Richard Shannon Hoon, Lead singer of Blind Melon: born Lafayette, Indiana 26 September 1967; died New Orleans 21 October 1995.

In 1995, Hoon and his longtime girlfriend Lisa Crouse had a daughter they named Nico Blue. After the birth of his daughter, Hoon entered rehab again.

Blind Melon needed to tour to support their album Soup with heavy pressure from the record company, so Hoon negotiated an early release from his drug rehab program with the stipulation that his drug counselor would accompany him on the road.

The counselor, however, was unable to keep Hoon from falling back into his pattern of drug use and was dismissed from the tour less than a month into it. Without the counselor to rein him in, Hoon’s use of drugs escalated tremendously.

After a particularly disastrous performance in Houston, Hoon launched into an all-night cocaine binge. The next day, on October 21, 1995, Blind Melon was scheduled to play a show in New Orleans at Tipitina’s. When one of the band’s roadies went to the tour bus to wake Hoon up for a sound check, he was unable to wake him.

An ambulance was summoned and Hoon was pronounced dead on the scene near Bourbon Street, New Orleans, at the age of 28, one month into Blind Melon’s 1995 tour, mere blocks from where he had recorded Soup. The cause of death was attributed to a cocaine overdose.

Gravesite of Shannon HoonHoon was buried in Dayton, Indiana; his grave is inscribed with the words to the first song he wrote, Change:

I know we can’t all stay here forever
So I want to write my words on the face of today

And they’ll paint it.