Country Music Tragedies, Hank Williams died in the back seat of his Cadillac, can you name some others?

Hank Williams died in the back seat of his Cadillac, broke and nothing to his name. Name some other country music star tragedies.|||Despite Johnny Horton's wild-at-heart looks and voice, he was a man haunted for years by ominous premonitions of his own death. He often promised those close to him he would contact them from beyond the grave.





Like the psychic he claimed to be, Horton came eerily close to predicting the manner of his death. He believed he would be killed by a drunk. He died on Nov. 5, 1960, in an automobile accident at the Little River bridge on Highway 79.





James Evan Davis was driving a pick-up truck that smashed head-on into Horton's car. Horton was alive when ambulances arrived on the scene but died en route to hospital.





Davis, the driver of the truck, was charged with intoxication manslaughter; he was drunk at the time of the accident.|||Thanks Hank!

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|||Another to add to the list: Reba lost 8 members of her road band and 2 plane crewman in a plane crash.





"While on tour for her 1990 album, McEntire lost eight members of her road band and two plane crewman (Chris Austin, Kirk Cappello, Joey Cigainero, Paula Kaye Evans, Terry Jackson, Michael Thomas, Tony Saputo) when their charter jet plane crashed near San Diego, California on March 16, 1991. The accident occurred after McEntire's private performance for IBM executives the night before.[21] The first plane was a Hawker Siddeley charter jet had believed to have taken off around 1:45 AM from the Brown Field Municipal Airport, located near the border of Mexico. After rising about 3,572 feet in the air, the Hawker aircraft crashed on the side of Otay Mountain, located ten miles east of the airport, while the second plane (carrying her other band members) did not crash. The accident was believed to have occurred due to poor visibility near Otay Mountain, which was not considered "prohibitive" for flying. The news was reported nearly immediately to McEntire and her husband, who were sleeping at a nearby hotel. A spokeswoman for McEntire at the time stated in the Los Angeles Times that "She was very close to all of them. Some of them had been with her for years. Reba is totally devastated by this. It's like losing part of your family. Right now she just wants to get back to Nashville."[22]





McEntire dedicated her sixteenth album, For My Broken Heart, to her deceased road band. Released in October 1991, it contained songs of sorrow and lost love about "measures of all suffering," according to Alanna Nash of Entertainment Weekly. Nash reported that McEntire "still hits her stride with the more traditional songs of emotional turmoil, above all combining a spectacular vocal performance with a terrific song on Buying Her Roses, a wife's head- spinning discovery of her husband's other woman."[23] Within nine months, For My Broken Heart sold two million copies and McEntire was soon responsible for the highest album sales by any recording artist on the MCA Nashville record label.[8] The release peaked at #1 on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart, while also reaching #13 on the Billboard 200,[24] selling an eventual total of four million copies in the United States, thus earning a quadruple-platium certification. Its title track became McEntire's sixteenth number one, followed by "Is There Life Out There," which also reached #1 on the Billboard country music chart.[2] The third single, "The Greatest Man I Never Knew" peaked in the Top 5 and her cover of Vicki Lawrence's "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" reached #12."|||In answer to the first response, John Denver did die in a plane crash, but not sure how much it is classified as a tragedy. Nothing against John Denver, I like his music, BUT I want to clarify this. He was flying his OWN Experimental plane. As oppose to guys who either aren't really at fault for their deaths, or a case like Hank who it was just such a sad state. John Denver was out there doing something he wanted to be doing so it's a different feeling.


Skynard with being Southern Rock and Country's connection is somewhat put in with Country(and more Country then today's POP that is called Country), and I think we all know of all those members of their original band including Ronnie being killed in that plane crash.





Another tragedy is one by omission and that's Waylon Jennings who was supposed to be on the plane that killed Big Bopper, Richie Valins, and Buddy Holly. As I understand the story the one commented about how he hoped that Waylon's bus broke down and he froze to death(or something like that) so Waylon responded well I hope your plane crashes. Imagine being stuck with THAT comment for the rest of your life, not a traditional tragedy but still connected to one.|||Ira Louvin had let his drinking get between him and his brother and it broke up the Louvin Brothers. He finally dried out, remarried, and settled down. He'd recorded an album in March 1965 and did some tours, but he wasn't happy. He told his mother that he had to do the upcoming week's shows because he had a contract, but he vowed he was going to quit music and go into preaching after that because, as he told her, "I've run away from God too long."





Ira, his wife, a band member and his wife were killed in a car wreck on the way home from that last show. Ironically, a drunk driver took their lives.|||Lefty Frizzell died broke, penniless and a severe depressed alcoholic, estranged from his wife and living in the basement of the house they shared. He was so poor George Jones had to pay for his funeral





Rosie Nix, died tragically on her bus poisened by an exhaust leak





Faron Young shot himself out of despondency





Keith Whitley died young from alcohol poisening.





Dottie West died in a car accident





Jim Reeves died in a plane crash he was piloting





Chris LeDoux died young from cancer





Eddie Rabbitt died young from lung cancer





Gary Stewart from suicide





Mel Street from suicide





Of course, there is Patsy Cline, Hawkshaw Hawkins and Cowboy Copas who most know died in that plane crash and though not country stars, The Big Bopper, Buddy Holly and Richie Valens





I should add Merle Watson who, while working on his farm at night, had an accident where he ended up with a piece of splintered lumber in his arm. He drove his tractor to a neighbors who bandaged him up and on his way home, the brakes on the tractor went out, he was thrown off and died from the impact.





also Luther Perkins died in a house fire thought to be caused by his own cigarette.|||Gram Parsons died September 19, 1973 in Joshua Tree, California at the age of 26 from a lethal combination, purportedly of morphine and alcohol.


To fulfill Gram Parsons' "funeral" wishes, Phil Kaufman and a friend stole his body from the airport and in a borrowed hearse drove it to Joshua Tree where they attempted to cremate it by pouring five gallons of gasoline into the open coffin and throwing a lit match inside. What resulted was an enormous fireball. Police chased them, but according to one account they "were encumbered by sobriety," and got away. The two were arrested several days later. Since there was no law against stealing a dead body, they were only fined $750 (or $700) for stealing the coffin and were not prosecuted for leaving 35 lbs of his charred remains in the desert.


The site of the cremation was marked by a small concrete slab and is presided over by a large rock flake known to rock climbers as 'The Gram Parsons memorial hand traverse'.[8] The slab has since been removed by the U.S. National Park Service and was relocated to the Joshua Tree Inn which was where he was staying at the time of his death. At the site of the original memorial now are simple rock structures and writings on the rock which the park service sand blasts to remove from time to time.|||Well... Conway Twitty died from Abdominal aortic aneurysm while on tour and became sick suddenly.





Didn't John Denver died in a plane crash?





George Strait's daughter died in a car accident when she was young.





That's all I can think of , sorry.





Country is good just not a huge fan.|||Many of the answers I was thinking about have already been listed but I wanted to add one:





Billy Walker, his wife, and a member of his band died in an automobile accident about 3 or 4 years ago.|||Patsy Cline died on march 5, 1963 in a plane crash along with the pilot Randy Hughes and fellow opry stars Cowboy Copas and Hawkshaw Hawkins.|||In response to MITCHELL all of those were good answers but i thought the one that George Jones paid for his funeral was Johnny Paycheck and he was living in a rest home.