For ordinary mortals, turning into dust is becoming a memory. But for rock stars, death turns them into legends. And if they were already legends when they went into the hole, it turns them into gods: who doubts that Bowie, Reed, Jackson, Presley And a long etcetera would have thousands and thousands of acolytes if religions were founded in the image and likeness of the Maradonian church?
Other side effects of death that are only typical of artists are that they always gain followers postmortem, and they always see their empires grow from beyond. Every death of a famous musician is accompanied by a surge in listening on streaming platforms, if not by phonographic releases of all kinds.
It would have been interesting to do a comparative analysis of the marketing effect of the deaths of great rockstars fallen in combat, but that must be the only nuance that is missing from ‘Old rockers (never) die’a book that delves into the intrastories of the deaths of musicians relevant to the history of the genre. Its author, the writer and creator of musical threads on Twitter Jesus Baezdissects the deaths of several artists by combining personal experiences, memories and reflections with biographical data, focusing, and here is the most interesting, on the events surrounding their last moments.
A complete analysis of the album with which David Bowie said goodbye to the world, “for its uniqueness, its quality and, above all, for its originality,” opens Báez’s text explaining that at the time of receiving the fatal diagnosis of his cancer of liver, the British artist was working with Enda Walsh on the musical ‘Lazarus’, from which much of the repertoire that would shape the album would emerge. This material was inspired by the film ‘The Man Who Came from the Stars’ directed by Nicolas Roeg and starring Bowie himself, and by the work of the jazz arranger, composer and director Maria Schneider, whom the White Duke tried to sign up for your project. The attempt was in vain because she had other plans, but at least it gave her a way out: to do it with Donny McCaslin, whom Bowie had already seen perform in a small jazz club in Greenwich Village.
«Discreet until the end about the work they were doing and about Bowie’s health, which was suffering every day, the sessions were marked by the genius’s desire to produce a work that, already knowing that it was a farewell, he did not want it to be a rehash of old songs nor a great success,” argues Báez, who qualifies ‘Blackstar’ like a “dark and dense disk, full of oppressive atmospheres and over which the certainty of the end constantly flew over, but at the same time, full of light, the kind that is born by sneaking between the cracks of fear and uncertainty.”
From what Báez tells about the death of Freddie Mercury, another ‘rockstar’ with a very prominent presence in the book, the hypothesis is especially interesting that in his last months of life, the Queen singer “had to keep in mind” the finale of the German countertenor Klaus Nomi – whom Bowie met in person in New York, by the way -, who died of AIDS in 1983 after a final performance in Munich that was filled with so much drama that “it overwhelmed everyone.” And of course, the author also dedicates a space to the infamous 27 Clubwhich he describes as “a construct, an idea, a macabre and beautiful argument that served to sell books and magazines and so that today some still indulge in shameless clickbaits that don’t make much sense.”
The book acquires greater thematic specificity when it segments the deaths into case-by-case sections, such as the one dedicated to those caused by drugs, in turn very intelligently subdivided into legal and illegal, with Tim Buckley, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Bon Scott , Keith Moon, John Bonham or Whitney Houston aside; Elvis, Prince, Michael Jackson, Karen Carpenter or Tom Petty on the other.
In another intense chapter, Báez tries to unravel what was behind the suicides of Kurt Cobain, Ian Curtis, Chris Cornell, Jeff Buckley and Keith Emerson, making the very interesting inclusion of the case of Juan Antonio Castillo Madico, known as Juan Antonio Canta, a musician who was part of the group Pabellón Psiquiátrico and who was catapulted to ridiculing fame by Pepe Navarro, with fatal consequences.
The book also delves into the sad disappearances due to car, plane and even boat accidents (“I haven’t found any by train,” the author points out), with the Spanish appearances of Tino Casal, Jesús de la Rosa, Nino Bravo, Eduardo Benavente and mention for Supersubmarine; and of course he does not forget the murders, with John Lennon, Dimebag Darrell, Sam Cooke, Jaco Pastorius or Marvin Gaye.
Perhaps it is an exaggeration to say that the great ‘rockstars’ are almost like gods. But there are those who are resurrected like someone’s son, a phenomenon bordering on the paranormal to which Báez dedicates a very interesting last chapter: that of resurrections after clinical deaths. A book ending that is somewhere between hopeful and sobering for the living.
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