OPC reader Doug from Denver writes in to comment on this week's demise of onetime Jimi Hendrix Experience drummer Mitch Mitchell, noting that Mitchell's death means that the whole Experience is now in rock & roll heaven. Bassist Noel Redding died on May 11, 2003, while Jimi, ahead of his time as always, shuffled off his mortal coil on September 18, 1970.
Doug brings up an excellent question: Is this the first significant rock band to have lost all of its members? I haven't been able to think of another, although we've lost half the Beatles, half the Who, forty percent of the Beach Boys and a full three quarters of the Ramones.
Of the original Temptations, four of them are now dead, and that doesn't even include David Ruffin, who came in late but quickly became the leader of sorts for the group, and who died in 1991. (Ruffin hailed from, swear to God, Whynot, Mississippi.) Even though the Tempts have been through many lineup changes, there isn't any one permutation in which all the members are deceased, because founding member Otis Williams has been with the group since its inception and is still going strong at age 67.
I feel like I must be missing someone, but I can't imagine who. Anyone?
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3 comments:
I thought maybe the Bar-Kays, but bassist James Alexander lives.
Didn't Ted Nugent actually play with Hendrix? Clearly he wasn't part of the Experience, as you'd know that.
I can't find any record of the Nuge playing with Jimi. Hendrix did play with the Isley Brothers, some of whom are still alive, but that doesn't count.
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