The Ongoing History of New Music, episode 1019: Rock stars! Murder!
You would think that being a musician would be a very safe existence. I mean, your job is to write and perform music. Yeah, you might get into the odd altercation and fight, but it’s not like you’re going to war, right? Yet every once in a while, we hear about a musician being murdered.
The earliest example I can find is Alessandro Stradella, an Italian composer of classical music. Back in his day—which was the mid-1600s—he was quite the star and was very influential with his six operas, 170 cantatas, and a long list of instrumental compositions.
But then on February 25, 1682, he was found stabbed to death in a public square in Genoa. No one was ever convicted although the story is that he was murdered by one of three brothers who accused Stradella of seducing their sister.
The first musician I know of to get shot was Pinetop Smith, a boogie-woogie piano player from Chicago. Just as he was about to go into a recording session, he was shot during a fight at a dance hall…he might not have been the intended victim, but he died all the same.
And the first musician of the rock’n’roll era to be murdered was probably Sam Cooke on December 11, 1964. Fantastic soul singer. He took a gunshot wound to the chest when Bertha Franklin, the manager of the Hacienda Motel in South Central L.A. She said it was in self-defence but even today, there are a lot of questions about the case.
How many other rock musicians have been murdered since then? Fortunately, not a lot. But there is a tragic list. Let’s go through it.
Songs heard on this show:
- Mountain, Mississippi Queen
- Happy Mondays, Cowboy Dave
- The Gits, Second Skin
- Mayhem, Freezing Moon
- Pantera, Walk
- Hagalaz Runedance, Hel Goddess of the Underworld
- The Clash, I Fought the Law
- The Heartbreakers, Chinese Rocks
- Elliott Smith, Waltz #2
Here’s the playlist from Eric Wilhite.
The Ongoing History of New Music can be heard on the following stations:
- 102.1 The Edge/Toronto – Sunday night at 7pm
- Q107/Toronto – Sunday night at 8pm
- Live 88-5/Ottawa – Saturdays at 9am and Sundays at 6pm.
- 107.5 Dave-FM/Kitchener – Sunday nights at 11pm
- FM96/London – Sunday nights at 8pm
- Power 97/Winnipeg – Sunday nights at 11pm
- Sonic 102.9/Edmonton – Sunday at 8am and 8pm
- The Zone/Victoria – Sunday at 8am and 9pm
- The Fox/Vancouver – Sunday at 11pm
- Surge 105/Halifax – Sunday at 7pm
- WAPS/WKTL The Summit/Arkon, Canton, Cleveland, Youngstown – Mon-Fri at 9pm
- We’re still looking for more affiliates in Calgary, Kamloops, Kelowna, Regina, Saskatoon, Brandon, Windsor, Montreal, Halifax, Charlottetown, Moncton, Fredericton, and St John’s and anywhere else with a transmitter. If you’re in any of those markets and you want the show, lemme know and I’ll see what I can do.
