Across the Great Divide

Atomic Rooster

Death Walks Behind You was the best-known song by the British prog rock band Atomic Rooster. It had an epic yet ominous vibe when it was released in September 1970. It was also a case of bad timing. Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin each died that month. Jim Morrison had less than a year left.

Hendrix’ death kicked off what has been a long, slow slide of rock bands whose members, today, are all dead. It was a list once easy to keep in your head, although suddenly it's getting more difficult. After Hendrix, Noel Redding died in 2003, and Mitch Mitchell five years later. Farewell Jimi Hendrix Experience.

The next band to lose all its members were the Ramones, all of them gone by 2014, average age 55, one lymphoma, two cancers and a heroin overdose.

Last year, the final member of Iron Butterfly, Doug Ingle, died. His Spinal Tap moment came when he wrote the band’s hypnotic signature song, then sang it for the band while drunk, slurring his words so badly that what was supposed to be "in the Garden of Eden" came off as in-a-gadda-da-vida.

The last living members of the MC5, Wayne Kramer and Dennis Thompson, kicked out their final jam in 2024. The Band’s final holdout, Garth Hudson, left us earlier this year, and this past weekend, two more groups were added to the list: the New York Dolls (David Johansen) and Badfinger (Joey Molland).

New York Dolls

There's no detectable pattern here, although most of these bands played rock that was both hard and loose, and maybe there’s a lifestyle that goes along with the brand, one that inevitably exacerbates the things that can kill you. Although not in every case. Depression led two members of Badfinger to take their own lives, same as the Band’s Richard Manuel.

With the possible exception of Hendrix, I wasn't a big fan of any of these bands, so it's not like I'm getting all misty-eyed about the passing of time. Nor is it a celebrity death watch. This roll call is yet another way of reminding oneself of boomer mortality. 

And Atomic Rooster? The three-man lineup that recorded Death Walks Behind You are all gone as well.