Forever 27

The 27 Forever club just accepted a new member, Amy Winehouse joins the house band. The Friday night jam sessions must be incredible.

She joins an exclusive club of musicians who never made it to twenty-eight. Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Pete Ham, Jacob Miller, Pete de Freitas, Fat Pat, Freaky Tah, along with at least thirty-two others.

Robert Johnson is generally regarded as the first member of 27 Forever, although ragtime musician Louis Chauvin aged 27, died of neurosyphilitic sclerosis in 1908.

Natural causes played a role in some cases, violence, drug and alcohol abuse, suicide and in at least one case “Death by misadventure” account for the majority of these demises.

If one extends the list to include “celebrities” one may find names like Pat Tillman, Rupert Brooke, The Elephant man Joseph Carey Merrick, Jonathan Gregory Brandis, and soccer player Andrés Escobar.

I can think of one person who may yet join the club, albeit as a “B” lister, Lindsay Lohan.