Born: 18 October 1926; St. Louis, Missouri Career Highlights: As John Lennon once famously observed, "If you wanted to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry.'" Though Lennon was sometimes prone to hyperbole, this was not one of those cases. Had there been no Chuck Berry, the history of popular music as we know it would be largely unrecognisable. Notable Addictions: Alcohol, Cocaine, Voyeurism, Urophilia. Why He Should Be Dead: In the early part of his career, Berry's problems had more to do with racist persecution than self-destructive personal habits. In 1959, he was convicted of violating the Mann Act a law whose primary purpose was jailing black men for being alone in cars with white women and spent 18 months in prison. By the late '70s, Berry's alcohol and cocaine consumption had spiralled out of control. Owing both to his increasingly reckless chemical intake and his indifference toward the quality of his backing bands, Berry's live performances became notoriously erratic. In 1987, a videotape surfaced of an inebriated Berry urinating on an unidentified woman, and then loudly complaining that she smelled like urine. Though the internet did not yet exist, "My Ding-a-Ling" jokes ran rampant. In 1990, Berry was named in a class-action lawsuit by 59 female patrons of a restaurant he owned; the complaint alleged that Berry had installed cameras in the ladies' restroom and videotaped the women without their knowledge. The suit was settled out of court, with Berry paying the women an estimated $1.2 million. Are there any should-be-dead rock stars over 65 who were unfairly omitted from this list? Let us know your choices in the comments.
Recovering print journalist, writing professionally since 1991, polluting the internet and wasting the world's bandwidth since 1995. Board-certified Doctor of Memetics and Trollology, offering free consultations to qualified patients.
