Shooting Star

The coveted position of lead singer in a rock band is perhaps the most difficult to fill, and once you've found the right guy (or gal), is damned tricky to replace in the untimely event something should happen to them. Who can imagine such classic luminaries as The Rolling Stones without the likes of the ever-flamboyant Mick Jagger, or U2 without its charismatic frontman Bono? That's right, nobody.  Like classic jazz from a bygone era, there are all sorts of occupational hazards that can befall the successful rock musician. Sometimes, rather tragically, they can be fatal; many a successful rock & roll outfit over the years has suddenly found itself  trapped in a terminal state of flux when the face and voice of the band--as significant as the music itself, on some level--is no longer there. Here are but a few examples.


The Doors
One of the biggest and most fondly remembered rock acts of the 1960s, this group might be the poster child for what happens when your frontman without warning hops that night train to the big adios. In their heyday, The Doors could go toe-to-toe with just about any of their peers on the rock music scene. They made the rounds of many of the biggest and most prestigious venues on the pop/rock circuit, playing to standing room only crowds as a matter of routine. Even the notorious "Miami incident", in which lead singer Jim Morrison allegedly exposed his privates onstage in the middle of a number could only manage to hinder, but not destroy, the band. To be clear, talented music figure that he was, Morrison was still a train wreck. That episode tends to get most of the headlines, but there were any number of similar bizarre incidents of which Morrison was the perpetrator that would land him in even more hot water with the law. On what proved to be his last public performance with the Doors, on December 12, 1970 in New Orleans, Morrison reportedly suffered an apparent breakdown on stage halfway through the set, sitting down and refusing to continue for the remainder of the show. Essentially an accident waiting to happen, Jim Morrison died on July 3, 1971 from either a heart attack or a heroin overdose, no one can say for sure. Surviving band members have made repeated efforts over the years to continue the act in some form or another with new personnel, with mostly mixed results.

Queen
The death of Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury in November 1991 due to complications from AIDS is arguably one of rock's greatest tragedies. The 1970s were the era of the arena rock "supergroup", and Queen was among the vanguard of that species. "Bohemian Rhapsody", "We Are the Champions", and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" were just some of their chart-topping hits from that period, with commercial success continuing into the 80s with "Another One Bites the Dust".   Their LPs did the kind of business that record company executives love to no end, and the band's concerts had become major, major events unto themselves. Queen's historic performance at Live Aid on July 13, 1985, is considered by some to be the band's finest hour; organizer Bob Geldof opined that Queen "stole the show", and it was named the greatest rock performance of all time in a 2005 industry survey. Like a Mick Jagger or a Jim Morrison, Freddie Mercury has proven to be an exceptionally difficult figure to replace. One could argue that in Mercury's absence, the music is still good in its way, I suppose, but that magical, even hypnotic quality that he brought to bear in Queen's live shows is frankly irreplaceable. For a few years, from 2004 to 2009, Queen reunited and toured with ex- Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers holding down lead vocals. As of this writing, it is anybody's guess whether the surviving band members will attempt to reunite with yet another vocalist.

The Grateful Dead
One could make a perfectly valid argument that this band would have been justified in splitting up following the death of co-founder Ron "Pigpen" McKernan in March 1973. Pigpen was about as close to a bona fide "lead singer" as The Grateful Dead would ever really have, but because so many other band members were capable enough lead vocalists, they were able to continue, more or less, without skipping a beat in spite of his absence. Death was nothing new to the Dead over the years, of course. In addition to McKernan, the act witnessed the loss of two other keyboard players; Keith Godchaux perished in a car accident a year after his departure in 1979, and Brent Mydland suffered a narcotics overdose in July 1990. Circumstances would change in a big way, however, upon the death of lead guitarist Jerry Garcia in August 1995. If anybody had emerged as the face, voice and spirit of this band, it was Garcia, who was also front and center on lead vocals in much of the band's repertoire. In the aftermath of the loss of Garcia, surviving members have continued to perform together in a variety of different combos, even going so far as to form a quasi-Dead band called The Other Ones in 1998, which they subsequently renamed The Dead in 2003. It is unclear what remains in store for this line-up, as Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart are currently involved in other group and solo projects.

AC/DC
Okay, folks. We saved the best for last, because in a sense, this is the only one I can think of that really, truly worked. Fans of this group who are old enough to remember the Nixon Administration probably remember that the original lead singer of this hard-driving, pulse-pounding rock band was a fellow by the name of Dave Evans. Unfortunately, the chemistry between Evans and the rest of the band was wanting, so the other members decided to replace him with vocalist Bon Scott in 1974. Scott was an experienced lead singer and proved to be an exceptionally charismatic frontman. Within a few short years, AC/DC would morph into an international sensation on the contemporary rock music scene, but it all very nearly came to a screeching halt following the sudden death of Bon Scott in 1980. To this day, speculation runs rampant as to how Scott actually died and under what circumstances. Officially, the cause of death was ruled "acute alcohol poisoning", but rumors persist that Scott was the victim of a heroin overdose. To make matters worse, the band were in the middle of a recording session for what would become the Back in Black LP. Yet ironically enough, prior to his death, Scott himself had raved about the vocal talents of a singer in another outfit by the name of Brian Johnson. It didn't hurt that Johnson's style and vocal range were similar to that of Scott, and after a brief audition, Johnson was hired. The revamped AC/DC completed the aforementioned record with Johnson on lead vocals, and the band, as luck would have it, not only continued in the wake of Bon Scott's passing, it has since grown to become every bit as much Johnson's band as it was Scott's, if not more so. To date, AC/DC keeps chugging along as one of the absolute biggest rock acts in the world.