What Will You Do When Your Favorite Singer/Musician Dies?

Two of my most favorite singers didn't become my favorites unfortunately until after their departures. I eventually got all of the music from them that I could find:

Steve Sanders of the Oak Ridge Boys (suicide on June 10, 1998) (I discovered him in the spring of 2017.)
Billy Joe Royal (heart attack on October 6, 2015) (I am ashamed to admit that right after his passing is when I turned to him.)

Two singers who I was lucky to become a fan of while they were still here is Hal Ketchum and Joe Diffie who both went forward last year. Joe was sadly a victim of the Covid matter. I hate that they are gone. I've been a Hal Ketchum fan since his first song went to radio 30 years ago and I was only nine then. On the 23rd of this month, it will be a year since we lost him to the Dementia health condition.

God bless you and all of their families always!!!

Holly

P.S. How do I deal with them all being gone? I make sure that what they left behind for us doesn't go anywhere: their music.

Short answer: Savor the music of classic bands while they are still active, and support the work of new bands who will carry on the tradition when the originators of the style are gone.

Long answer: This very topic is addressed in the title track of the debut album by KK's Priest, "Sermons of the Sinner". In the song K.K. Downing, who turned 70 last month, recognizes his own mortality, as well as the loss of icons of the past:



In an interview with Blabbermouth.net, Downing spelled this out:



Downing gave his answer to the question posed in the OP in another interview with Louder:



I agree with Downing about enjoying the music of my favorite bands while they are still here. I also take solace in the fact that there is "new blood" in the traditional heavy metal genre, and so I support them as well. For example, there's a new band from Germany that recognizes their role in keeping the genre alive by naming themselves Generation Steel.

KK's Priest - Sermons of the Sinner (Official Music Video)


GENERATION STEEL - The Eagle Will Rise - official Video (PURE STEEL RECORDS)

Why would i do anything ?


Mabey i am just a cold hearted person, but i don`t get sad when famous people die.

Chris Cornell was one of my favorite artists, I was born in '85 so obviously I didn't get to follow his career from day 1 but I've heard pretty much everything he had ever done, he was one of the guys that got me through tough times because despite how dark things got in his music there always was an underlying hope to it. Unfortunately the dark won out in his story. Chris Cornell's career had ups and downs but he always maintained a level of dignity and mystique, he was a guy that didn't like to talk about himself too much, he didn't dump his politics into his music, the story was never about him, despite his history of addiction he was relatively scandal free, and he was never a pain in the ass, he was never an embarrassing guy to be a fan of. It was a shock when I heard the news, and I had genuine sadness, which I didn't really feel for any of the big deaths the year before. After a few months I was able to look at it in perspective, you didn't have to go digging deep through his lyrics to realize this was probably the way he was always going to die. Now, I just celebrate what he gave us and I listen to those albums loud.


 

My favourite singer died in 2016(David Bowie). I just went on and listen to his music a lot more for the first 6 months. Luckily for the fans his last album came out only a few days prior to his passing and an EP was released a few months after, so there was some new music to be enjoyed(although Black Star is a pretty depressing album, especially after he died).
Also the David Bowie Is expo was in the Netherlands at that time, so me and my sister went there and enjoyed that.
I also remember that the Friday of the week he died, I was with my friends at our favourite bar and me and some other dude I didnt know were requesting Bowie songs all night, it was very cool.