April 5 is the saddest day on the Rock n Roll Calendar, bar none. On this day, we lost the following:
Nirvana guitarist & frontman Kurt Cobain (1994, suicide)
Veteran rock drummer of numerous bands (with 60 albums under his belt) Cozy Powell (1998, car accident)
Alice in Chains frontman Layne Staley (2002, drug overdose)
Former KISS guitarist Mark St. John (2007, brain hemorrhage)
And guitar amplifier mogul Jim Marshall (2012, natural causes). Jim Marshall's only experience as a musician was as a drummer in the 50s (I think he was in a jazz group), but his legacy was in his amp company bearing his name, Marshall Amplification, building guitar amps that shaped the sound of Rock 'n' Roll over the last 54 years, and even making it possible for harder styles of rock, such as heavy metal, to take shape. Here's a live clip from the thrash metal band Slayer using a whole wall of Marshall cabinets onstage.