Daily Music Quiz: Punks, Republicans and Chimps | Music Vixen Blog
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A respected underground writer, poet and musician for decades, Jim Carroll gained widespread mainstream attention when Leonardo Di Caprio starred in 1995’s The Basketball Diaries, a film based on Carroll’s 1978 autobiography detailing his turbulent teenage years and struggles with drug abuse growing up.
A fixture of Andy Warhol’s legendary ’70s art scene, Carroll formed the punky Jim Carroll Band and scored a minor hit with his 1980 single “People Who Died.” Largely an cult hit, the song is essentially a list of people who died and how juxtaposed against strangely upbeat music.
In 1994, Carroll penned a moving tribute to a fallen star in the form of “8 Fragments for Kurt Cobain,” a poem which declares, “Genius is not a generous thing/ In return it charges more interest than any amount of royalties can cover.”
While his musical collaborations with the likes of Sonic Youth and Patti Smith are noteworthy, Carroll’s lasting achievement remains his ability to blend high and low art by intertwining the worlds of underground art, poetry, literature and punk/rock music.
Carroll passed away September 11, 2009 of a heart attack at his New York home. He was 59.
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BELOW: Jim Carroll Band’s 1980 hit, “People Who Died.”
