only 17 when he died, and he had already reworked "La Bamba" from a Mexican folk song into what is now a rock and roll standard, and he had written and performed "Donna," which reached #2 on the charts. I have to think he had a lot more ahead of him. We all know him now because of the date on which he died and a Lou Diamond Phillips movie, but I think he would have been known more for his music than his death had he lived, not to mention the even bigger influence he could have had on potential Latino rockers.
8. Otis Redding (Dec. 10, 1967, plane crash, 26). Otis Redding was just beginning to break into the realm of superstardom when he died. He had played the Monterrey Pop Festival in the summer of '67, which helped broaden his appeal, and his only No. 1 hit, "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," was recorded only three days before his death and released posthumously. As talented a singer and songwriter as he was, his death left a hole in soul music, and I think he would have continued to make great music had he not died.
7. Mama Cass Elliot (July 29, 1974, heart attack, 32). The only reason I say that her death hurt her legacy is because of the speculation that she died while choking on a ham sandwich. She did not.
6. Duane Allman (Oct. 29, 1971, motorcycle crash, 24). Duane Allman is remembered as a great guitarist, as he should be, but I cringe when I think of how much better the Allman Brothers Band could have been with him than without him. And the possibility of him teaming up again with Clapton (Allman was in Derek & The Dominos, most memorably playing the soaring slide guitar during the coda in "Layla") is an unfortunate "what if."
5. Ronnie Van Zant (Oct. 20, 1977, plane crash, 29). Nine days before I was born, Southern Rock, for all intents and purposes, died along with Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and Cassie Gaines in a swampy forest outside Gillsburg, Mississippi. Van Zant's death didn't hurt his personal legacy (although it should serve as a reminder that no one should outwardly wish to "live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse," as Van Zant is alleged to have once said). Rather, it killed the greatest force in Southern Rock. In my view, Lynyrd Skynyrd had a lot of good rock and roll left in them, and, unfortunately, .38 Special and Molly Hatchet just couldn't quite carry the torch.
4. John Bonham (Sept. 25, 1980, 40 shots of vodka, 32). Not only did he hurt his own legacy by failing to survive a paltry 40 shots of vodka, but, in dying, he also killed Led Zeppelin. That's not cool.
3. Steve Clark (Jan. 8, 1991, antidepressant, painkiller, and alcohol overdose, 30). A tragic figure in Def Leppard's spotted history, Clark was a driving force behind the band's music and lyrics, co-writing nearly every song on the band's first five albums (although he died before the fifth album, 1992's Adrenalize, was recorded). As Greg said, who knows what would have happened with Def Leppard had Clark not died in 1991? I'd like to think they would have maintained their perch in spite of grunge, perhaps moving back to a harder NWOBH sound. This is not to take anything away from Vivian Campbell (who joined Def Leppard after Clark's death), but Clark was a special talent who had a huge role in Def Leppard's rise to success. It should also be noted that once Steve Clark was found passed out with a .59 BAC. He lived. John Bonham died with a .41. That has nothing to do with hurting his legacy or rock and roll. It's just totally badass.
2. Eric "Eazy-E" Wright (Mar. 26, 1995, complications related to AIDS, 31). By the time Eazy-E died, his former N.W.A. band mates had publicly trashed him (e.g., Dr. Dre's "Fuck Wit Dre Day" and Ice Cube's "No Vaseline"), and his "Gimme That Nutt" attitude came back to bite him in the ass (or, more appropriately, the T cells). While he had made amends with Dre and Ice Cube before his death, he is essentially remembered as a pariah.
1. Brad Nowell (May 25, 1996, heroin overdose, 28). Talk about bad timing. Nowell died just two months before Sublime's first major-label album was released in 1996. That eponymous album went 5x Platinum within three years. I think his songs had enough of a broad appeal that Sublime would have been around for a long time to come. Instead, his former band members went on to form the Long Beach Dub Allstars. Who? Exactly.