Amy Winehouse is the latest addition to a lengthy list of musical greats to have died at 27.
Kurt Cobain The Nirvana lead singer was troubled by chronic stomach pain, and some believe he began taking heroin in an attempt to relieve it. He committed suicide on April 5, 1994, by shooting himself at his Seattle home, leaving behind wife Courtney Love, herself a singer, and young daughter Frances Bean.
Jim Morrison The Doors frontman was living in Paris on July 3, 1971, when girlfriend Pamela Courson found him dead in a bathtub. An official autopsy was never performed, leaving the cause of death in question. Some blamed heroin, which killed Courson herself three years later, when she was also 27.
Janis Joplin Joplin, a solo artist and lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company, was found dead next to her bed on Oct. 4, 1970. A heroin overdose was listed as the cause of death.
Jimi Hendrix Hendrix, considered by some to be the best electric guitarist in the world, died in London on Sept. 18, 1970. He had apparently overdosed on sleeping pills, perhaps accidentally, and may have asphyxiated on his own vomit.
The list goes on and on with the likes of Rolling Stone Brian Jones, blue artist Robert Johnson, Rudy Lewis of Drifters, Canned Heat's Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan of the Grateful Dead, Badfinger's Peter Ham, bassist and songwriter Gary Thain, Mia Zapata of the Gits, Kristen Pfaff of Hole, Richey Edwards of the Manic Street Preachers, and Sean Patrick McCabe of the Ink and Dagger.
