The Biggest Rock And Roll Tragedies Of The 1970s Explained

Anything that has an element of glamour is sure to have an element of tragedy, and few things are more glamorous than rock and roll. From the moment the first rockers crawled out of the ocean to blow away the crowd at some prehistoric music festival (we're pretty sure that's how it happened), the genre's "live fast and die young" aesthetic has enchanted fans — but all too often, the second part of that equation has robbed the world of some pretty great artists in their prime.

Even fans themselves haven't been spared injury or death in their adulation of rock gods; just ask any festival-goer who has ever found themselves trapped in a sea of oblivious humanity, squeezed in from all sides as the music blares on. Rock is rebellious, rock is aggressive, and the '70s were rock's decade. A decade, therefore, in which it seemed more often than not, the Grim Reaper was waiting patiently, just offstage, for the lights to go down. Here are the biggest rock and roll tragedies of the 1970s, explained.

Doors front man Jim Morrison was legendarily troubled in his final years. He was facing jail time for a drunken act of indecent exposure when he died in the bathtub of a Paris apartment in the company of his girlfriend Pamela Courson on July 3, 1971. That's the official line, but the shadiness surrounding the singer's death is layers deep. At the center of it all is Courson, who took some highly questionable actions after his death.

At about six in the morning, Courson found Morrison unresponsive in the tub and called the fire department and police. They packed Morrison's body in dry ice, and it remained in the apartment for three days. During that time, a physician visited, proclaimed the cause of death as heart failure, and signed a death certificate — but nobody knows who the doctor was, as his signature couldn't be made out. Courson claimed not to remember his name, and no autopsy was performed. Finally, a cheap coffin arrived, Morrison was buried in the presence of a handful of people, and that was it. 

Multiple people claim to have seen Morrison in multiple locations the night before his death, with some swearing he died in the bathroom of a nightclub before being transported to the hotel. Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek doesn't rule out the possibility that Morrison faked his own death, telling Performing Songwriter the coffin could have been filled with "150 pounds of f***ing sand."

Welsh outfit Badfinger might have been remembered as one of the biggest bands ever because of two factors: the songwriting prowess of guitarist and vocalist Pete Ham and bassist Tom Evans, and their association with the Beatles. While still known as the Iveys, the band was attracting attention from several record labels when they were brought in to audition for the Fab Four's Apple Records by their road manager, Mal Evans. Their songwriting talents perked up the ears of Paul McCartney, and after hard lobbying from Evans and Apple head of A&R Peter Asher, all four Beatles agreed to sign the group.

Badfinger enjoyed success in the early '70s with such hits as the McCartney-penned "Come and Get It" and Ham and Tom Evans' "Without You," a stunningly crafted tune that went on to become among the most-covered of all time. But by the middle of the decade, gross mismanagement by business manager Stan Polley and an ill-timed label switch left the band in a financially precarious situation. In 1975, with a baby on the way and struggling to pay his bills, Ham died by suicide in the garage of his home. Tom Evans, his musical soulmate and best friend, tragically died by the same fate in 1983.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

After beginning life as part of London's Blues and R&B scene in the early '60s, the Yardbirds grew to become one of the most experimental and influential British bands of the decade. Their recorded output was relatively slight, but singles like "For Your Love" and "Heart Full of Soul" had a towering influence on the band's contemporaries, and the outfit was nothing less than a breeding ground for legendary guitarists. Their second lead axe man, Eric Clapton, was replaced by Jeff Beck; he was soon joined by Jimmy Page, giving this iteration of the band arguably the most jaw-dropping twin-lead attack in history.

The band's vocalist Keith Relf dabbled in guitar himself, and long after their 1968 disbandment, Relf fell victim to one of the most freakish accidents in the annals of rock. Relf was jamming on an electric in his basement one day in May 1976 when he made the mistake of standing on a gas pipe running along the floor. His instrument was ungrounded, and Relf suffered an electric shock that killed him instantly. Although his life ended far too soon, the legacy of his band lived on, and he was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Yardbirds in 1992.

While they never made a ton of noise stateside, British outfit T. Rex made plenty of it in the U.K. during the glam rock era. Led by swaggering, smoldering lead singer Marc Bolan, the band scored ten straight Top Ten hits in their native country in the early '70s, with one of those — "(Bang a Gong) Get It On," which was later covered by '80s supergroup The Power Station — cracking the American Top Ten. By later in the decade, their commercial fortunes had waned, and in 1977, any chance of a resurgence came to an abrupt halt — literally.

In September of that year, Bolan was a passenger in a car driven by his girlfriend, singer Gloria Jones, when Jones lost control and careened off the road. Bolan was killed in the ensuing accident. For years, it was thought that the car had hit a sycamore tree, resulting in Bolan being crushed. In 2012, however, singer Vicky Aram, whose car had been following Bolan's that night, spoke to the Independent in the interest of setting the record straight. The vehicle had in fact collided with a steel-reinforced fence post, and Bolan had suffered a massive head injury. The sycamore tree had actually prevented the vehicle from plunging down an embankment, which likely would have caused Jones' death, as well.

Chicago was a bit of an outlier in the world of '70s rock, boasting an expansive, horn-driven sound and a facility for hard-hitting, funky rock as well as sweet, tender ballads. Guitarist Terry Kath may have gotten lost in the mix a little bit amongst all those horns, but it certainly wasn't for lack of talent — such guitar gods as Jimi Hendrix, Joe Walsh, and Toto's Steve Lukather were huge fans, and he may today be recognized as an all-time great guitarist if not for a horrifying accident in January 1978.

A gun enthusiast, Kath was cleaning a firearm at the home of band employee Don Johnson, who became a bit wary of the situation. Kath demonstrated to Johnson that the clip was empty, subsequently pulling the trigger — on a round that had been left in the chamber. Kath was shot in the head and died immediately. Kath's daughter Michelle Kath Sinclair produced a documentary on her father in 2017, in which (via Rolling Stone) Walsh stated, "All we have to go on are the records he's made ... and his guitar work is long forgotten. And that's a shame, because he was a complete monster."

The Who were still regrouping from the death of their drummer in late 1979 when they played a fateful gig at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio — one that prompted a strenuous reevaluation of the way concert seating is handled. The event featured what was known as "festival seating," a first-come-first-serve type of general admission which had already been under scrutiny in the U.S. On December 3, 1979, thousands of fans awaiting admission to the show surged forward when the doors opened, hoping to secure prime positions on the floor. In the stampede, 11 people were killed — and yet, the show went on, with the band not informed of what happened until after it was over.

The City of Cincinnati banned festival seating in the aftermath of the stampede, although the practice has made a comeback in recent years. In a 2022 Rolling Stone retrospective on the Who concert disaster, concertgoer Gerry Craven described the terror he felt in the crush. "You don't expect to fight for your life at a Who concert," he said. "It was kind of like hell. ... There was nothing we could do to get out of it." That year, the Who returned to Cincinnati for the first time since the disaster, offering a measure of closure for those who still remember.