Let's be brutally honest here and just talking about the really big hitters: Lennon, Presley, Strummer, Morrison/Doors, Mercury/Queen, Cobain/Nirvana... their best days and albums were behind them when they slipped away.

Of your list Fraser, I can only imagine The Ramones having an AC/DC style 'return to form'. They didn't really get the credit or sales they deserved at their pomp (76-79) and I could well imagine them headlining Reading or Glastonbury in the last couple of years.

In Utero was their finest album and the Unplugged album hinted at an intriguing new direction. Their last live shows were fantastic, from the bootlegs I've heard.

Plus we might have been spared the Foo Fighters...

I didn't know (or had completely forgotten) that Wendy O Williams and Stiv Bators were dead.

Many acts - not just the ones who have kicked the bucket - produce their best in the early years of their musical career. So, for example, with Buddy Holly & Eddie Cochran you never got to the cabaret, crap and comeback years.

Perhaps it is to do with money. The more they earn to lazier they become, writing and performing. The solution could be not to pay over their royalties and other earnings. Keeps them lean and mean. They only get all their hard-earned dosh at 60, as a pension, a definite incentive to live long and prosper.

Lived fast, got religion, died old. And was doing pretty respectably when he went.

Thinking of people I've seen who are now no more I can include Joe Strummer, John Entwistle and Keith Moon. The Who are still doing quite well (as long as they stick to old material) so I think if the last two were still around they'd be OK.

Also Lowell George, Alan Hull (who was apparently recording new stuff when he died), Ewan McColl (who was definitely past his best when I saw him) who lived slow and died late and Jake Thackray who had more or less stopped performing and writing.

are higher than average it's just that more people know them. If the friend of indie drummer dies young it might get in the local paper but very few people will know about. If the drummer dies all their fans know.
As to any gender bias well young males are more successfull (if that's the right word and it's probably not so please excuse me) at commiting suicide than their female cohorts but also pop muisc is full of blokes.
As to the what would have happened next debate I fear in Jimi's case I wouldn't have liked his later lp's. I prefered his pop tunes and I fear come 1974 we'd have got a lot noodly tedious jazz rock with none of the fizz and pop thrill of his first tunes.

I do think there is a higher proportion of early deaths in music than elsewhere - can't prove it, but 'profession' does offer easy access to large quantities of tempting, potentially lethal substances and also attracts some artistic, sensitive types with potential to go off the rails when get spotlight on them. Perhaps also women are less inclined to be drawn to the business for the sex and drugs and are more in it for the rock 'n' roll, though not always?

only Freddie Mercury and Alan Hull exited prematurely.

Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and James Brown all had a good run despite, in all three cases, a life of excess. I'm here to say that as a live act James Brown was still on top form about 3 or 4 months before his death, and was certainly much improved on when I first saw him 5 or 6 years previously.

Not being a huge fan I had forgotten, if I ever knew, that Alan Hull was no longer with us. The first gig I ever went to was in 1980 with Lindisfarne supporting Mike Oldfield and Van Morrison. I'm not sure what the point of this is, but it's really brought me down (man) on Monday morning.

It would be interesting to see what he'd be up to.

I'm wondering about cause and effect in Fraser's list. Do you think you should start warning the performers that you're going to be there? You could even start up a nice little protection racket by demanding a non-attendance fee.

...walked a fine line between documenting the minutiae of his drug habit and revelling in the junkie lifestyle. Listen to his work in chronological order and you can hear the celebratory posturing of a song like Junkhead slowly crumble away, as he sinks into a narcotised, self-absorbed quagmire.

The songs on Alice in Chains’ eponymous studio album (whose front cover, featuring a three-legged dog, now seems eerily prescient) are grim, forensically detailed accounts of drug addiction, tinged with narcissism.

Six years on from his death, there is still a lot of love around for Layne. He deserves it. He was a talented guy caught in a downward spiral - his subject matter contributed to his fame but set him up for an early grave. I always hoped that he might get himself together in the same way that Mark Lanegan did.

The life of a jobbing musician is hard; even when you discount the myriad perils afforded by sex, drugs and the prospect that when you lob that television through the hotel window, the power cord might coil around your ankle, like the Balrog’s whip in The Fellowship of the Ring, and pull you over the balcony. There is no job security, no pension plan, no healthcare outside whatever service your native country provides. The contracts that you sign wouldn’t be worth the paper they were printed on in any other industry. Touring in a cramped van, playing for a pittance in some fleapit venue and sleeping on strange floors, is an adventure when you’re barely out of your teens; less so as you approach 30 and your friends are settled and well-established in their careers, while you are still scratching around to make a living.

I only recently learned that Lance Hahn, formerly of J Church had died in 2007, not as a result of an excessive lifetsyle, but aged 40, from complications following kidney dialysis. This article written five years before his death demonstrates how tough it can be for a moderately successful musician and how much they rely on the support of their peers to get them through tough times.

that you should catch these people while you can.

Here's a few I'm glad I saw:

Miles Davis, Rick Wright, Arthur Lee, Danny Federici, Joe Henderson, Frank Sinatra, Stuart Adamson, Lester Bowie, Michael Brecker, Don Cherry, James Brown, Kirsty McColl.

Bon Scott
Joe Strummer
Stuart Adamson
John McGeogh
Pete DeFreitas

Kirsty McColl, Richard Wright and ..er.. Cliff from the Spinners (he's just died aged 83, according to Wikipedia)

I was thinking none, but I saw Cozy Powell who is no longer with us. But I've only been going to gigs since the early nineties and am only in my twenties. Having said that, I've see Dylan, the Stones and a good few elder statesmen of rock so it's only a matter of time...

Rick Wright - very sadly missed. The Floyd's gig at Earls Court in 1994 is still the greatest live show I've ever seen.
John Entwistle - dying of drugs in a hotel room with a hooker. Could his death be any more rock'n'roll?

I also saw Gary Glitter and now his career is dead - does that count?

Discussing the dangers of the music biz reminds me of something said about the supposed curse of The Exorcist. Several members of the crew and cast suffered strange deaths or unexplained accidents, but one crew man responded by saying that in any number of people, over a couple of years some would die or be injured, others would get divorced or married, and so on. The same, it seems, is true of bands (although obviously they do have more access to potentially lethal medicinal powders than Joe Public).

I'm sure I've mentioned this on here before, but I saw Big Country support Page & Plant in Dublin on their Unledded Tour, complete with Egyptian (no tour should leave home without one) Orchestra. Big Country were by that stage very much yesterday's band, and I was not greatly enthused. So, on they come, pick up their instruments and one song in the drummer throws up over the kit and exits smartly stage left. Food poisoning apparently. The remaining three - totally unfazed - pick up acoustics and turn in an excellent 30 minute covers set including 'Don't Fear The Reaper'. Great gig all round.

I saw this wonderful show that the Who played in 1976 at Celtic Park in Glasgow.
The headliners have lost half their lineup since, Moon and The Ox, RIP.
The Sensational Alex Harvey Band lost their titular leader in 1982.
Little Feat's Lowell George only had a couple more years of excellence and excess. He died 1979.
The Outlaws, a half decent multi-guitar Skynyrd style band have lost three of their original number.
Only the Chapman-Whitney Streetwalkers, as far as I know, have escaped a visit from the Reaper.

Beat that.