The Day the Music Died Headbang votes (2)

From http://banchoryheadbangers.blogspot.com/

After Gary left, the next part of the evening was the Obituary section. There had been a few notables who had passed since the last Headbang and a few who were worth a mention, and I even added a late relative unknown to round it up to a neat 10 artistes to feature.

I decided that the previous system of playing just one track from each didn't properly acknowledge the proportionately greater contribution to music of some true legends, so, controversially, more than one track was featured from those that I considered fell in to this latter category. This meant a total of 18 tracks, potentially lasting up to 75 minutes, making it the longest section of the evening. On reflection, this was too long and won't be repeated.

I find the voting system interesting - and revealing too. It helps me figure out the types of music most - and least - enjoyed. There are, however, some wide polarities in taste in our group - the Headbangers form a broad church, that's for sure! The votes on the Obituary section underlined this point more than anything.

I think everyone anticipated that Etta James would do well here, but, in my naivety, I had thought that Hubert Sumlin's great contribution to music over the years as Howlin' Wolf's sidekick would earn him almost equal status with Etta James. I was only partly right - the older members of the group all seemed to agree with me and gave Hubert high marks, but the opposite applied to some of the younger members, and, as a result, Hubert Sumlin ended up only in 4th place, behind not only Etta James, but also Johnny Otis and even Dobie Gray. Here's the full list and the votes:

1	Etta James	82
2	Johnny Otis	69
3	Dobie Gray	64
4	Hubert Sumlin	58
5	Keef Hartley	51
6	Bob Weston (Fleetwood Mac)	45
7	Euclid James "Motorhead" Sherwood (Mothers of Invention)	44
8	Fred Milano (Belmonts)	33
9	Billie Jo Spears	29
10	Mark Reale (Riot)	20

Next up, sticking to the evening's gloomy death theme, were the best known of Rock's infamous "27 Club" - those that died at that age.  Fewer surprises here - and a predictable winner:

1	Jimi Hendrix	79
2	Jim Morrison (Doors)	61
3	Janis Joplin	59
4	Brian Jones (Rolling Stones)	57
5	Amy Winehouse	52
6	Kurt Cobain (Nirvana)	49
7	Pete Ham (Badfinger)	37
8	Les Harvey (Stone the Crows)	34
9	Al Wilson (Canned Heat)	34
10	Robert Johnson	33

I had originally intended that everyone should also have to guess the year each of the above died, but, time was now of the essence, so we skipped this bit - apart from Andy and James, who both had a go at it. James did better than his Dad, getting 6 out of 10 correct, to Andy's 4. Neither were anywhere near getting the correct date for blues legend Robert Johnson, who died in 1938 and who, sadly, finished bottom of our chart. He would have been over 100 now had he lived.

The 5th section of the evening featured the Birthday Boys (and Girl). Just three artistes whose birthdays fell on this day and the voting was very predictable:

1	Melanie	23
2	Dave Davies	18
3	Ritchie Kotzen	13

Time for another break - just 2 sections left - votes to be revealed in next post.