Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll

Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll

Rock and Roll is a genre of music that is known for its earsplitting music and people of the partying atmosphere. During the 1950’s and 1960’s these partying people were better known as “hippies,” easy going, laid back, just here to have a good time. Thinking back to 1951, Alan Freed discovered Rock and Roll; Freed was a disc jockey that obviously loved music.

Nowadays we look at rock and roll as a past era that dominated the musical world at one time. Families were at home tuning into the American Bandstand to see which artist was going to be the next big thing. Artists were arriving to the states from other countries such as the Beatles. So where did the saying “Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll” derive from? Various rock and roll artists have been associated with legal and illegal drugs, from alcohol to the hard substances as heroin. We look at rock and roll artists as “sex symbols or better known as sex icons.”

What do Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison have in common? Besides the fact, that they are rock and roll artists. In reality they have all passed away because of a drug related incident. Interesting fact is that they were twenty seven years old at the time of each of their deaths.

We know “her incendiary stage performances, her masochistic tango with the bottle, her tumultuous love life, and her fatal dalliance with drugs,” (Margaret Moser) none other than her self; Janis Joplin. Four years and four months after leaving Austin, Texas to make it big in the music industry on October 4, 1970 Joplin only twenty seven years old was found dead in a hotel in Los Angeles. Joplin had just over dosed on a pure batch of heroin. Today we remember her as an all time great artist that was an extremely great musician.

Born November 22, 1942 Jimi Hendrix is a legend when it comes to playing the electric guitar. Other artists and fans were caught in awe and saying “there was this black guy on the scene doing things with his guitar that were just not possible.” Possible he made it though, he was known throughout the states and countries for his explicit talent. September 18, 1970 only two weeks before Joplin’s death Hendrix was announced dead, due to inhalation of vomit after barbiturate intoxication, also only twenty seven years old. Hendrix will always be remembered for his burning of the guitar at the Monterey Pop Festival.

A former Floridian and lead singer for the band “The Doors,” Jim Morrison was born in Melbourne, Florida on December 18, 1943. Morrison is known as “one of the most legendary and influential figures in rock & roll history” (Steve Huey). Most know Morrison as the “Lizard King.” Morrison’s days were ended when lied to by his wife Courson saying that what she had given him was cocaine, but in truth was heroin. Morrison over dosed and passed away, on July 3, 1971, also only twenty seven years old.

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