# The Tragic Stories Behind 5 Songs That Became Hits After the Artists Died

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/professor-of-rock-7272370/the-tragic-stories-behind-5-songs-that-became-hits-after-the-artists-died
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/professor-of-rock-7272370/the-tragic-stories-behind-5-songs-that-became-hits-after-the-artists-died.md
Podcast: [Professor of Rock](https://stenobird.com/podcast/professor-of-rock-7272370)
Published: 2026-05-17T08:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://mgln.ai/e/345/rss.pdrl.fm/eb47a0/pscrb.fm/rss/p/rss.art19.com/episodes/c8db85d6-98d0-467b-bc99-04787d15030a.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg90cmFuc2NyaWJyBjoGRVQ%3D--952c5701c84ad333c69d5faa668f8177091704f0
Audio file: https://mgln.ai/e/345/rss.pdrl.fm/eb47a0/pscrb.fm/rss/p/rss.art19.com/episodes/c8db85d6-98d0-467b-bc99-04787d15030a.mp3?rss_browser=BAhJIg90cmFuc2NyaWJyBjoGRVQ%3D--952c5701c84ad333c69d5faa668f8177091704f0
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/professor-of-rock-7272370/episodes/the-tragic-stories-behind-5-songs-that-became-hits-after-the-artists-died
Duration seconds: 1930

## Resource

Sometimes the most powerful voices in music stay silent for years and decades… never getting their due until after they’ve left this planet. You could call them post-mortem hitmakers. Today, we’re covering 5 artists who poured their hearts into their craft only to face rejection and obscurity while they were alive… but then their music went viral after their deaths. We’ve got a singer Chris Rainbow who was dubbed the "one-man Beach Boys” when he put out several records in the 70s, but his songs went nowhere. He passed away in 2015 from Parkinson’s with zero hits to his name, but now, a decade later, his obscure 1979 song has taken over the charts because of its popularity on TikTok. Plus, there is the California frontman Bradley Nowell,who passed just before his band’s self-titled masterpiece conquered the airwaves. There’s also the tragic tale of a vocal virtuoso, Jeff Buckley, who had an otherworldly range, who, in a freak accident, drowned in a treacherous river after a tugboat sailed past him. His 1994 cover song Hallelujah later went to #1, 14 years after its original release, and 11 years after his death. Add to that a folk poet Nick Drake who lived in silence and died believing he was a failure, only to be rediscovered when a car commercial featured one of his songs decades later. You gotta see this one. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

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