Daily Telegraph article today: the 27 club includes Brian Jones



"A new photographic exhibition commemorates a group of rock and roll stars whose lives were cut short at the age of 27.

By Anita Singh, Showbusiness Editor


Kurt Cobain, lead singer of Nirvana, shot himself aged 27 Photo: Photograph by Steve Double
Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Brian Jones and Janis Joplin were all of the same age when they died within two years of one another, between July 1969 and July 1971.

Kurt Cobain, the singer with Nineties rock group Nirvana, was also 27 when he committed suicide in 1994. Upon hearing of his death, his mother, Wendy O'Connor, lamented: "I told him not to join that stupid club."

This infamous club is being celebrated in the Forever 27 exhibition at the Proud Galleries in Camden, north London.

It features striking images, many of them never seen before, taken by some of the world's most renowned rock photographers.

The show, which runs until November 9, promises "to celebrate their talent and shed fresh light on their short lives and mysterious, untimely deaths".

The greatest mystery surrounds Brian Jones, the Rolling Stones guitarist, who was found dead in the swimming pool of his Sussex home on July 7, 1969. A coroner recorded a verdict of misadventure after hearing that he had taken a cocktail of drink and drugs before going for a midnight swim.

However, a theory endures that Jones was killed by his builder, Frank Thorogood, who was at the house that night and with whom Jones had a fractious relationship. Mr Thorogood was said to have made a deathbed confession to the crime in 1993, although this has never been substantiated.

The following year, on September 18, 1970, Jimi Hendrix died in London. He had taken nine sleeping pills and choked on his own vomit.

Less than a month later, on October 4, Janis Joplin was found dead in a Los Angeles hotel room after taking an overdose of heroin.

The music world lost another icon on July 3, 1971, when Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, was found dead in the bath of his Paris apartment. The official cause of death was given as heart failure, but a recent biography of the star claimed he overdosed on heroin in a nearby nightclub and his body taken back to the apartment by two drugs dealers.

Morrison's grave at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris has been a place of pilgrimage for rock fans ever since.

The '27 Club' claimed its latest member on April 5, 1994 with the death of Cobain. While these five are the focus of the exhibition, several other notable musicians died aged 27, including bluesman Robert Johnson, Dave Alexander of The Stooges and Ron McKernan of the Grateful Dead. "