π³ Ep. 220: 27 Club β Top 6 Members Memory Mnemonic
π Intro
Hello and welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Memory", where we add a single mnemonic leaf to our Tree of Knowledge.
Iβm Jans, your Mnemonic Man, and today's episode will be on the 27 Club, an informal list of musicians and other artists who died at the age of 27.
The idea of the 27 Club gained traction after the closely spaced deaths of Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison between 1969 and 1971. While this is the time it originated, it retroactively includes earlier figures such as blues musician Robert Johnson, who died in 1938.
Other famous members include Kurt Cobain, who died in 1994, and more recently Amy Winehouse, whose death in 2011 renewed the clubβs fascination. Though the 27 Club definitely has some big names, researchers have found no statistical evidence that the age of 27 is inherently more dangerous for musicians than other ages. Instead, the phenomenon persists largely due to coincidence and selective memory.
The 27 Club is often associated with substance abuse, mental health struggles, and the pressures of fame, and serves as a cautionary tale of the darker side of celebrity. The 27 Club has inspired songs, films, novels, and even academic studies and leaves us pondering the high price of great art.
Todayβs mnemonic will be on the top 6 members of the 27 Club.
So, with that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia.
π Wikipedia Summary
The 27 Club is an informal list consisting mostly of popular musicians and other celebrities who died at age 27.
Although the claim of a "statistical spike" for the death of musicians at that age has been refuted by scientific research, it remains a common cultural conception that the phenomenon exists, with many celebrities who die at 27 noted for their high-risk lifestyles.
Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all died at the age of 27 between 1969 and 1971.
At the time, the coincidence gave rise to some comment, but, according to Charles R. Cross, a biographer of Hendrix and Kurt Cobain, "it wasn't until Kurt Cobain took his own life in 1994 that the idea of the 27 Club arrived in the popular zeitgeist."
Cross claims that the "launch of the Club concept" can be traced to the growing influence of the Internet and sensational celebrity journalism on popular culture in the years following Cobain's death, as well as media interpretations of a statement by Cobain's mother, Wendy Fradenburg Cobain O'Connor, quoted in the local Aberdeen, Washington, newspaper The Daily World, and subsequently carried worldwide by the Associated Press: "Now he's gone and joined that stupid club.
I told him not to join that stupid club." Many contemporary journalists interpreted her words as referring to the infamous untimely deaths of fellow rock musicians like Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison, a view shared by Cross and R. Gary Patterson, chronicler of rock music urban myth.
Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27_Club]
π§ Memory Mnemonic
27 Club β Top 6 Members Memory Mnemonic β JABaJJaK
(Picture the beautiful, bucolic Jabajak Vineyard Restaurant & Rooms tucked away in the UK countryside, where all the 27 club members go for a peaceful retirement.)
1. Janis Joplin
2. Amy Winehouse
3. Brian Jones
4. Jimi Hendrix
5. Jim Morrison
6. Kurt Cobain
π Five Fun Facts
1. The β27 Clubβ captured the publicβs imagination when Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Brian Jones, and Jim Morrison all died between 1969 and 1971. Of these, Brian Jones was the first to die in 1969; however, the first prominent musician linked to the β27 Clubβ was blues legend Robert Johnson, who died in 1938, rumoured to be poisoned with whiskey, and is the same man who is believed to have sold his soul to the devil for music mastery!
2. Prominent member Janis Joplin was extremely well prepared for her demise in 1970 when she left in her will a clause to throw her a wake with an open bar to the value of $2,500. So, her friends booked the Lionβs Share rock club, along with the band the Grateful Dead, and 300 guests partied with the drinks on Pearl, which was Janis Joplinβs nickname.
3. You could sort of say that Kurt Cobain joined the β27 Clubβ twice! On March 4th, 1994, CNN broke the news that Kurt Cobain had died at the age of 27. He had not died, but had actually overdosed, and after a trip to the hospital, he awoke before asking for a milkshake. Unfortunately, though one month later, he did die from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head.
4. Officially, Jim Morrison died in his Paris apartment in his bathtub of congestive heart failure. However, others claim it was from an overdose at the club that night, and he was found dead in a toilet stall by the clubβs manager. The clubβs manager attests this to be true, and his story is backed up by an employee, who went on to a career as a war photographer. Apparently, his drug-dealing friends placed him in the bathtub in a futile attempt to revive him.
5. Apparently, Amy Winehouse had 27 on her mind three years before her death, when she revealed to her assistant that she feared joining the β27 Club.β She was found dead in her London home from alcohol poisoning on July 23, 2011. Apparently, she had kicked her drug habit but fallen back into heavy drinking and died with a blood alcohol level of over five times the legal driving limit.
6. Jimi Hendrix died on September 18, 1970, from asphyxia due to inhaling his own vomit after an overdose of sleeping pills and alcohol. On that night, he was supposed to attend a concert with Eric Clapton, who had purchased a special gift for Hendrix, a left-handed Fender Stratocaster. Hendrix never showed up, and news broke the next day of his death.
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π Three-Question Quiz
Q.1. Which guitarist for The Rolling Stones is considered one of the earliest members of the 27 Club?
Q.2. Which famous member of the 27 Club died in 1994?
Q.3. What year did Amy Winehouse die?
Bonus Q. Which four famous musicians died between 1969 and 1971 and helped popularize the idea of the 27 Club?
Bonus Q. What did the windmill say to the famous rockstar?
π§ Memory Mnemonic Recap
27 Club β Top 6 Members Memory Mnemonic β JABaJJaK
(Picture the beautiful bucolic Jabajak Vineyard Restaurant & Rooms tucked away in the UK countryside, where all the 27 club members go for a peaceful retirement)
1. Janis Joplin
2. Amy Winehouse
3. Brian Jones
4. Jimi Hendrix
5. Jim Morrison
6. Kurt Cobain
π Three-Question Quiz Answers
Q.1. Which guitarist for The Rolling Stones is considered one of the earliest members of the 27 Club?
A. Brian Jones
Q.2. Which famous member of the 27 Club died in 1994?
A. Kurt Cobain
Q.3. What year did Amy Winehouse die?
A. 2011 of alcohol poisoning
Bonus Q. Which four famous musicians died between 1969 and 1971 and helped popularize the idea of the 27 Club?
A. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Brian Jones
Bonus Q. What did the windmill say to the famous rockstar?
A. βIβm a big fan.β
π€ Word of the Week
euphonious
[yoo-foh-nee-uhs]/ yuΛfoΚ ni Ιs /
adjective
pleasant in sound; agreeable to the ear; characterized by euphony.
Example
The euphonious melodies of several β27 Clubβ artists continue to resonate long after their lives were tragically cut short.
Extracted from: [https://www.dictionary.com/]
π‘ Memory Tip
For our memory tip today, we will be talking about the mnemonic of writing repetition. Writing repetition works by reinforcing memory through active recall and motor engagement. When you repeatedly write information down, youβre not just seeing it; youβre physically encoding it through movement, which strengthens neural pathways and improves retention.
This method can be helpful and effective for spelling, formulas, dates, and names. Writing repetition is a kinaesthetic mnemonic and is best used in conjunction with other mnemonic techniques to help improve recall. See you next week.
π Free Memory Mnemonics at:
https://www.themnemonictreepodcast.com
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π References
https://chatgpt.com/c/694fa44f-89c0-8321-a81a-550ca2ad9c99
https://www.cracked.com/article_29662_27-facts-about-the-27-club.html
https://upjoke.com/rockstar-jokes
https://blog.oup.com/2014/01/13-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-27-club/
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/the-27-club-a-brief-history-17853/