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    If You Could Save One Life

    You have been granted the power to save one musician from an early death, and they will live to be 80+.

    Who would be the recipient of this? Jimi Hendrix? Buddy Holly? Robert Johnson? Kurt Cobain? John Lennon?

    #2
    If You Could Save One Life

    Hmmmm... this is a tricky one!

    Possibly Joe Meek (on account of how differently the music world might have turned out with his continued influence around).

    Fad Gadget (aka Frank Tovey) would be in with a shout, too.

    I wouldn't have been surprised if Billy MacKenzie would have had a resurgence in popularity, had he survived longer, too.

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      #3
      If You Could Save One Life

      Jeez...this is good. My father in law is a huge Buddy Holly fan and always laments the great stuff he would have created, but that's unknowable of course. He might have just fizzled out like virtually everyone else of his era. What might Elvis have done? Or Bon Scott? Or Amy Winehouse? Hmm.

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        #4
        If You Could Save One Life

        What is the criterion for "early"?

        Before 60?

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          #5
          If You Could Save One Life

          Trish Keenan or Mary Hansen.

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            #6
            If You Could Save One Life

            Buddy Holly is a great choice I reckon. He died at 22, for Christ's sake, and yet still left behind a significant canon of great songs. I mean, someone with a parallel life and fate like Eddie Cochran is only really remembered for a couple of hits and plenty of their contemporaries who lived longer indeed fizzled out after little more than that, but Holly had already churned out a dozen or more still-enduring classics in barely three years between his first recording session and the plane crash that killed him. You can't help but wonder what further gems he could've come out with if he'd only lived another 6 months, let alone another 60 years.

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              #7
              If You Could Save One Life

              Guy, I'm trying not to be prescriptive. If you want Prince, Presley or even Bowie go ahead.

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                #8
                If You Could Save One Life

                Etienne wrote: Guy, I'm trying not to be prescriptive. If you want Prince, Presley or even Bowie go ahead.
                Under 70 - Richard Feynman

                Under 60 - Mary O'Brien (but then you could have all probably guessed that)

                Other - Brian Jones - if only to spare us "Mick'n'Keef"

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                  #9
                  If You Could Save One Life

                  A tough one.

                  1) I'd have to go along with Buddy Holly. Not only because of his immense catalog of classic songs in such a short period, but also what the future held. He'd just broken away from the constrictive influence of manager/producer Norm Petty, and was beginning to spread his own wings in the studio. A few years away was merseybeat on whom he was a massive influence (less if he hadn't died? Who knows.) But the idea of a potential Buddy and The Beatles album creates a massive musical hard-on.

                  2) Sam Cooke. Thirty Three when he was killed, and turning a corner professionally. The single released after his death on 1964 was Shake! b/w What's Goin' On? -— a pretty fair double-sided effort in it's own right — but also an indicator of where Cooke was maybe headed musically, tougher on one side, more socially committed on the other.

                  3) Similar to Cooke, Otis Redding's first posthumous single Dock of the Bay was a significant musical departure, and it would have been fascinating to see where it led him.

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                    #10
                    If You Could Save One Life

                    Lennon - if only to stop the martyrdom and you-know-who bleating on about "John would have liked this very much" whenever she comes up with another hair-brained idea.

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                      #11
                      If You Could Save One Life

                      Amor has basically named the top 3 I had in my mind when I started the thread, and for much the same reasons.

                      I would be interested to see what Jimi Hendrix would have done had he lived, though I think he might have gone prog.

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                        #12
                        If You Could Save One Life

                        This is a good one.

                        Randy Rhoads, maybe. Cliff Burton, possibly.

                        Stevie Ray Vaughan, definitely.

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                          #13
                          If You Could Save One Life

                          Matt Monro was only 55 when he died, so I might pick him. I would have gone to Vegas much earlier to see him.

                          Billy MacKenzie is a great shout.

                          But just for the hell of it, I pick Brian Epstein. (With Brian Jones a close joint second.)

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                            #14
                            If You Could Save One Life

                            So many to choose from.

                            Aside from those mentioned, I'd add

                            Ian Curtis - New Order were good. But they could have been even better.

                            Hendrix - It's impossible to imagine what he could have come up with, but it would have been mind-blowing. Even if it were prog shit, it'd be massive prog shit.

                            John Lennon - I eventually think he'd have patched things up with the other Beatles and I think they'd have done some interesting stuff with electronic music and sampling. Not sure they'd ever tour again.

                            Richie Valens - Could have done a lot for the popular image of Mexican Americans.

                            Elvis - I like to imagine, he'd have moved to Asia for a while, slimmed down, got clean and way into Zen and then helped Michael Jackson handle massive fame better than he did. I also like to imagine and old Elvis having a Rick Rubin period and covering Depeche Mode and Nine Inch Nails before going out at the top of his game rather than the sad way that he did.

                            Kurt Cobain - Quits music. Splits from Courtney Love. Becomes a Salinger-esque recluse.

                            Michael Jackson - His life was seriously fucked up before he died - especially with the child abuse charges, etc - so just supposing he somehow survived doesn't create a great picture. But if somehow he could have gotten away from it all in the late 80s and away from his family and all the hangers-on, maybe he could have just aged more gracefully and follow the path of Quincy Jones. Mostly just producing and making movies and TV.

                            I can also imagine all of their careers getting worse and their whole lives becoming sadder and sadder.

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                              #15
                              If You Could Save One Life

                              I also agree with Amor's three, and with Jimi as a probable fourth place, but can I throw in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a curveball (or, given this thread was started by a cricket fan, a yorker)?

