27 Club is a cultural phenomenon, documenting the deaths of celebrities, made famous for their contribution to the music and arts industry, and noted for their high-risk lifestyles.

Famed members include Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all of whom died at the age of 27 between 1969 and 1971. These artists were some of the most influential musicians of their time and lived through a pivotal moment in history which saw the Vietnam war escalate, assassinations of John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King, the erection of the Berlin Wall and NASA landing on the Moon. It was a time of global conflict and free love.  

Blues musician Robert Johnson, who died in 1938, is one of the earliest popular musicians to be included in lists of 27 Club members. Legend has it that Johnson took his guitar to the crossroads of Highways 49 and 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi where the devil retuned his instrument in exchange for his soul. He returned with a formidable technique and a mastery of the blues.

The notion of the club gained even more momentum after Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain committed suicide on the 5th of April 1994 in his greenhouse. He quoted Neil Young in his suicide note saying “ I don’t have the passion anymore and so remember, its better to burn out than to fade away. Peace love, Empathy.”

Seventeen years after Cobain's death, another global music sensation Amy Winehouse died at the age of 27, prompting a renewed swell of media attention devoted to the club once again. Three years earlier, she had expressed a fear of dying at that age. She was quoted saying that she didn’t believe in regrets and everything happens for a reason.

We don’t know if there is a true reason or meaning behind this cultural phenomenon, or if it’s just misfortune and coincidence. Either way, we don’t pretend to have the answers and merely pay tribute to their lives and the music they have left behind and continue to tell their story to keep the spirit of their legacy alive.