But a group of scientists writing in the British Medical Journal says the pattern is nothing more than illusion. According to results from a comparison of survival rates between the general U.K. population and popular musicians, about as many musicians died between 1956 and 2007 at the age of 27 as they did at 25 and at 26, and even at the ripe old age of 32 :
When Amy Winehouse died this summer, one niggling rumor accompanied the public shows of grief and condemnation -- that the disturbed singer purposely killed herself to join the group of famous musicians known collectively as "the 27 club" -- Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Brian Jones, Robert Johnson and Jim Morrison. They all died at 27, just as Amy Winehouse did this year. The legend they spurred was blamed for introducing the fatal idea of a "right" age for sealing one's immortality.