re: Which musician who died prematurely would go on to accomplish the most?

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My immediate thought was John Lennon

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Let's not act like Lennon was a young pup when he was shot. He was 40 years old, which is often the watershed mark for songwriting creativity in a musician's lifetime.

I would contend that the majority of revered musicians peak during their 20s or early 30s. There have only been a handful of musicians who did anything of critical or commercial significance after 20+ years of recording.

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Jimi Hendrix

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Without question. In two years he released three albums which essentially revolutionized psychedelic and heavy music. He managed to fuse musical genres as well as any musician before or since.

I would also nominate Steve Gaines and Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Gaines was one of the best up and coming guitar players on the scene and Ronnie was responsible for bringing Southern Rock to the forefront of American music.

... if the timid and bland sound of an album that Double Fantasy is any indication, Lennon had settled into his adult contemporary phase when he was shot. It's highly unlikely his best work was ahead of him.

I think Hendrix is the best answer. He had just tapped into his talent, honestly, and was yet to release a solo album (he always worked with the Experience). I think he could have done some awesome work in his 30's just showing up in everyone else's band.

Personally, I would have loved to see what D Boon would have made of the modern pop landscape. He would have absolutely savaged it, and we really miss his voice. The American music underground lost its conscience when he died.

I've been listening to a lot of Croce lately. His lyrics always seemed unusually authentic. I recently came across this live version of Speedball Tucker in which he gives a small narrative before playing it. After listening to the story and then the song, particularly the lines "...to keep his throttle full and dancin' 'round, with a cup full of cold black coffee and a pocket full of west coast turnarounds," I almost feel like I'm a passenger in the cab of the truck watching him in his everyday life.
New york's not my home and Time in a Bottle are also particularly honest accounts of his life that he beautifully translates into song. His fictional characters (Leroy Brown, Big Jim Walker/Willie McCoy) sound just like folk legend stories as you'd expect. What really strikes me though is the way he's able to take Car Wash Blues, Box #10, and several other songs where gives a first-person account of things that did not happen to him- or at least I've never read/heard the stories of him being a recently-imprisoned man with an illegitimate child/estranged ex spouse or being beat up in an alley, losing everything he had. But even here, it sounds like he's telling stories of personal experience.

His ability to write interesting music that had the ability to "reach out and grab" you is just something I've never heard from anyone else on such a consistent basis over his somewhat short career and catalogue.

Even had he retired from touring as he was supposedly planning to do before he died, I think he would've continued his little home recording studio and put out quality stuff for years.


The other mentions have been pretty good, too, but i would give my vote to this fellow.

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Buddy Holly

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He was one of the first self-producing rockers. He would have been very successful as a producer of all types of music.

Ritchie Valens

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Lowell George

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This.

Duane Allman gets my vote.

Surprised Syd Barrett hasn't gotten more votes.

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Sam Cooke is in the list too.

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Love Sam Cooke...nobody had a voice like his.

He was still just a bass player, though.