Jim Croce

September 20, 1973. Age: 30. Plane crash.

Chances are, if you owned a television at any point during the 1990s and had it on past midnight on any given day you've seen the commercial for the Time/Life Music Jim Croce collection (on CD or Cassette!). Yes, we're talking about the dude with the killer porn 'stache and ginormous acoustic guitar. And you've probably seen the commercial enough times to be able to sing along to any of his hits - like "You Don't Mess Around With Jim", "Operator", "Time in a Bottle", and "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown". Just only the chorus parts (unless you're a fan).

Anyhow, Jim released a couple of hits in the early 70s and was about to break it huge when about a week after putting the finishing touches on his second album he played a concert in Louisiana. After the show, he and his crew hopped on a plane headed to his next stop in Texas, but the plane crashed, killing everyone on board. After his death, the album was released and Croce became pretty big, just like his 'stache.

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Jim Morrison

July 3, 1971. Age: 27. Possible drug overdose.

Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, liked his drugs - especially the psychedelic ones that fueled the creative part of his mind. He also liked the hard stuff, like cocaine and heroin, but wasn't very good a telling them apart. One day, according to his girlfriend Pamela Courson, he snorted a bunch of cocaine and went off to take a bath. Only thing is, the coke wasn't coke, it was heroin. Thus, he overdosed and ended up dying, possibly due to hemorrhaging in his lungs.

Courson claimed she was there when he snorted it; but for some reason didn't say, "Jim, don't snort that, it's heroin." She claims that he seemed okay and went to take a bath and quickly decided that people who look okay after possibly overdosing must be okay and don't need to be watched in case there's a problem. So she went to bed. She woke up and found him dead in the bathtub.

But no one knows for sure what happened. Since Morrison lived in Paris at the time of his death, no autopsy was performed because there were no signs of foul play at the scene. A medical examiner ruled that it was a heart attack that killed Morrison, which might lead some to believe that everyone whoever died in France died of a heart attack unless there was evidence at the scene that they might have been murdered.

Courson died three years later, also of a heroin overdose. Apparently she never learned.

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Janis Joplin

October 4, 1970. Age: 27. Heroin overdose.

Janis Joplin liked Porsches and Mercedes Benzes. And booze and heroin. While recording her standout album, Pearl, she began dating a cocaine dealer, which means she probably got tons of free blow. A couple days after recording "Mercedes Benz" Janis was getting ready to lay down the vocals for her next song. But the night before she decided to do a bunch of heroin and have a couple of drinks. She was found dead the next morning. "Pearl" was released the following year and has since gone 4x Platinum. Janis was one of the first notable women to have a couple of tattoos and is pretty much credited with taking the art form into the mainstream. So the next time you see a hot chick with a tramp stamp, you can think of her.

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Jimi Hendrix

September 18, 1970. Age: 27. Unclear

Jimi Hendrix was arguably the greatest guitarist of all time, and not just because he was left-handed. He was influenced by the blues and was an innovator on his instrument, implementing feedback and experimenting with sound effects. Jimi's drug of choice wasn't the usual hard stuff. He pretty much just liked to smoke pot and drink, and then later on he got into acid. Since his vices weren't exactly the life-threatening types, it puts the circumstances of his death into a bit of a haze.

What allegedly happened was that he took a bunch of sleeping pills, drank a bottle of red wine, and drowned in his own vomit. But nobody really knows for sure. Hendrix died in Notting Hill, but before Hugh Grant opened a bookstore there and met Julia Roberts. A former roadie for the guitar god recently wrote a book that explains how Hendrix' manager at the time, Mike Jeffery, had stuffed the pills in the star's mouth and poured a bottle of red wine down his throat while he was passed out so he could collect some insurance money - because he feard Hendrix was going to fire him. For karma's sake we almost hope that story is true, because Jeffery was killed in a plane crash just two years later.

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Otis Redding

December 10, 1967. Age: 26. plane crash

Otis Redding was another artist who was about to break it big into the mainstream at the time of his death. His musical style bridged the gap between R&B and soul and he was taken from us right before his "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" was released. Redding and his band weren't into wasting time, so they had a private plane that they used to fly to their gigs. But it only had enough room for Otis and some members of the band (the last member had to take a commercial flight). On December 10, 1967, their plane crashed in Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin, and six of the seven people on board were killed, including Redding.

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