Seen it, read the biography, watched virtually every video of him on YouTube and heard just about everything he ever recorded. He was a true musician’s musician. 1. He outright said in interviews that it wasn’t some kind of supernatural power that gave him the skills that he had, it was simply that he worked his ass off practicing and playing. It’s not like he kept his techniques a closely guarded secret - in fact he’d explain them and demonstrate them in exhaustive detail to anyone who would listen. There’s an instructional video that he made shortly before his death called Modern Electric Bass that is to this day probably the single best educational bass video ever. 2. He was perpetually grinning from ear to ear and dancing as he played. In almost every video of him performing, you can see how much he’s enjoying the music. That’s the sign of a great musician - he always looks like he’s having a great time as he’s playing.
While "#IAgree"ing many of the others mentioned (Cobain, Winehouse, Croce) and Holly, I’d put forth Ritchie Valens, who died in the same accident. He recorded music for less than a year, dropped hits like “La Bamba”, “Donna”, and “Come On, Let’s Go”, and has been considered an influence for everyone from Carlos Santana to Los Lobos.
That I grew up 40 miles from the Surf had nothing to do with my interest in Valens, none at all 
I’m pleased to see all the Jim Croce support. Buddy Holly was my initial response upon reading the thread title, but I love me some Croce.
Also, I don’t think anyone’s mentioned Townes Van Zandt yet.
mmm
Harry Chapin is my pick. I just loved his music.
Otis Redding is probably the top of my list. He took influences from many different directions and influenced many others in turn, so it would have been interesting to see what he might have done in the 70s. Besides, at age 26 he had already written Respect, Hard to Handle and Sitting on the dock of the bay, so it seems a safe bet he had a few more hit songs in him.
Also Freddie Mercury. He kicked ass until the very end, but I still wonder what he could have achieved if he had been at full health and had gotten more time.
Jeff? Sure, but Tim Buckley even more so, I think.
This was my first thought, he was a brilliant songwriter and performer, hitting his stride. He would have produced so much amazing music.
Also I thought of Steve Goodman, who died of leukemia at age 36. Imagine what music he would have produced after the Cubs won the World Series?!
Nirvana was Kurt Cobain, who wrote all the songs (except for the odd cover and an obscure Grohl-penned B-side). The band could have survived the loss of Grohl and/or Novoselic without changing its overall sound or musical/artistic direction. Whether or not they’d still be successful, I don’t know. But I think there’d be no practical difference between Cobain fronting a reshuffled Nirvana and Cobain as a “solo artist”.
I agree that Grohl probably would have left the band eventually, or at least taken time off for a solo record. Like George Harrison in the Beatles, he was building up a huge catalogue of songs behind the scenes, and Nirvana wasn’t really the right vehicle to record and release them all.
If I had my druthers, Mozart would have seen the Rock era. He would have loved it, and done so much for the genre.
I didn’t (and still don’t) know all that much about him; I simply chose the doco on Netflix because it looked interesting. You are right in that he reflected pure joy while he was performing.
“Paul McCartney music”
Seriously, other than his voice sounding a bit “older”, that song could have been recorded at any point in the last 50 years. The flip side (I Don’t Know) sounds even more “McCartney-ish” to me.
Listen to Clapton’s Cream bootlegs when he was experimenting (and probably enjoying himself) a lot more than anything he’s done since then.
I once read a story where some time travelers with an interest in classical music went back and took Mozart from just before he died, brought him to the present day, cured him of whatever ailed him, and set him to work composing new music. Then he learned about rock 'n roll.
He also learned about drugs. It turns out Wolfgang was fated always die young.
Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner, “Mozart In Mirrorshades”. Good story, it’s collected in the mid-80s cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades, but I think there’s a PDF floating about if you google hard enough.
I do wish that Jim Morrison had lived to see rock become theatre. He so so criticized for having that idea.
Still no love for Bradley from Sublime? Let me make my case again – imagine that Cobain killed himself just as Grunge was starting to take off, and his death marked the end of that style. That’s what happened with Sublime – they were almost there, bringing an existing (fantastic) musical style to the masses, and then he died, practically putting an end to the genre in any cross-over form.
I’d say the same thing happened with Winehouse – her music could have kicked off a whole retro movement had she been able to keep going, but instead, we only got the one album and no one really joining in.
Much love here. Bradley was THE MAN and his amazing music was basically the soundtrack to my high school years. He was an extreme talent.
Any thoughts on Ritchie Valens with only an 8 month recording career before he died on “the day the music died” airplane crash?
Didn’t he, though? The Alice Cooper chicken incident was in 1969.
Yeah. Read Chisquirrel’s post.