Spinoff of “saddest ending” thread

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John Lennon

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Although my mom was a Beatles fan - my dad was all Elvis. I was still a stupid kid who wasn't into the Beatles. In hindsight, that's a pretty big loss because there would have almost certainly be a middle-aged Beatles album. Even if it had been shitty, it would have been historic.

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Tom Petty

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Yeah, I was a pretty solid fan back to the late 70s. I had SiriusXM and was literally listening to his channel, went inside and heard the news.

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Warren Zevon

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That last interview on Letterman is literally "must see" TV. (ETA: $hit - I just realized I'm older now than Zevon ever was...)

Obviously, the loss that hit me was Steve "Steamin'" Clark - going out like Bonham.

Whitney Houston.

So many great Rock musicians from 90s deaths was insane
Chris Cornell
Dimebag Darrell
Scott Weiland
Lane Staley
Slayer’s Jeff Hanneman
Chester from Linkin Park
Peter Steele from Type O Negative
And of course Kurt Cobain

I discovered Zevon around 1975. I was a huge fan.

There’s a short documentary on Youtube that follows Warren as he completes his last album and contemplates the end. He makes his last trip to NYC to make his appearance on Letterman.
It’s pretty emotional if you can find it.

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I actually have a SRV story I might share later in this thread.

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Okay, maybe this will help the thread a little - I have told some version of this story several times, but just can't remember if I did it here - so here goes:

Dennis Quaid made 3 movies from 1987 to 1989 that were set in/based in/at least partially in Louisiana - The Big Easy, Everybody's All American and Great Balls of Fire (the first two were heavily shot in Louisiana, New Orleans and Baton Rouge respectively, and the last one was filmed in Memphis). He was spending a lot of time down here and "posters of a certain age" remember when we could see filming in the quad and Tiger Stadium.

Anyway, one of his friends (and I cannot confirm if he was officially attached to EAA or even GBOF) took a liking to one of my friends. We'll call her Susie Spring (folks who know her IRL might be able to figure it out with coming details, but FFS it was almost 40 years ago). Susie was in radio, having been hired by her brother who was program director for KLSU when she was in junior high IIRC (or certainly 14 or 15) - so she was already a seasoned veteran in her early 20s on classic rock radio around her LSU schedule during the late 80s.

This Quaid friend, whom we will call Owen, was reasonably persistent in trying to woo Susie during the production. I never met him, so all of these details were related to me by Susie. They wrap EAA and move on to Memphis for Great Balls of Fire sometime in 1988. Owen called after they finished shooting that film and invites Susie to the premiere (really the big party) of that film. She declined as politely as she could.

So, then Owen gets his boy DQ to call Susie. Quaid does the medium-hard sell, "Hey Susie, Owen and I would love to have you as our guest for the party. We've got X, Y and Z all set to play live. It's going to be the biggest music event of the year, like as big as the Grammys." Susie is torn. Now that the big guns are out, she felt she would have had an obligation to "close the deal" with Owen if she accepted. She did her best to decline with a truthy "lie" (because she was impressed by X, Y and Z - I just don't remember, but it wasn't scrubs - it was Tina Turner, Little Richard, Bryan Adams level stars who were huge at that time). She attempted to play off, "Thanks, Dennis. It sounds like such a great time. I'm so busy juggling school and work. I'm really into blues right now, especially Stevie Ray Vaughn. Thank you, though."

She thought that was the end of it. Quaid calls a day or two later. "Hey Susie, guess who just got added to the performer list? SRV!"

Suffice it to say, Susie maintained her integrity and didn't go. And then the next year, SRV was gone in that crash. She asked me after that, "Would it have been so bad?"



I know, I know, tl;dr Ace.

Being a teenager in 1994, definitely Kurt Cobain. Dude is still an icon. Kurt is to current teenagers like John Lennon was to my generation.

I talk to my students about him and they are always amazed when I ask them to imagine what they were doing two years earlier. Then I tell them that is how fast and hot his bottle rocket burned. Just barely over two years.

Not only that, but grunge almost completely smashed Hair Bands. By summer of 92, Poison, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, etc. were absolutely yesterday’s news.

Like every teenager across the country was in mourning.

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Prince left me predictably sad.

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i crawfished out of going to essence to see Prince with my wife who is a massive prince fan

He died a year or so later and she won't forgive me. In that show he covered my favorite bowie song, modern love

he death really bummed me out because he survived the 80s without a crippling cocaine problem only to get taken down by the devil of opoids

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Susie should have gone and had a good time.

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I would be remiss if I didn't mention, her being on college and rock radio for almost 10 years at that point, she had the opportunity to meet and interview a decent slate of music stars during that time. And she wasn't starstruck by Quaid. But, that SRV miss was something she felt acutely right after he died.

She definitely wasn't into Owen, though. I admire her scruples. Another true story - I was already a happily married man, but Susie would have been a fantastic catch. Down to Earth, very hard worker (she was taking 12 hours, working 2 jobs, etc.) and a great outlook (even after she ended up with a pretty dark medical diagnosis, not long after that), the whole megillah. I attempted to play matchmaker for her and it ended reasonably badly to the point that I never attempted that sort of thing ever again.

She's never wavered on a positive outlook, though, and is living her best life out West somewhere.