# Who would have been awesome if they'd lived longer(music artists) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 21, 2018, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518 "2018-06-21T16:46:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/21 "2018-06-21T19:23:15Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Several classical composers, most obviously Mozart. Even though what he did write in his relatively short lifetime puts him at or near the top of many people’s list of Greatest Composers Ever, it’s not far-fetched to believe that, at 35, his greatest work would have been still ahead of him had he lived even a few more years. **Schubert** , of course. His last works - piano sonatas, string quartets and quintet, and Lieder (_Winterreise_, _Schwanengesang_) - are almost all absolute masterpieces. To think he could plausibly have lived long enough to hear **Wagner** ’s first operas… Also **Chopin** , **Pergolese** and, to a lesser extent, **Lekeu**. ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/22 "2018-06-21T19:23:59Z")
I’m adding votes for Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jim Croce. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/23 "2018-06-21T19:40:34Z")
In the musical theater world, the biggest question is what Jonathan Larson might have done had one of the two hospitals he went to a week before his sudden death of an aorta aneurysm had diagnosed and treated it. Rent went on the huge success, but what might have been. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/24 "2018-06-21T19:43:00Z")
I love Croce’s music, as well, and he only had about a year and a half as a nationally-known musician before the plane crash. What I had forgotten, until reading [his Wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Croce), was this: > [@](#): > > While on his tours, he grew increasingly homesick, and decided to take a break from music and settle with his wife and infant son when his Life and Times tour ended. In a letter to his wife which arrived after his death, Croce told her he had decided to quit music and stick to writing short stories and movie scripts as a career, and withdraw from public life. So, if he’d lived, who knows if he would have remained in the music industry? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/25 "2018-06-21T19:51:57Z")
Ian Curtis. Certainly he hadn’t peaked yet. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/26 "2018-06-21T19:52:52Z")
> [@Patx2](#): > > I’m adding votes for Stevie Ray Vaughn and Jim Croce. I don’t know about SRV. Much as I love him, he emerged pretty much fully formed and there’s really not a whole lot of difference between his earliest stuff and his last recordings. He had certainly mastered his instrument and his genre, but he was never really pushing any boundaries. On the other hand, there’s Danny Gatton… ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/27 "2018-06-21T20:16:36Z")
> [@Dropo](#): > > Admittedly, I am answering the OP’s question as: whose career would you have been most interested in had they lived longer? > > Robert Johnson Good Lord, yes. ---
**Author:** ![harmonicamoon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/65b543/32.png) [@harmonicamoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/harmonicamoon)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/28 "2018-06-21T20:17:52Z")
I would have liked to hear more from John Denver. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/29 "2018-06-21T20:32:41Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Ian Curtis. Certainly he hadn’t peaked yet. Absolutely. Joy Division were already playing around with electronics when he died, and I think he was on the same pathway musically as the rest of the band. New Order, but with Ian lyrics would have been quite a thing. ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/30 "2018-06-21T20:40:39Z")
1. Michael Hedges. Who knows what kind of amazing guitar work he might have gone on to perform. 2. While it’s true that he already reached his peak, oh how I wish there was more Tom Petty music to look forward to. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/31 "2018-06-21T20:42:49Z")
Paul McCartney. (Too soon?) ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/32 "2018-06-21T20:52:42Z")
A little too soon, yes. 😃 He released a new single just yesterday: [Come On To Me](https://youtu.be/ZeJLrtFY7Ds) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/33 "2018-06-21T21:19:52Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > He released a new single just yesterday: [Come On To Me](https://youtu.be/ZeJLrtFY7Ds) What genre is that? ---
**Author:** ![Steophan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steophan/32/9595_2.png) [@Steophan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steophan)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/34 "2018-06-21T21:53:36Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > I disagree kindly with the OP about Cobain. Cred: I’m a lifelong Seattlite of the same age that lived and loved through the grunge era, also am friends of Cobain-family friends so have had a lot of grapevine hearsay… > > Kurt’s anti-commercialism was very calculated and deliberate. He was ‘anti’ insofar as creative control, but was completely willing and able to use commercialism as a means to an artistic end. He was very creatively driven and I think he would have become more like Prince or Bowie, a vast shifting body of work alienating just as many fans as gaining. I agree, though, that Grohl would have come to creative headbutts wanting to spread his own wings and the band didn’t have more than 1 album left before (probably amicably) breaking up. If we’re talking Seattle musicians, the one that would have been most interesting has they lived has to be Andrew Wood. If Mother Love Bone had continued and become anywhere near as successful as the other big grunge bands, and yet retained the 80s glam influence, the whole course of 90s rock might have been different, without the wholesale rejection (on the surface, at least) of the 80s. ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/35 "2018-06-21T22:08:41Z")
Cass Eliot had such a wonderful voice. I think she would have been even better as she aged. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/36 "2018-06-21T22:15:12Z")
I’d love to have heard Jimi Hendrix playing with either John Coltrane or Miles Davis. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/37 "2018-06-21T22:18:58Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > I’d love to have heard Jimi Hendrix playing with either John Coltrane or Miles Davis. 🙂 Did Hendrix ever do jazz? ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/38 "2018-06-21T22:19:27Z")
A lot of good suggestions here. I submit [Randy Rhodes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Rhoads). ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/39 "2018-06-21T22:46:20Z")
Nirvana - I think they would have evolved quite a bit and I would love to live in an alternative world where we can hear their music from 95-present. Layne Staley - He was barely alive when he was alive, sadly. I would have loved to have 5-6 Alice in Chains more albums with him on board. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2018, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518/40 "2018-06-21T23:06:09Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > I don’t know about SRV. Much as I love him, he emerged pretty much fully formed and there’s really not a whole lot of difference between his earliest stuff and his last recordings. He had certainly mastered his instrument and his genre, but he was never really pushing any boundaries. > > On the other hand, there’s Danny Gatton… I disagree. Remember his addiction problems stagnated him for a while but that was behind him. He was starting to record acoustic as well as spreading out to more jazz styles. The Vaughn brothers album had a much different feel. I think he would have kept evolving. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-would-have-been-awesome-if-theyd-lived-longer-music-artists/816518.md?page=3)