Died On This Date (April 5, 2002) Layne Staley / Alice In Chains
themusicsover Layne Staley
August 22, 1967 – April 5, 2002
Layne Staley was the lead singer of hair band killers, Alice In Chains. The band was part of a new musical movement that exploded out of Seattle in the early ’90s. It was called Grunge and Alice In Chains ruled alongside Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Nirvana. It married the best elements of metal with punk and spoke to millions of disaffected teens of that era. Staley’s voice separated them from the pack. It was metal but it was also rock god. On stage, he quickly became one of the generations most captivating front men. Sadly, as the band’s success soared in the mid ’90s, so did Staley drug habits. And it only got worse in 1996 when his fiance died of drug abuse. As the decade came to a close, Staley was mostly invisible to fans of Alice In Chains, making sporadic contributions to soundtracks and such. On April 19, 2002, Staley’s lifeless body was found in his condo by his mother and step father. He was surrounded by various drugs and paraphernalia. The autopsy concluded that he had died of a deadly dose of heroin and cocaine, or “speedball.” The coroner determined the official date of death as April 5, 2002, two weeks before he had been found. It was amazingly eight years to the day after Kurt Cobain died just as tragically.
What You Should Own
Not only was Gene Pitney a future member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2002), he was an accomplished songwriter, guitarist, pianist, and sound engineer. Pitney enjoyed much success as a performer, cranking out more than twenty Top 40 hits at a time when most other American acts were being pushed aside by the British Invasion. He didn’t fight the trend, he joined it by working on several of the earliest recordings of the Rolling Stones. Pitney’s first hit came in 1961 with “Town Without Pity” from the film of the same name. He sang it at the Academy Awards ceremony, being the first pop singer to perform at the event. His hits as a singer or songwriter continued with a vengeance. He can count the following as his own (as a writer or singer): “He’s A Rebel,” “Hello Mary Lou,” “Rubber Ball,” Today’s Teardrops,” and “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.” He even gave songwriters Mick Jagger and Keith Richards their first Top 10 hit with his version of “That Girl Belongs To Yesterday.” Pitney continued to record and perform throughout the rest of his life until he died of natural causes in his hotel room while on a tour of the UK in 2006. He was 66.
