Tragic Stories About One-Hit Wonders

To become a one-hit wonder is a bittersweet status and an odd, uncomfortable legacy; it's even worse when real tragedy hits. Technically, all the hard work it takes to become a musician — forming a band, taking lessons, adopting a style, playing gigs, finding or writing good songs that widely resonate, and then recording them — pays off. But then it all only truly pays off once — one-hit wonders score exactly one Top 40 hit (a definition used by American pop chart purveyors Billboard) and then no more, ever again. It's a professional tragedy at worst, and deeply frustrating at best, to get all the way to the top of the music world and then to seemingly not have what it takes to stay there.

One-hit wonders are the most vulnerable and outwardly human of musical successes. They're made all the more human again when they're beset by outsized tragedy. Here are the musicians behind some of the biggest hit singles of all time forever labeled one-hit wonders who then had to endure horrific accidents, disease, and premature death.

"Would I Lie to You?" was one of the hottest songs on the radio in the summer of 1992. Performed by R&B duo Charles and Eddie, the tune added modern, slick production to smooth, '70s-style soul singing and songwriting. The recipe worked: "Would I Lie to You?" was a smash across multiple radio formats, reaching No. 13 on the pop chart, No. 15 in the adult contemporary market, and No. 59 in R&B, and going all the way to No. 1 in the U.K. But Charles and Eddie couldn't replicate the magic of "Would I Lie to You" — while follow-up singles "N.Y.C." and "House is Not a Home" charted respectably in the U.K., neither gained much traction stateside. And after sophomore album "Chocolate Milk" failed to sell well, Capitol Records dumped the duo from its roster.

‌In April 2001, Charles Pettigrew (above, pictured left) died. Just before his death, he'd toyed with reuniting Charles and Eddie, and he and Chacon had been sending demo recordings to one another. Pettigrew didn't tell Chacon he'd been diagnosed with cancer; he died in Philadelphia at the age of 37.

In 1995, an odd, incessantly hooky, and catchy dance-pop song rocked clubs and radio playlists in the U.S. and the U.K. "Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)" consisted of little more than a pulsing beat, electronic instruments, and a man frequently identifying himself as "the Scatman" in between bursts of rapid-fire scatting — wordless vocalization derived from improvisational jazz. That "Scatman" was Scatman John (a.k.a. John Larkin), and his self-referential song placed high on the dance chart and pop chart, while also selling huge quantities of records in Europe and Japan, too. Larkin got interested in scatting to make his stutter into an advantage. He added scat-singing to his repertoire in 1984, by which time he was a well-established songwriter and jazz pianist.

Less than five years after his massive and unlikely pop breakthrough, Larkin's life and career were cut short. In December 1999, he died of lung cancer, which had reportedly also taken root in his brain. Scatman John was 57 years old.

"Dominique," a song about Dominic, a 12th-century figure sainted by the Roman Catholic Church, sung entirely in French by a Belgian nun, went all the way to No. 1 in the U.S. in 1963. Nuns from the Fichermont Monastery paid the Philips Records studio in Brussels to produce a small run of albums of religious songs by one of their own, Jeanine Deckers, intended to be handed out as gifts. Higher-ups so loved Deckers' songs — credited to Soeur Sourire ("Sister Smile") — that they released the album throughout Europe, where it was a surprise hit. But only "Dominique" hit big in the U.S., where the singer was marketed as "The Singing Nun." She appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964, her album hit No. 1 as well, and Debbie Reynolds portrayed her in the 1966 biopic "The Singing Nun." That same year, Deckers, suffering a crisis of faith, left her convent. In 1978, she announced that she owed the Belgian government $126,000 in back taxes on her recording career, which she couldn't pay because she'd given everything to her religious order. 

In April 1985, police in Wavre, Belgium, discovered Deckers' body, alongside that of another woman (later identified as the former nun's partner, Annie Pescher) in their home. Deckers left a note explaining that the two had decided to die by suicide to escape the financial stress and sorrow surrounding their school for children on the autism spectrum. Deckers was 52.

