Under 30

So, yesterday while on the boat with Jay and Cheryl...enjoying the day I take a look at face book and see this:

Amy Winehouse, 27, found dead at her London flat after suspected drug overdose

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Aaliyah, 22, 1/16/79-8/25/01

In August 2001 she flew to the Bahamas to film a video, "Rock the Boat." When her crew piled into the plane to return home, they insisted on taking all their heavy equipment, so the plane was hundreds of pounds over the weight it could carry. The pilot had also obtained his license fraudulently and was alcohol and cocaine in his system. Two hundred feet from the runway, the plane crashed into a marsh. There were no survivors.

Kurt Cobain, 27, 2/20/67-4/5/94

On April 8, 1994, an electrician arriving to install security lights found Cobain lying on the floor. At first the electrician thought he was sleeping. A coroner later estimated that Cobain had shot himself three days earlier.

Jimi Hendrix, 27,11/27/42- 9/18/70

He recorded hundreds, maybe thousands of songs, yet just a handful of albums, quite content to leave much of his work in the studio where he spent most of his adult life.

He wasn't known for taking more drugs than any other rockers, but on Sept. 18, 1970, after drinking some wine and taking a big handful of sleeping pills, he choked to death on his own vomit. The exact details have never been clear. Only the fact he was gone.

Buddy Holly, 22, 9/7/36-2/3/59

Unlike some other stars who died young, Buddy Holly was quite looking forward to staying alive for a long time. He had already scored a bunch of hit records, he had big plans for his musical future and his wife Maria Elena was expecting their first child. After a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, he decided he couldn't take one more night on the tour bus with its broken heaters. So he chartered a small plane to fly ahead to the next stop, Fargo. Problem was, the young pilot didn't really know how to fly through a storm at night, which is what he was trying to do. The plane hit a cornfield at 170 miles an hour, killing the pilot, Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper instantly.

Janis Joplin, 27, 1/19-43-10/4/70

Janis was known as the white girl who sang the blues.There are those who say her recorded legacy is modest, and that's probably true. But when she was on her game, particularly on stage, she made the audience understand how it felt to reach for something and not quite get it.

That was also true off-stage. She reached for things she never got. On the night of Oct. 4, she reached for some heroin. Unbeknownst to her, it was an unusually pure batch. She'd probably been drinking, too, which didn't help. When her road manager found her, her psychedelic Porsche was still in the parking lot of the Landmark Motor Hotel.

Jim Morrison, 27, 12/8/43-7/3/71

He was taking a break from rock ‘n' roll fame in Paris in the summer of '71 when he died. Apparently in the bathtub. Maybe with the knowing or unknowing aid of his companion, Pamela Courson. The details will probably remain forever unknown, as Courson herself overdosed a few years later. Morrison's grave, in Paris, has become the kind of shrine that doubtless would greatly amuse him.

Otis Redding, 26, 9/9/41-12/10/67

People who knew Otis Redding still say he was one of the nicest guys ever to walk through the music business, and while some would say there's little competition for that title, it remains true that everybody loved the Georgia man with the soft touch and a voice that could propel freight trains. He and his band, the Bar-Kays, were taking a small chartered plane across Wisconsin when it crashed into a frozen lake. One man, not Redding, survived.

Selena, 23, 4/16/71-3/31/95

There was nothing self-destructive about Selena, who had built herself an extraordinary career and at the age of 23 was widely known as "The Queen of Tejano Music."

But her family found that the president of her fan club, Yolanda Saldivar, was stealing money from Selena boutiques she ran. After Saldivar was fired, Selena met with her at a hotel in Corpus Christi to retrieve some tax records. Saldivar, clearly disturbed, pulled a gun and shot Selena in the back as the singer left the room. She identified Saldivar before she was taken to the hospital, where she died from loss of blood.

Hank Williams, 29, 9/17/23-1/1/53

There's no plainer way to put it: Hank Williams was the finest country musician in the history of country music. He created an exceptional body of timeless music in just about half a dozen years, during which time he also managed to pretty much tear himself apart. Plagued with physical problems aggravated by drink and the life of a traveling musician, he was a wreck by the end of 1952.

Pulling himself together to try the road again, he had a date in Canton, Ohio, on New Year's Day 1953. Somewhere on the road to Canton, in the back seat of his Cadillac, he left this world for the next one. Hasn't been another one quite like him since, and probably never will be.

It is amazing how many great musicians we have lost at such an early age. It is even sadder when what takes them away from this world is the darkness that they walked into. I love music and I hope that over the years the true talents as the ones above learn from history and stick around a little bit longer.