Musicians Who Died In 2024

Every year, the world of music brings us joy and pain in equal measure. For every new release from a beloved artist that blows our minds, another beloved artist will leave the music business forever; for every amazing concert we're able to see, there will be one that sells out before we even know tickets are on sale; for every long-awaited, highly anticipated project that really turns our cranks, another will let us down. Most tragically of all, for every new artist who bursts onto the scene, another will shuffle off this mortal coil for all time.

As musicians themselves have reminded us since time immemorial, everybody dies, and that blows. When those musicians inevitably pass on, though, it can be the ultimate double-edged sword. Their music may live on forever, but it can leave an empty space inside their fans knowing that it's all they're ever going to get — and even for those artists who have been out of the scene for years, there will be heartache for those fans who made their artistic expression a part of their lives. Here are the musicians who have left us in 2024.

Larry Collins shot to fame in the '50s as half of the duo the Collins Kids with his sister Lorrie; he was only 9 years old when the pair became regulars on the country variety series "Town Hall Party," and while 11-year-old Lorrie was ostensibly the star of their act as the vocalist, it was guitar prodigy Larry who was known to wow audiences. A livewire bundle of energy, he bopped around the stage slinging hot licks with his double-necked guitar, which had been gifted to him by his mentor, "King of the Strings" Joe Maphis. So energetic was Collins' style that the punk rock website Please Kill Me credits him with recording the first punk record, "Whistle Bait," as a 13-year-old in 1958. (For a fascinating dive into music history, read Grunge's roundup of other artists who helped invent punk.)

A songwriter and composer as well, Collins' best-known tune is "Delta Dawn," which he co-wrote with songwriting partner Alex Harvey; the song became a signature tune for Tanya Tucker, notched a No. 1 hit for Helen Reddy, and was covered by the likes of Bette Midler and Waylon Jennings. After the Collins Kids disbanded in 1965, Collins semi-retired from the stage, although he got together with his sister to perform again on a few occasions; Lorrie passed away in 2018, and on January 5, her brother followed her. He was 79 years old.

The consummate rock drummer, James Kottak came up on the Louisville, Kentucky, scene, playing drums in local bands as a teenager. Upon moving to Los Angeles, his skills got him gigs pretty quickly; he latched on with Kingdom Come, playing on their first two albums, and briefly joined hard rock legends The Cult. Soon, though, he found his home — as a member of the Scorpions, one of the most successful, hard-rockingest bands to ever come out of Germany. Kottak became the first American to join their ranks in 1996, and he played with the band for two decades, departing in 2016 due to alcohol-related issues.

Kottak had struggled with those issues for years; in 2014, he spent a month in jail for Dubai for drinking without a license and allegedly making derogatory remarks toward Muslims (which he denied). After his sentence was completed, he said, he vowed to "stop drinking once and for all" — but, while it is not known whether he ever achieved the sobriety he sought, it's likely that the rock and roll lifestyle was a drag on Kottak's health. On January 9, the Scorpions announced via Facebook that the drummer had passed away at the age of 61. "James was a wonderful human being, a great musician and loving family man," the band's statement read. "He was our 'Brother from another Mother' and will be truly missed ... Rock 'n Roll Forever RIP James."

The Shangri-Las were part of a wave of girl groups that took the pop charts by storm in the '60s, and they made their mark largely on the strength of the skills of producer Shadow Morton — who gave their tunes a dramatic, cinematic sound — and the vocals of lead singer Mary Weiss (pictured above, center), whose emotion-drenched, borderline operatic style was a perfect fit for the group's teen anthems. In just a couple of years between 1964 and 1966, they scored four Top 20 hits — and one immortal classic, the No. 1 smash "Leader of the Pack."

Despite being only 15 when the song reached the top of the chart, Weiss projected a bad-girl image quite unlike her girl group peers, and she and her group would later be cited as an influence by the likes of Amy Winehouse and the Ramones. Of her unpolished yet dramatically expressive vocal style, Morton once said that he required her to be "an actress, not just a singer" (via Billboard), a task that she handled admirably well, particularly at such a young age. The Shangri-Las last performed together in 1989, and Weiss went to work for an architecture firm, finding time to release a solitary solo effort, "Dangerous Game," in 2007. On January 19, Weiss passed away due to obstructive pulmonary disease; she was 75 years old.

When reggae music began to emerge on the international scene in the late '60s and early '70s, it was defined in large part by its rhythm section — booming, syncopated drums and the bass guitar beats capable of rattling windows and shaking the walls of the clubs and dancehalls where its popularity exploded. That sonic signature came about when legendary artist and producer Lee "Scratch" Perry decided to loan out the rhythm section of his studio's house band, bassist Aston Barrett and his brother Carlton on drums, to an up-and-coming new band: Bob Marley and the Wailers.

