Author tells grisly story of rock’s ‘ 27 Club’

When Amy Winehouse was found dead in her home in 2011, surrounded by empty bottles of vodka, she became the latest inductee into the 27 Club, the macabre nickname given to famous musicians who died at age 27. In his new book, 27: A History

of the 27 Club ( Da Capo Press, out Friday), author Howard Sounes delves into the lives of the “Big Six” — Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones — sewing the common threads they share in life and death.

Conspiracy theories and mystical explanations have been floated: Courtney Love hired someone to kill Cobain, the Mafia murdered Jones, astrological influences ordained that they’d all die at 27. But Sounes dismisses such hypotheses as “rubbish.”

Dying at 27 is “pure coincidence,” he says. “But you’ll find that all six had strikingly difficult childhoods. They’d been doing drugs since they were teens, and most showed signs of personality disorders very young.”

Cobain was the only one to literally pull the trigger, but the rest had been playing Russian roulette for years. “They all had a death wish. Jones suffered from bipolar disorder, as did Joplin. Both Morrison and Cobain were obsessed with suicide, and Winehouse was into self- harming.”

Improbable schemes offer fans a more palatable explanation. Buying an artist’s music is “an act of love,” Sounes says. “When that artist dies, that contract is broken. It’s hard to accept that tougher truth.”

JEFF KRAVITZ, FILMMAGIC Amy Winehouse was the latest to fall.