What musical icon death had the biggest impact on you

[buckjohnson]

Along with John Lennon and Elvis (mainly because a member of my family loved him so much)

[buckjohnson]

I will accept write in votes, esp for Whitney Houston and James Brown, both who I forgot to include.

[oifarang]

Joe Strummer

Joey Ramone

Johnny Ramone

[Willie Escalade]

Mary Christine Brockert, Phyllis Linda Hyman, Barry Eugene Carterand Theodore DeReese Pendergrass.

I don't know how I'll react when Patrice Rushen passes away...

[kaientai]

Freddie Mercury for me and also the dead of the Big Man Clarence Clemmons saddened me

[Dino Velvet]

From that list I guess Keith Richards.

The deaths of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Ronnie James Dio both saddened me greatly.

[Merkurie]

Micheal Jackson.
I broke down and cried.
I was surprised because I have not been so much into his music in a very long time. But I remember Micheal Jackson since I was a little kid and he was still singing with his brothers. Despite not being a "Micheal Jackson Fan" and having no use for him for years, there were dozens of songs he made that I loved and grew up with.

It was like losing a family member.

[Prospero]

The loss of any great artiste is always saddening - both for what they meant when alive but also for the loss of the still unwritten or unplayed music.

Many names are missing from your list and some are simply jokes. Why no Hendrix for instance?

However for me - and I'd argue for many of my generation - the brutality and suddeness of the death of John Lennon is incomparable. Although I found much of his solo music unnappealing, the significance of The Beatles for my generation was unique. They were the mainspring of much of the music that followed and their cultural impact on the second part of the 20th century is of such magnitude that the murder of Lennon was - in some crucialways - as much a symbol of the end of an era and the shattering of a myth as the killing of President kennedy.

[Ryz]

Elvis
John Lennon
Marvin Gaye
Freddie Mercury
Mariah Carey
Frank Sinatra
Amy Winehouse
Barry White
Keith Richard
Miles Davis

[rockabilly]

Kurt Cobain.