DEAD OR ALIVE – LUGLIO
By Federica Lemme
Dead Or Alive is the column of Seeyousound’s monthly newsletter that pays tribute to some of the musical events that have marked the current month: births, deaths, indelible traces in the history of music. Here are the anniversaries of the month of luglio.
ϟ Me and the Devil Blues by Robert Johnson is the symphony that can be heard coming from a very exclusive club, which you can only enter by making a pact with the devil. This deal requires you to die at the age of twenty-seven.
ϟ L’espressione Club 27 begins to be used by the music press in 1994, when the death of Kurt Cobain, precisely because of his age, is linked to that of artists who died between 1969 and 1971.
ϟ Around midnight on 3 July 1969 Brian Jones, fondatore dei Rolling Stones, is found lifeless at the bottom of the swimming pool of his home in England. The coroner’s report declares him dead by misadventure, and notes that his liver and heart are severely damaged by alcohol and drug abuse. According to the definitive reconstruction of events, Brian is murdered by a builder who is at the house doing renovations. The man, Frank Thorogood, confesses his responsibility to the Rolling Stones’ driver on his deathbed.
ϟ On 3 July 1971 James Douglas Morrison, detto Jim, is found lifeless in the bathtub of the flat he shares with his partner Pamela Courson in rue de Beautreillis. The death is officially attributed to heart failure, probably caused by a heroin overdose (in a body already undermined by alcohol abuse). No autopsy is performed on the body of the Doors’ leader, and the case is hastily closed with his burial at Père Lachaise cemetery. What is the truth? Some claim that a secret CIA agent, Jack Ryan (it seems his twenty-seven-year-old daughter had lost her life at a rock concert), killed Bryan Jones, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, faking their suicides (all of them were twenty-seven). Jim Morrison, as testified by the Doors’ drummer, John Densmore, is restless and worried and says he wants to fake his own death and disappear. Many maintain that he is still alive, and it cannot be ruled out that the Re Lucertola, who on the back cover of the album 13 holds in his hands the bust of Aleister Crowley, has at least seven lives, like cats.
ϟ In 2011 we return to black with the death of Amy Winehouse. At 3.53pm on 23 July she is found dead in her bed at her home at 30 Camden Square, London. The queen of the blues spends the last night of her life in front of the computer, as if hypnotised by the music videos of her songs on YouTube. She drinks vodka, so much that she exceeds the drink-driving limit fivefold, and it is precisely an excess of alcohol that kills her, according to the autopsy. But for some, things went differently.
ϟ Il 4 luglio 1943 nasce a Boston Alan Blind Owl Christie Wilson, leader e principale compositore dei Canned Heat. With the band he takes part in two of the most important festivals of the Sixties, the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and the 1969 Woodstock festival. He dies on 3 September 1970 of a barbiturate overdose, according to the autopsy report. Some colleagues claim that he took his own life. He is only twenty-seven.
ϟ On 7 July 1970 a milestone of rock is released on Elektra Records, the second album by the band The Stooges, Fun House. The bassist of the line-up led by Iggy Iguana Pop, Dave Alexander, appears to be the sole author of that sonic masterpiece that is Dirt. Meets his end a few years later, in 1975, at the age of twenty-seven.
ϟ A invocare Satana dagli occhi blu with a Latin rhythm, also having a go is Raffaella Carrà. Luckily she does not join the club and reaches the age of seventy-eight, leaving this world on 5 July 2021 but, always smiling, Raffaella canta a casa mia, e Raffaella balla a casa mia.
Happy holidays, and may age protect you!
