A new '27 Club' member

When the headline "Amy Winehouse found dead at 27" came barging into our Saturday afternoon, the word dead felt like a long-promised punch to the gut. It may not have surprised anyone, but it still hurt like hell.

And then there was the "27" - rock-and-roll's most dangerous number. It's the age that took Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, and now a singer whose battles with drugs, drink, and depression were nightmarishly publicized in a mediascape her forebears never could have imagined.

Those forebears make up the "27 Club," a list of musicians who all died at 27. Ron "Pigpen" McKernan of the Grateful Dead died of a gastrointestinal hemorrhage linked to alcohol abuse. Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones died in his swimming pool. Chris Bell of Big Star died in a car accident. So did D. Boon of the Minutemen. Delta bluesman Robert Johnson died in 1938 under mysterious circumstances - some say he was poisoned, while others cite a Faustian deal with the devil. But he was definitely 27.

The eeriness of 27 has spurred decades of theorizing in music circles - enough to inspire Eric Segalstad's book The 27s: The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll. Is it the age of the psychic slump? The age your body refuses to tolerate your addiction? The age when fate decides to give you a disease, have you murdered, or wrap your car around a telephone pole?

We only really know what happens to the 27s after 27: Their swirling mythologies congeal around a relatively small body of work. Many of these artists were young visionaries who left bold marks but didn't live long enough to slide into mediocrity.

- Chris Richards, Washington Post