Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry, episode 028: The truth about The 27 Club

November 15, 2024 Alan Cross 0 Comments

We have lost hundreds and hundreds of rock stars over the decades. But who was the first rock star to die?

First, we have to establish a Year Zero for the rock era. That’s contentious because the world didn’t wake up one day and found that rock’n’roll had been born. But without getting too deep into the weeds of the arguments and debates, 1951 works well for many reasons.

Then we need to establish the definition of “rock star.” Again, if we accept the premise that Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and The Comets was the first across-the-board global mainstream rock hit, then that narrows things down to who died first.

Danny Cedrone was a session musician. He played on a recording of Rocket 88 by Bill Haley and his Saddlemen in 1951. That’s a plus in his column because that’s considered to be one of the very first rock’n’roll songs (not this version, but the one by Jackie Brenston, but whatever).

Bill Haley’s Saddlemen morphed into The Comets. And on April 12, 1954, Cedrone was with the Comets when they recorded Rock Around the Clock. That’s him playing the guitar solo. Huge, huge hit, tens of millions of copies sold—and Cedrone was paid $21 for his work that day.

Haley liked Cedrone’s work so much that he was also invited to play on Shake, Rattle, and Roll later that year. No solo this time, but that’s Cedrone on electric guitar again. Another big hit and another seminal and highly influential rock’n’roll song. The date for that session was June 7, 1954.

Ten days later, three days short of his 34th birthday, Cedrone was dead. It appears that he suffered a heart attack, fell down a flight of stairs, and broke his neck. By the criteria I’ve just outlined, Danny Cedrone was the first rock star to die.

Rock stars die at all ages. Ritchie Valens was just 17 when he went down in that plane crash with Buddy Holly and the Big Bopper. The oldest? That hasn’t been determined yet.

For some reason, though, we’ve become fixated on deaths that occur at a very, very specific age: 27. An entire mythology has grown around this magical number.

Here’s the question: Is this mythology justified? What evidence exists for it? And if there is solid evidence, what’s so special and common about rock stars dying at the age of 27? We should look into this.

This is episode 28 of Uncharted: Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. It’s time to investigate the truth of The 27 Club.

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