Musicians who died in your lifetime whose output you miss

Axe_meister

I recently watched the Elvis movie, it certainly put a different perspective on his life. Did not realise that he was such a victim of his manager. Wonder what he would have done if he'd been able to the follow the path he really wanted to take. 
Would he have become more political? Would he have branched out into Jazz? 
Bowies death hit me hard, but then again he'd already peaked. I think SRV really would have had a bright future ahead if he'd branched out into other musical styles.
Gary Moores passing was sad, but I don't, but was playing to set formula but capable of so much more.
Wonder what Kurt Cobain would have gone onto? 
George Michael's death was untimely and really think he could have had a good run replacing Freddie in Queen. As good as Adam Lambert is, I think George would have been a great fit.
Prince, great song writer, but seemed a troubled soul.

KrisGee

Kurt Cobain
Layne Staley
Scott Weiland

Yeah, I'm heavily grunge influenced, the beginning of 90s were my teenage years and these three individuals were always on my radar as some of my favourite musicians. 
Have always wondered what Nirvana, AIC and STP would come up with itlf they were still alive. I think Layne Staley is the one I miss the most, never heard anyone sing like him before or after, truly unique and irreplaceable even though Duvall is doing quite well. 

Kurtis

Biggy.

mfin

Rhoads. But he would have done his best stuff a long time ago, in fact it was probably already done. Of it's time, amazing. So raw, that percussive lead tone and sensibility around real swerving emotion within the compositions was a joy.

Kobain? Naaa, thanks for a good few tunes though!

Bowks

Michael Hedges
Jeff Buckley
Kurt Cobain

CoolCat

George Harrison - Beatles
Gary Rossington - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Randy Rhoads - Ozzy's band
Roy Orbison
Karen Carpenter - what a voice!
Gerry Rafferty
Glenn Frey - Eagles

randella

Not a musician, so a complete aside, but I've been thinking lately how much I miss Rik Mayall.

Offset

randella said:

Not a musician, so a complete aside, but I've been thinking lately how much I miss Rik Mayall.

I've just purchased Ade Edmondson's autobiography.  Slightly trepidatious as to how Mayall will come out of it.

BillDL

Offset said:

I've just purchased Ade Edmondson's autobiography.  Slightly trepidatious as to how Mayall will come out of it.

Did they have a falling out?  As a much younger man in a certain uniform the younger people I had "dealings with" used to call me "Big Vyv" because in that era I could be a bit unpredictable at times

randella

Not so much a falling out, but - according to received wisdom - Mayall became difficult to be around after his quad bike accident.

randella

Offset said:

randella said:

Not a musician, so a complete aside, but I've been thinking lately how much I miss Rik Mayall.

I've just purchased Ade Edmondson's autobiography.  Slightly trepidatious as to how Mayall will come out of it.

Me too. Putting off reading it for that very reason.

For me, Rik was anti-establishment in comedy the same way Lemmy was in music. So maybe his name belongs here after all

GuyBoden

Allan Holdsworth

Jack Wilkins

I saw Jack Wilkins and Jimmy Bruno play as a duo, they were the best guitar duo I've ever heard.

Creed_Clicks

Frank Zappa, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell.

stufisher

Sandy Denny,
Janis Joplin,
Phil Lynott,
Paul Kossoff,
Michael Hutchence,
Randy Rhoads,
Jim Morrison,
Roy Williamson,
Tupac,

Greatape

Walter Becker
Jeff Buckley
Mark Sandman 

octatonic

This is wild.
As part of wanting to answer this question I needed to look up who died after 1972 as I couldn't really remember.

I found a list of deaths in each successive decade, starting in the 1950's (obvs).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_rock_and_roll_(1950s)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_rock_and_roll_(1960s)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_rock_and_roll_(1970s)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_rock_and_roll_(1980s)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_rock_and_roll_(1990s)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_rock_and_roll_(2000s)

Once we get to 2010's they needed to split it into each year:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2010s_deaths_in_popular_music

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_2020s_deaths_in_popular_music

It is somewhat reassuring that the majority of deaths are for genuine health reasons and not for drug/alcohol/suicide reasons but there is still a lot of that, with high points being the 70's, 90', 2010's somewhat agreeing with the 'music has a 20 year cycle' theory.

To answer the original question- Freddie, Bowie, Zappa, Chris Cornell.
Bowie absolutely shredded me- I felt actual grief when he passed away.

digitalkettle

Obviously this is a subjective topic but I think Jeff Buckley (and maybe Randy Rhoads) is the ultimate answer to this question: gone in their prime...probably pre-zenith.

I was really upset when Allan Holdsworth died but we'd certainly seen the best of him...same with Bowie, Prince, Freddie, etc.

They're all missed but we've already heard enough to be sure of their greatness.

Greatape

Michael Brecker. 
Sanborn
Miles - how could I forget Miles ...prob number one. 

littlegreenman

Just to revisit, after a session of YouTube-ing, rather than edit my first post:

Allan Holdsworth. I was genuinely upset when I heard of his death, never saw or heard a guitarist like him. And was such a nice guy, bought me a pint after a gig in Edinburgh so we could talk about bicycles! He liked Titanium better than Carbon, but was happy with his Reynolds 753 steel bike. Changed the game for guitar forever, everything that came after is all from Allan.

Again, Zappa. I put off going to the '88 concert in Birmingham thinking "I'll go to the next tour", of course there wasn't one

Both were perhaps past their peak, depending on your point of view, but to me they were pushing the envelope all the way and still there up to the end.

stufisher

Just remembered I hadn't mentioned Eva Cassidy.

She could also be on my list of favourites female vocalists ... tragice loss of talent IMHO