                              I'd love to know how Marvin Gaye might have turned out once the obligatory trudge through 1980s synth ballads had been got through, too.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                If You Could Save One Life

                                Jaco Pastorius (35 years old when he was killed) makes it into my nominations, too. I was going to suggest Fela Kuti until I saw that he died aged 58 in 1997. I had an idea he'd died a lot closer to his peak, for some reason. Likewise salsa singer Héctor Lavoe, who was only 46 when he died, but at least five years past his last good stuff.

                                Oh, as the board's resident Argentine resident I am duty-bound to mention Carlos Gardel, killed in a plane crash in 1935 at the age of 44.

                                Mention upthread of Amy Winehouse got me thinking of deaths closer to the present day, and I think my top three post-1990, given their influence and the way music has gone since, would in no particular order be Kurt Cobain (though I'm not a fan myself), Biggie Smalls and Aaliyah. Actually it probably has to be a top four since we can't very well talk about Biggie's influence without also mentioning Tupac.

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                                  #17
                                  If You Could Save One Life

                                  Oh, and Charlie Parker! I'll stop now.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    If You Could Save One Life

                                    Ian Curtis is an intriguing one. It is difficult to see how Joy Division would have developed musically, given their entire output was dominated by Curtis’s interior monologue. Musically, Closer shows that they were going down the synth and drum machine route (Isolation and Decades in particular) but to what extent would Curtis have embraced Larry Levan and the Paradise Garage, Moroder, electro and freestyle? Joy Division was the platform for one man’s inner turmoil. The lyrics with their disturbing delivery was the raison d'être of Joy Division despite the celebrated production values of Martin Hannett. New Order was the complete opposite- Sumner’s shitty lyrics and shittier voice was an afterthought, the music and production came first. I simply cannot see Curtis in “Power, Corruption and Lies”.

                                    It was Curtis sad death that unleashed the shackles of the rest of the band and resulted in them producing some of the most seminal music of the decade. I disagree with Reed's point that New Order were not as good as Joy Division, I don't think the two can be compared due to their radical differences.

                                    “What if New Order had never existed?” would be a very interesting question.

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                                      #19
                                      If You Could Save One Life

                                      Can we be cruel and give them a few more years but still bump them off early? I'd be happy for Lennon to stick around through the '80's but I don't know if I'd want him to get the full Diana treatment, which would be inevitable in more recent times (especially if he's going to be shot). Worse still, he could be alive today, having become a grumpy old sod, tweeting about the PC brigade, and ruining every memory. Nooooo ...

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                                        #20
                                        If You Could Save One Life

                                        Huey Long of The Ink Spots. He died in 2009 at the age of 105 (thus being the oldest entrant into a certain book on the subject of dead musicians). Had he lived a fair deal longer, he'd of course be looking at a world longevity record.

                                        With Ian Curtis, I've often mused that he'd have left Joy Division after perhaps one further album that perhaps disappointed him, thereby enabling New Order to exist anyway. (I can almost hear him in interview - if ever he'd agreed to such - bemoaning what they were doing and criticising the band name, etc.) Curtis himself would've ducked out of all the relationships that damaged his psyche and become a recluse, emerging some years later with a novel that would've enchanted and infuriated in equal measures.

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                                          #21
                                          If You Could Save One Life

                                          Sam, I reckon a googly would be the cricket equivalent of a curveball, rather than a yorker.

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                                            #22
                                            If You Could Save One Life

                                            Etienne wrote: Sam, I reckon a googly would be the cricket equivalent of a curveball, rather than a yorker.
                                            Or given the subject, a "wrong 'un"

                                            Comment


                                              #23
                                              If You Could Save One Life

                                              I’d second Sam’s nomination for Jaco Pastorius, and add another supreme bassist from an earlier era – Scott LaFaro, lynchpin of Bill Evans’ first great trio (died in 1961 in a car accident at just 25). Sticking with jazz, Kenny Kirkland, Lee Morgan, Woody Shaw, Bob Berg, Don Grolnick and Michael Brecker also get an honourable mention.

                                              My main choice, however, would be Esbjorn Svensson, who revolutionised the art of the jazz piano trio as the leader of E.S.T (died in 2008 at the age of 44 following a scuba diving accident).

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                                                #24
                                                If You Could Save One Life

                                                It's got to be Elvis for the very reasons that Hot Pepsi says. After dwindling into a post-Vegas hermitry at Gracelands, he actually becomes less and less regarded and his legend fades. Finally, Rubin finds him and gets him to record a stark acoustic album of old gospel songs before a second album where he teams him up with Josh Homme, Nick Cave etc. Hundreds of thousands of Elvis impersonators have to find another job and Porthcawl loses a lot of tourist money in September.

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                                                  #25
                                                  If You Could Save One Life

                                                  I think I agree with the general idea that Ian Curtis/Joy Division would have split anyway, with a recluse former leading light and a completely different remaining band. Similar to Peter Green/Fleetwood Mac and Syd Barrett/Pink Floyd.

                                                  For me, the interesting thing about Hendrix staying alive would be to see if the divide between black music and white rock music would have been less pronounced in the 70s with a black dude who was already working with soul and funk elements, but was so popular among white fan boys. Or whether it would have been no different to, say, Eddie Hazel in Funkadelic, and the separate paths would remained. (Then, of course, there are the rumours that he was planning an album with Bitches Brew era Miles, which would have been fascinating, but probably alienated 90% of everyone).

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