The 27 Club

Amy Winehouse's death this weekend at age 27 brought much attention to the so-called "27 Club", the group of rock musicians who died at the age of 27. The list is usually made up of luminaries like Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, a founding member of the club. He was the first to die -- drowning in a swimming pool in 1969 in an incident the coroner's report famously referred to as "death by misadventure." A year later, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin joined the club -- just two weeks apart. The following Summer, Jim Morrison died at 27. In 1973, founding Grateful Dead keyboardist Pigpen drunk himself to death. Of course Kurt Cobain was 27 when he died in 1994. And a month after Cobain's death, Kristen Pfaff of Hole died from a heroin overdose at age 27. (I'd personally put Echo and the Bunnymen drummer Pete De Freitas in the club -- he was killed in a motorcycle crash in 1989, when I was very much into the Bunnymen.)

There's many more marginal musicians listed on Wikipedia's 27 Club page.