7 Rock Legends Who Really Have No Business Still Being Alive

6. Johnny Winter

Born: 23 February 1944; Beaumont, Texas Career Highlights: Never a superstar in his own right €“ despite owning the all-time record for albums sold by a cross-eyed albino €“ Johnny Winter is nonetheless held in high-esteem by many blues and rock aficionados. Though his own career had peaked commercially by 1971, Winter's most lasting legacy may have been singlehandedly resurrecting the career of blues legend Muddy Waters. Between 1977 and his death in 1983, Waters €“ with Winter as producer and lead guitarist €“ enjoyed a period of commercial success and artistic acclaim that rivalled, and sometimes surpassed, his 1950s heyday. The Waters/Winter partnership produced four albums that are now universally regarded as classics of Chicago blues. Notable Addictions: Heroin, Alcohol, Extra-Strength Sunscreen. Why He Should Be Dead: For obvious reasons, history furnishes very few examples of a multi-decade heroin habit. But aside from a few brief and isolated flirtations with sobriety, Johnny Winter was an everyday smack user for over forty-five years. As improbable as that fact is to begin with, he went one better by combining it with at least two other habits (alcoholism and chain-smoking) each of which could easily have killed him on its own. In 2006, at the behest of his new manager, Winter finally abandoned his vices for good. He maintains an active recording and touring schedule, and in February 2014, in open defiance of everything we thought we knew about medical science, he will celebrate his 70th birthday.