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I have been a music fan for my entire life and was fortunate enough to have lived through the greatest musical era in history.  During my formative years in the 1960s, radio was the main medium of the day and typically broadcast the top 40 songs of any given week.  It was obvious at the time that we were spoiled with an amazing volume of talent because it felt like a great song or album was coming out every week.  But in hindsight it was impossible to realize the true historical magnitude of the Classic Rock era because we didn’t have anything to compare it to.  In some ways, we naively believed that it would go on forever.

 

But as amazing as that era was, I was aware at an early age that there seemed to be a consistency of tragedy specific to music artists that eclipsed that of other genres of the entertainment world.  By the late sixties and early seventies, some of the top musical performers of the day died through misadventure that typically included some type of substance abuse.  And sadly enough, this would continue right up until today.

 

I picked Tom Petty as my first musical tragedy for a few reasons, but the main one is that his life and demise prove that fame and fortune don’t necessarily protect you from suffering.  And in Tom Petty’s case, it was his physical suffering that ultimately led to his death from an accidental overdose of drugs he was taking to deal with unbearable pain related to a fractured hip.  He had delayed a surgery so he could finish an American tour, and his fractured hip ended up deteriorating to a full break.

 

One of the main points I always include in my messaging is that it is critical that physical ailments are properly treated to ensure they don’t go from bad to worse.  Delaying or neglecting to get a health situation properly treated can have devastating consequences…and sadly this was the case with Tom Petty.  And by all accounts, he was a very decent man who deserved so much better.

 

This sentiment holds true for another extremely talented musician who also died in 2017, but over four months before Tom Petty.  There were also striking similarities in both cases because their deaths were unexpected, drug related, and impacted by physical injuries, historical addiction issues, and prescription medication.

 

I had returned to work eight weeks after my heart attack when I overheard a colleague in the cubicle next to me make a remark about Chris Cornell.  I asked him what had happened and he was already shaking his head from side to side in disbelief as he confirmed Cornell had died.

 

I was never a huge Soundgarden fan compared to some of their Seattle contemporaries like Nirvana, Alice In Chains, and Pearl Jam.  But I enjoyed a lot of their music and respected how down to earth and well spoken Chris Cornell was. I saw a couple of interviews where he opened up about previous addiction struggles and it was obvious that his intention for sharing his personal history was to provide viewers with hope and optimism in their own lives.  I was delighted that it appeared he had overcome those issues, so when I heard the details of how he died, it affected me in the same way that Robin William’s death had.  

 

The details soon emerged that during the last year of his life, Chris Cornell was experiencing chronic pain from a shoulder injury that resulted in him being prescribed pain medication.  His widow Vicky maintains that this should never have happened based upon his history of addiction, and ultimately blames this for his death.  Additional information came out over time that Cornell had reached out to a trusted contact a couple of months before his death and admitted he had relapsed as a result of this.

 

No one but Chris Cornell will ever know the reasons he chose to end his life when he did.  But his history of overcoming addictions for years, and then his eventual relapse and death demonstrate how difficult it can be for anyone who is going through that experience.  And it also shows that many drugs can prove to be deadly, especially when ingested in combination with others.

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