# First death of a rock & roll star? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 14, 2016, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104 "2016-01-14T03:09:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/1 "2016-01-14T03:09:26Z")
The recent unfortunate death of David Bowie made me wonder, who was the first major rock & roll/pop music star to die? Did any major stars meet their demise before Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper (February 3, 1959)? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/2 "2016-01-14T03:12:19Z")
Hank Williams? 1 January 1953? I’d categorize “Hey, Hey, Good Lookin’!” as a pop song. ---
**Author:** ![zombywoof](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9e8a1a/32.png) [@zombywoof](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zombywoof)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/3 "2016-01-14T03:14:36Z")
Depending on your definition of “rock & roll star”, a few might predate the 2/3/59 crash - unsurprisingly, Wikipedia has a list: > **[List of deaths in rock and roll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deaths_in_rock_and_roll)** > > The following is a list of notable performers of rock and roll music or rock music, and others directly associated with the music as producers, songwriters or in other closely related roles, who have died. The list gives their date, cause and location of death, and their age. > Rock music developed from the rock and roll music that emerged during the 1950s, and includes a diverse range of subgenres. The terms "rock and roll" and "rock" each have a variety of definitions, some narrow and some wid... ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/4 "2016-01-14T03:28:29Z")
If you’re going to make a suggestion predating the very notion of rock & roll, why not go all the way and name Robert Johnson? It’s possible that there isn’t an answer earlier than the day the music died. The number of true rock & roll stars was in the low two digits at the time. Richie Valens and the Big Bopper had had exactly one top ten song each at the time. They may be the tiniest of footnotes today if they hadn’t died, and not "stars’ at all. Of the names in zombywoof’s link, Danny Cedrone died before the Comets’ first single charted; Cecil Gant and Johnny Ace were R&B singers, and Chuck Willis was another with one top ten hit. Buddy Holly was the first rock & roll star to die. Smebody had to be. Why not him? ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/5 "2016-01-14T04:35:48Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If you’re going to make a suggestion predating the very notion of rock & roll, why not go all the way and name Robert Johnson? Because Franz Liszt died before he did? ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/6 "2016-01-14T04:45:41Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If you’re going to make a suggestion predating the very notion of rock & roll, why not go all the way and name Robert Johnson? > > It’s possible that there isn’t an answer earlier than the day the music died. The number of true rock & roll stars was in the low two digits at the time. Richie Valens and the Big Bopper had had exactly one top ten song each at the time. They may be the tiniest of footnotes today if they hadn’t died, and not "stars’ at all. > > Of the names in zombywoof’s link, Danny Cedrone died before the Comets’ first single charted; Cecil Gant and Johnny Ace were R&B singers, and Chuck Willis was another with one top ten hit. > > Buddy Holly was the first rock & roll star to die. Smebody had to be. Why not him? Agree that Valens would be forgotten not only by now but probably two years later. This is from The Very Best of Ritchie Valens: [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HMcHbh6HBDk/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AH-AoACoAKKAgwIABABGGUgUihOMA8=&rs=AOn4CLDPUdSPK8EuIisItJaexuAWVjGVRQ "Ritchie Valens-Donna") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMcHbh6HBDk) I’m voting Holly. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/7 "2016-01-14T04:55:55Z")
Paul Simon wrote a song about “the late, great Johnny Ace”, who died Christmas 1954 because he didn’t correctly know which chamber was loaded ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/8 "2016-01-14T05:19:30Z")
Had Bix Beiderbecke died 5 months earlier, he would have been an early member of Club 27. His COD was officially pneumonia, but he was also a very severe alcoholic, and this means he was partaking in illegal drugs at the time. > **[Bix Beiderbecke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bix_Beiderbecke)** > > Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, pianist and composer. > Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s, a cornet player noted for an inventive lyrical approach and purity of tone, with such clarity of sound that one contemporary famously described it like "shooting bullets at a bell”. His solos on seminal recordings such as "Singin' the Blues" and "I'm Coming, Virginia" (both 1927) demonstrate a gift for ext... ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/9 "2016-01-14T05:57:18Z")
I think we need to define “rock and roll” and “star”. ---
**Author:** ![bienville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4bbf92/32.png) [@bienville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bienville)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/10 "2016-01-14T06:36:17Z")
I think in all fairness to Ritchie Valens, we have to say the jury will always be out as far as what the continuation of his career would have been like. He was only 17 when he died, just _four months after his debut single_. He hadn’t even put out a full album yet. He was young, charismatic, had a good voice and guitar chops, and he had three bona fide hit songs in his 4 month career- one of them a B-side and one of them a #2 Hit that he wrote. The reason everything else released sounds like crap filler is because, with his death, there was nothing to release except to just put out every available recording ever made of his voice whether it otherwise would have been deemed fit for release or not. His career very well could have fizzled out but I think there certainly was a good chance he could have been something really special, especially if he developed as a songwriter (admittedly “Donna” was very simplistic, almost amateurish, but it was a #2 hit- so, it was really everything that it needed to be). And he definitely was showing some real personality in his guitar work at such a young age. Who knows what the guitar work of a 30 year old Valens would have sounded like. He was only a year and a half older than Jimi Hendrix. Valens would have been 27 in 1968 and could have been doing something amazing by then. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/11 "2016-01-14T17:32:24Z")
It’s also true that J. P. Richardson was talented. He wrote “Running Bear,” a cheesy song that nonetheless hit #1 for Johny Preston and “White Lightning,” a #1 country song for George Jones. Both appeared after he died. I wouldn’t call either one rock & roll, although “White Lightning” has more than a hint of Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis. That’s the thing. The Big Bopper had a top ten song when he died. He was a flavor of the week, certainly, but not a star by any normal definition. What he or Valens could have been is speculation. At the time, neither were stars. Holly was. ---
**Author:** ![It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/it_s_not_rocket_surgery/32/312_2.png) [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/12 "2016-01-14T17:37:43Z")
Obviously not a rock n’ roll star (the term didn’t even exist yet), but Glenn Miller was a major pop star of sorts when he died in 1944. [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1905/did-band-leader-glenn-miller-die-in-a-french-brothel](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1905/did-band-leader-glenn-miller-die-in-a-french-brothel) ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/13 "2016-01-14T17:38:37Z")
Interesting concept, but **Buddy Holly** is the first that comes to mind. Now, in the UK, the death of **Eddie Cochran** (and further crippling of Gene Vincent) had an impact there that was a bit bigger than here in the U.S., perhaps simply because it happened in England. But Cochran’s songs like Somethin’ Else, C’mon Everybody and of course Summertime Blues loom larger in the UK’s history of rock vs. the US, near as I can tell. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/14 "2016-01-14T17:50:36Z")
I think Danny Cedrone must be it. He earned it. 10 days after the session…cruel. That is if you’re talking about “musician” and not “rock and roll star.” He was a star posthumously even so. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2016, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-death-of-a-rock-roll-star/743104/15 "2016-01-14T18:16:48Z")
Johnny Ace has been mentioned. He died in 1954. Rock and Roll, at that point, was pretty indistinguishable from “race” (rhythm and blues) music except that they called it one thing when a white guy sang it and another when a black guy (like Ace) did, and white guys weren’t singing it so much yet. Stylistically, he was as rock and roll as it got in 1954. Was he a star? He wasn’t a headliner; he toured with Big Mama Thornton. He had eight hits and sold 1.75 million records, but it’s unclear how much of that was posthumous. I think accidentally killing himself made him a much bigger star than he otherwise would have been. It’s what he’s most famous for. For all the asterisks by his name, I think he’s the first dead rock star.