Who is/was the most tragic figure in music history??

[jads57]

Charlie Parker!

[keepingitweird]

Dimebag, Randy Rhodes, Jimi, Lennon, SRV, too many...

[Magic-Sam]

Have to go with Buddy Holly. It would've been so interesting to see what he would've done in the 1960's.

[FeloniousBishop]

Mozart

Yeah, Mozart and also Beethoven because of his hearing loss. How unfair was that.

[carbz]

A few not mentioned...

James honeymoon Scott
Brad Delp
Bon Scott

[supa-fuzz]

For guitarists, I'd say Peter Greene or Sid Barrett. Also, don't confuse an untimely death with a tragic death. You know, Duane Allman = untimely. Elvis = tragic. SRV = untimely. Hank Williams = tragic

Peter Green dead? Thats news to me and probably him.

Helicopter smashing into a hillside(SRV) or getting hit buy a truck(Skydog)...I would say that is tragic

Great bits of info you provided.

[Pietro]

In "music history'?

Well, then, Beethoven w/his deafness.

The man never heard his 9th symphony. Torture.

[rh]

We'll never know the most tragic figure. That person would be the one most deserving of wider recognition, who suffered and lived and sacrificed everything for their art, but who the world will never know.

[arthur rotfeld]

Beethoven heard all these things in his mind, he didn't need to hear a performance.

[pete692]

Peter Green dead? Thats news to me and probably him.

Helicopter smashing into a hillside(SRV) or getting hit buy a truck(Skydog)...I would say that is tragic

Great bits of info you provided.
If you know anything about Peter Green, you would know that his particular situation truly is tragic. Mental illness, drugs, and wholesale medical malpractice. What a waste, and yes, what a tragedy.

[ccpa]

Lennon

[FeloniousBishop]

Beethoven heard all these things in his mind, he didn't need to hear a performance.

His hearing loss caused him so much anguish he wrote many times of being close to suicide over it and tried all kinds of hearing aids like holding a rod between the piano and his ear. He was also a great pianist not just a composer.

[supa-fuzz]

Peter Green and Syd Barrett really I don't feel are tragic figures;

a) both had mental illness and clearly did not have the tools function within the public arena

b) drug use just aggravated this situation so they both dropped out of the limelight.

Syd lived to be 60 years old, countless others have been cut down in their prime and barely made it out of their 20's. Greeny got better with treatment and more or less recovered and still performs. Did they suffer for their art? No. Did they make any huge sacrifice for their art? No. Are they tragic? No.

[bug0711]

Hank Williams

[arthur rotfeld]

His hearing loss caused him so much anguish he wrote many times of being close to suicide over it and tried all kinds of hearing aids like holding a rod between the piano and his ear. He was also a great pianist not just a composer.

That may be true, but it work as a composer never seemed in anyway limited by his lack of hearing. Look at all his later work! I listen to early Beethoven, but what remarkable masterpieces toward the end of his life!

Perhaps the deafness was a blessing, in that he was limited in his performing career, resulting in more focus on composition.

[franksguitar]

Roy Orbison

[pete692]

Peter Green and Syd Barrett really I don't feel are tragic figures;

a) both had mental illness and clearly did not have the tools function within the public arena

b) drug use just aggravated this situation so they both dropped out of the limelight.

Syd lived to be 60 years old, countless others have been cut down in their prime and barely made it out of their 20's. Greeny got better with treatment and more or less recovered and still performs. Did they suffer for their art? No. Did they make any huge sacrifice for their art? No. Are they tragic? No.
I guess we both have different opinions of the meaning of the word tragedy. I take the empathetic view that mental illness is hell and indeed qualifies as a tragedy for those that have to struggle to survive it, and for those loved ones around them. It's also a tragedy for fans, as it has laid waste to very promising careers. Whether or not drug use aggravated the condition or makes it their own fault is one for people more judgemental than me to decide. Green's case in particular is very frustrating, because it is widely believed that the British mental health care system at the time was pretty much at fault for frying patients' brains with medication and electroshock therapies long since proven more harmful than helpful.