Aston Barrett, known by his nickname "Family Man," became the bandleader of the iconic unit and remained with the band throughout its many lineup changes and jump to Island Records in the '70s. After Bob Marley's death in 1981, Barrett continued on, working with the likes of Burning Spear, Alpha Blondy, and Bob Marley's wife, vocalist Rita Marley. In a 2023 Guitar World interview, Barrett described his approach to his instrument in terms that should bring a smile to the face of any bassist: "I call it the Earth Sound," he said. "Reggae music is the heartbeat of the people ... So the bass have to be heavy and the drums have to be steady." On February 3, Barrett's son shared via social media that his father had passed away while hospitalized for an undisclosed illness; he was 77.

Vocalist Melanie Safka, known professionally simply as Melanie, began her career as a struggling singer-songwriter in the late '60s, paying her dues in small venues and releasing two unsuccessful singles for Columbia Records. Then, in 1969, everything began to change for the singer: She hooked up with a new manager and dropped her debut album, "Born to Be," and in August that year, she found herself taking the stage at Woodstock. Inspired by that experience, she released "Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)" in 1970, a tune that became her first Top 10 single. She quickly followed this up with more successful singles, and by the summer of 1971, she was riding high on the success of the ultra-catchy, whimsical single "Brand New Key" — her first U.S. No. 1.

In an interview, Melanie would later recall of the somewhat controversial hit, "It was a time when people were reading things into lyrics. Some said it was sexual innuendo ... I was just having a romp through my memory of learning how to ride my bike and roller skating," (via The New York Times). While she never again topped the charts, Melanie continued to record and perform well into her later years, maintaining a complicated relationship with the tune that made her household name; speaking with Where Music Meets the Soul, she lamented that "Brand New Key" was "the song that doomed me to be cute for the rest of my life." On January 23, her children confirmed via Facebook that Melanie had passed away from undisclosed causes the day prior; she was 76.

James "Jimmy" Van Eaton may not be a household name, but without him, early rock and roll may have sounded a lot different. As a teenager in Memphis in the '50s, he first played the trumpet before taking up the drums; his first band, the Echoes, happened to cut their first demo at the world famous Sun Records, whose proprietor Sam Phillips had an unerring ear for artists who were propelling the new genre forward. His driving style of playing caught that ear, and Phillips first paired the drummer up with vocalist Billy Lee Riley before introducing him to another artist with the same middle name: legendary piano-pounder Jerry Lee Lewis, who enlisted Van Eaton to play on his seminal recordings.

Van Eaton was soon one of a handful of musician entrusted by Phillips to help mold the label's signature sound, and he went on to play with such legends as Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, and Carl Mann, to name just a few. He retired from the music business in the '80s in favor of a quieter life selling municipal bonds, but he briefly came out of retirement a time or two — to contribute his indelible style of drumming to the soundtrack for the Lewis biopic "Great Balls of Fire," and to release a solo album, "The Beat Goes On," in 1998. Van Eaton passed away on February 9, at the age of 86. 

In the early '90s in Los Angeles and throughout much of the U.S., gangsta rap was a hot commodity — and in that world, Lichelle "Bo$$" Laws was a bit of an outlier. Laws was born and raised in Detroit, and by all accounts had a very comfortable middle-class upbringing; she would later tell the Los Angeles Times, however, that all of the family outings and ballet classes just weren't really her speed. "I didn't start living till I got out of that proper s***," she said. "That's when the real me got out of the cage."

The real Laws liked to spit profane, rugged, hardcore rhymes that could match any of her male peers, with a level of skill that outshone a good many of them. Her startlingly on-point delivery earned her the attention of legendary mogul Russell "Rush" Simmons, who promptly signed her to his Def Jam West label; Laws dropped her debut album, "Born Gangstaz," in 1993, moving north of 400,000 copies. Laws was widely respected in the rap community, but unfortunately, she found herself dogged by health problems in later years; in 2011, she was diagnosed with renal disease, and she suffered a stroke in 2017. She never fully recovered, and on March 11, Laws passed away in the hospital at the age of 54. She was mourned on Instagram by a slew of fellow rappers including UGK legend Bun B, who wrote, "Rest in peace to my big sis Lichelle Laws AKA Boss. One of the best female MCs and a dear friend."

The Allman Brothers Band has undergone its fair share of lineup changes since its formation in 1969, but lead guitarist Dickey Betts — whose virtuosic interplay with fellow lead axeman Duane Allman set a template for many, many guitar-rock bands to follow — was a mainstay of the outfit for over three decades. After famously and tragically losing Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley to eerily similar motorcycle accidents in 1971 and 1972, Betts and lead singer and keyboardist Gregg Allman anchored the band throughout the rest of the decade and into the '80s. While their live shows were the stuff of legend, they achieved only limited chart success, notching just three Top 40 hits over their career — the most successful of which, the iconic No. 2 smash "Ramblin' Man," was written and sung by Betts.

A freakishly talented guitarist, Betts more than held his own with the Allmans, a trio whose insanely complex guitar-and-keys jammings were known to hold their concert audiences spellbound. While Betts was let go from the band in 2000 (due to "creative differences," although his well-publicized issues with drugs and alcohol may have played a part), he will forever be a part of the Allman Brothers legacy. In recent years, he had continued to perform with his own outfit, the Dickey Betts Band. On April 18, Betts passed away at his home in Florida; he was 80 years old.

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