The 27 Club, also occasionally known as the Forever 27 Club or Club 27 is a name for a group of influential rock and blues musicians who all died at the age of 27, sometimes under mysterious circumstances.

The 27 Club consists of two related phenomena, both in the realm of popular culture. The first is a list of five famous musicians who died at age 27 -- Brian Jones, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, and Kurt Cobain. The second is the idea that many other notable musicians have also died at the age of 27.

Musicians usually included in the 27 Club

There is some debate as to the criterion used to include musicians who died at the age of 27 in the "27 Club". The impetuses for the club’s creation were the deaths of a seemingly unusual number of prominent 27-year-old musicians within a two-year period of time, exactly: Brian Jones, Jimmy Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Morrison and Jones died on the same date two years apart.

Kurt Cobain, who died in 1994, was later included by some, probably due to his popularity and his death occurring at the pinnacle of his career. According to the book Heavier Than Heaven, when Cobain died, his sister claimed that as a kid he would talk about how he wanted to join the 27 Club. On the fifteenth anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death, National Public Radio's Robert Smith said, "The deaths of these rock stars at the age of 27 really changed the way we look at rock music." Roll details the history of the phenomenon.

There is a common superstition among the stoner culture that the use of a white lighter is unlucky. The superstition originated from rumors that 4 of the 5 prominent members of the 27 Club (Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, and Cobain) each had a white lighter in their possession at the time of their deaths.

Name	Date of death	Official cause of death	Fame	Aged
Brian Jones	July 3, 1969	Drowned in swimming pool	Rolling Stones founder and guitarist/multi-instrumentalist.	27 years and 125 days
Jimi Hendrix	September 18, 1970	Asphyxiated on vomit after combining sleeping pills with wine.	Pioneering electric guitarist, singer and songwriter forThe Jimi Hendrix Experience and Band of Gypsys.	27 years and 295 days
Janis Joplin	October 4, 1970	Probable heroin overdose	Lead vocalist and songwriter for Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Kozmic Blues Band and Full Tilt Boogie Band.	27 years and 258 days
Jim Morrison	July 3, 1971	Official cause of death listed as "heart failure"; however, no autopsy was performed	Lead singer, songwriter and video director for The Doors.	27 years and 207 days
Kurt Cobain	c. April 5, 1994	Suicide by shotgun	Lead singer, guitarist and songwriter for Nirvana.	27 years and c. 44 days