Texas-based musician B.W. Stevenson scored a top 10 hit in 1973 with the country-flavored crooner-pop ballad "My Maria." It didn't make it onto Billboard's country singles chart, but it did help kick off the country-pop movement of the 1970s. Likewise, Stevenson would find slightly more success as a songwriter than performer; Three Dog Night covered his flop single "Shambala," and Brooks and Dunn topped the country charts with a "My Maria" cover in 1996.

Stevenson's "My Maria" featured on the album also called "My Maria," the third LP of Stevenson's career. After the success of that one single, he'd go on to release four more studio albums for various labels throughout the rest of the 1970s and into the early 1980s. He'd land "The River of Love" and "Down to the Station" in the lower reaches of the Hot 100, but he'd never score another hit like "My Maria." Stevenson may have earned a boost from the popular "Austin City Limits" performance TV series — he sang on the first episode of the show in 1974, but the recording quality was so poor it never aired.

In early 1988, Stevenson fell seriously ill, and doctors diagnosed heart disease. Two months later, Stevenson endured heart surgery at a Nashville hospital to help fix his ongoing issues, but the condition killed him not long after the operation in April 1988. Five months after his wife gave birth to their son, Stevenson died at age 38.

After graduating from high school in Atlanta in the 1990s, Jennifer Scoggins toured with a cover band called Vivid Image, adopted the stage name Jennifer Paige, and moved to Los Angeles to make it as a solo artist. At the beginning of a culturally and commercially impactful era of teen-oriented pop, Paige signed with Hollywood Records and in April 1998, released her first single, the dreamy, laid-back dance tune "Crush." A No. 4 hit in the U.K. and a No. 3 smash in the U.S., Paige never came near the top 40 again. More albums on smaller labels followed, and after they failed to make much of an impression, Paige settled into a career as a commercial jingle singer.

In the mid-2000s, Paige's brother and parents all moved to the Nashville area, and she soon joined them. Toward the end of 2007, Paige's mother, Norma Scoggins, complained of fatigue and shortness of breath, which a doctor diagnosed as symptoms of pulmonary hypertension. After a 10-day hospital stay, Norma Scoggins died at age 58. Exactly a week later, Paige's father, 61-year-old Ira "Butch" Scoggins, asked for a ride to the hospital in the middle of the night to treat severe chest pains. Just about a week later, he died. Paige lost both her parents within less than three weeks.

Counteracting the psychedelic rock of the late 1960s, Tiny Tim (born Herbert Khaury) specialized in old vaudeville and 1920s songs, delivered in a shaky falsetto with awkward ukulele strumming. Appearing in thick makeup, unfashionable suits, and unkempt hair, Tiny Tim played regularly at the hip New York club the Scene, which led to TV spots and a champion in Peter, Paul, and Mary's Peter Yarrow, who got him a deal at Reprise Records. The 1968 LP "God Bless Tiny Tim" sold 200,000 units and spawned the No. 17 hit single "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," a cover of a 1929 song. 

During his moment of major celebrity, Tiny Tim married a teenage fan named Miss Vicki on "The Tonight Show," giving the program record ratings. Two more albums quickly followed, but they sold poorly, and by 1970, Tiny Tim's novelty had worn off for most of the American public.

While he sang at a Massachusetts ukulele festival in September 1996, Tiny Tim endured a heart attack, crumpled, and fell off the stage. Following an 11-day hospitalization, Tiny Tim returned to performing, and in December 1996, participated in a benefit concert in Minneapolis. During "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," he cut himself off when he felt sick. As his wife tried to guide him to a chair, he fainted. Tiny Tim was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he was declared dead from a cardiac arrest. The singer was 64.

If you or anyone you know needs help with addiction issues, mental health issues, or is experiencing suicidal thoughts, contact the relevant resources below:

• The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
• The Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264), or visit the National Institute of Mental Health website.
• Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org