PopSyndicate.com

It’s better to burn out than fade away. Or at least, so goes the long-lived cliché of the rock star lifestyle. Since the genre’s emergence in the 1950s, rockers have lived fast, lived wild and because of this, usually didn’t end up living very long. Sure, some things were just out of the musicians’ control, but the “sex, drugs and rock n’ roll” lifestyle claimed more than a few victims. Not that hard-partying was, or is, the only the thing to scoot rockers to the grim reaper’s doorstep, as Jeremy Simmonds new book The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars from Chicago Review Press proves.

The title is pretty self-descriptive and very accurate. Within the 604 pages contained in this tome, the reader is given a profile of just about every famous, infamous, and not-that-famous rock musician known to man. Sure, that’s exaggerating slightly, it would be a hundred times this size if Simmonds had somehow managed to track down every single casualty that played in a local garage band. Still, what’s here is insightful, informative, entertaining and as comprehensive as possible.

Each of the dearly departed receive their own entry. Some are a page large, some only part of a column. Arranged chronologically by date of death, we start off with 1965, where Simmonds chose as his starting point, and the death of...a disc jockey? Sure, it’s an odd choice upon first sight until you realize that Alan Freed may have not only coined the term “rock and roll” but also the famous quote “live fast, die young, make a good-looking corpse.” And that’s exactly what he did, dying in the January of that year from cirrhosis. The book ends, almost fittingly, with James Brown.

The formatting of the profiles is designed for easy-access for the reader. Not only are they in chronological order (with the occasional perished whose dates of death are unknown being lumped together at the end of the year they died), but each includes date of birth, a listing of the bands they performed with, and little symbols to show how they went. A syringe indicates an overdose, a gun is obviously a gunshot wound...that sort of thing.

Simmonds writing style is at once clear and informative, but also laced with just a hint of sarcasm. Sometimes he just can’t help but poke a little fun at his subjects, or at the very least, let his own musical tastes seep through. But his main focus is to inform, and that he does. Take, for instance, the death of Patrick Sherry, vocalist of Bad Beat Revue. During a gig he wasn’t even booked for (the original band no-showed and since BBR were in the house, they were talked into performing), he fell from a lighting rig to his on-stage death. And not that it will ever get rid of the rumor, but he dispels the Mama Cass “ham sandwich” story...kind of.

The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars is a thoroughly fascinating reference book, and the way it puts the most well-known (Elvis, Cobain, Hendrix) right next to the replacement bassist for some band that did backing for one album during the disco era gives the reader a lot of reading material that they may not already know. 

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