Malcolm Hale - Carbon Monoxide Poisoning

Malcolm Hale, who arranged much of the group’s work, died suddenly at his Chicago apartment at the age of twenty seven. There have been conflicting verdicts of walking pneumonia or cirrhosis of the liver, though some reports also suggest that he may have died as a result of carbon monoxide poisoning due to a faulty heater.

Malcolm Hale born May 17, 1941, died October 31, 1968

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James Ramey aka Baby Huey - Heart Attack

Ramey’s heroin related heart attack in Chicago’s Roberts Motel meant that the singer never saw his first record issued, however, his body just wasn’t able to stand the combination of his size and his appetite for illegal substances.

James Ramey aka Baby Huey born August 17, 1944, died October 28, 1970

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Alma Cogan - Throat Cancer

There was still the staple cabaret circuit, which she pursued for several years, and it was at one such date in Sweden in the autumn of 1966 that Cogan mysteriously collapsed. Rushed to hospital, the 34 year old vocalist was diagnosed with throat cancer, within weeks she was admitted to the Middlesex Hospital, where, shortly thereafter, she passed away.

Alma Cogan born May 19, 1932, died October 26, 1966

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Bill Black - Brain Tumour

Bill Black was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Devastated, and feeling his time was limited, he signed over responsibilities for the band to guitarist Bob Tucker before undergoing the first of three operations. On 8 October, after the third operation, Black slipped into a coma from which he did not recover, and died two weeks later at the Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, the very same hospital at which Presley himself was pronounced dead, nearly twelve years later.

Bill Black born September 17, 1926, died October 21, 1965

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Huddie Ledbetter - Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis

The Cajun blues guitarist known as Leadbelly who, in 1949, finally submitted to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a crippling condition known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, after the New York baseball star who’d died from the disease eight years previously.

Huddie Ledbetter born January 29, 1889, died 1949

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Stuart Sutcliffe - Brain Haemorrhage

Found himself the victim of one of many regular attacks on in which he was knocked to the ground and kicked in the head. Although bleeding profusely from the resultant gash, he refused to allow his mother to call an ambulance. A post mortem finally revealed the tumour beneath his skull exactly where he had been kicked two years previously.

Stuart Sutcliffe born June 23, 1940, died 1962

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Johnny Kidd - Car Crash

The recently married Kidd was travelling in the tour van to an engagement when he was killed in the crash on the M1 near Radcliffe, just outside Bury, Lancashire.

Johnny Kidd born December 23, 1939, died October 7, 1966

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Janis Joplin - Overdose

Although Joplin appeared to have collapsed and hit her head on a nightstand, the likelihood is that the heroin, according to doctors, close to 40 percent pure, as opposed to the street norm of 1–2 percent, killed her outright. Also found in the room was Joplin’s hype kit, gauze, cotton wool, a towel and syringe. Finally, a red balloon was returned to Room 105, inevitably, it contained heroin.

Janis Joplin born January 19, 1943, died October 4, 1970

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Woody Guthrie - Huntington’s Chorea

The last thirteen years of Guthrie’s life were spent in chronic ill health. Doctors offered conflicting diagnoses, though schizophrenia was suggested more than once. In fact, it was Huntington’s chorea, a degenerative disease that had seen his mother institutionalized thirty years earlier, that robbed this talent of virtually all his faculties and eventually took his life.

Woody Guthrie born July 14, 1912, died October 3, 1967

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