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Who were the unluckiest group?


The original lineup of Styx has been very unlucky.

Dennis DeYoung - lead vocals and organ - Currently struggling as a solo act
John Curulewski - guitar - Passed away in 1988 from a brain aneurysm
Chuck Panozzo - bass - Living with HIV
John Panozzo - drums - Passed away in 1996 from gastrointestinal hemorrhaging
James Young - guitar - the only original member left in Styx

John "J.C." Curulewski left the band in 1975. He was only 37 years old when he passed away. John Panozzo was only 47 when he passed. In 1999 Dennis DeYoung was afflicted with a chronic fatigue syndrome-like disorder that affected his trigeminal nerve and made him unable to perform onstage due to a sensitivity to bright light. DeYoung asked his bandmates to delay touring, but they decided to carry on with singer-pianist Lawrence Gowan. Chuck Panozzo left Styx in 1999. He sometimes joins the band onstage as a guest. James "J.Y." Young is the only Styx member who has appeared on all their albums.

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Lynyrd Skynyrd:

1977: Plane crash--because they ran out of gas--killed singer Ronnie Van Zant (29), guitarist Steve Gaines (28), and backing singer Cassie Gaines (29) along with the pilots and road manager, and seriously injured the survivors.

1990: Guitarist Allen Collins, seriously injured in the crash, dies age 37; his wife had died during a miscarriage in 1980, and in 1986 he and his girlfriend were in a car crash; she died, and he was seriously injured. Again.

2001: Bassist Leon Wilkeson (49) dies of natural causes after suffering from liver and lung disease.

2009: Keyboardist Billy Powell (56) dies of a suspected heart attack.

2009: Bassist Ean Evans (48) dies of lung cancer.

2015: Drummer Bob Burns (64) dies in a single-car crash.

Gary Rossington (64) is the only original member still with the band.

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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." -- refugee in "Casablanca"

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I am not an aviation expert. But I got the impression that the Lynyrd Skynyrd crash was more complicated than running out of fuel. I think one of the engines failed. And when the pilot tried to switch fuel to the other engine it accidentally got dropped.

You are obviously a Skynyrd fan. I also like them. Please click on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFIkQjDtwOw
for "Uncivil War", an unflattering 2002 documentary about the reunited band.

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Thanks for the link. I'm behind a firewall right now and will have to access it later.

There may have been a couple of background issues but the NTSB determined that "the probable cause of this accident was fuel exhaustion and total loss of power from both engines due to crew inattention to fuel supply. Contributing to the fuel exhaustion were inadequate flight planning and an engine malfunction of undetermined nature in the right engine which resulted in "torching" and higher-than-normal fuel consumption."

http://aviation-safety.net/get.php?http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/ntsb/aircraft-accident-reports/AAR78-06.pdf

I saw Skynyrd a couple of years ago this month, and unlike so many nostalgia-era bands they played like they were still a working band having to win over the crowd. They didn't have to worry about that--the crowd loved them from song one ("Workin' for MCA")--but they rocked hard all the same. I'm still a bigger Allman Brothers fan, though--saw them three times.

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"We hear very little, and we understand even less." -- refugee in "Casablanca"

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Skynyrd was the first band to come to my mind when reading the thread title.

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AC/DC. Malcolm Young was forced to retire because of dementia, Phil Rudd gets house arrest, and Brian Johnson has hearing loss, lastly, Cliff Williams plans to leave the group after the current tour.

"Metallica loves Ponyville!"

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And the classic lineup lead singer Bon Scott passed away in 1980 from pulmonary aspiration of vomit.

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Less than two years after the plane crash, Steve and Cassie Gaines' mother, Cassie LaRue Gaines, was killed in an automobile accident near the cemetery where Steve and Cassie were buried. She was buried near her children.

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Less than two years after the plane crash, Steve and Cassie Gaines' mother, Cassie LaRue Gaines, was killed in an automobile accident near the cemetery where Steve and Cassie were buried. She was buried near her children.
That text looks as if it's taken verbatim from the Steve Gaines Wikipedia page. There is no attribution/reference for the mother's information, so I'm not sure how accurate it is without researching further.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Gaines

I mention this because the Wiki article states that Steve Gaines's ashes "were buried in Orange Park, Florida in 1977, but were relocated to an undisclosed location after vandals broke into his and bandmate Ronnie Van Zant's tombs on June 29, 2000. Their mausoleums remain as memorials for fans to visit."

Based on this, it appears that Gaines's mother was killed in Orange Park, Florida. If she was a resident, then it's not that unusual an occurrence: Vehicular collisions tend to occur within a ten-mile radius of the victim's home, which is not surprising considering that the preponderance of our driving occurs locally. So, it's not too "eerie" that she was killed near the cemetery.

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"Meretricious persiflage!" -- D.H. Lawrence

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