Today involved a rather curious/mortifying news update for those who weren't previously aware that Frédéric Chopin's heart has been stored in a crystal jar full of alcohol, which itself is housed inside a pillar at the Holy Trinity Church in Warsaw. A few scientists and lay folk did a quick checkup to make sure the organ was still in good condition and then put it back, to be checked on another 50 years. It kind of makes us curious what other famous musicians have mysterious final resting places. None are as quirky as Chopin's (the rest of his body is in Paris, if curious) but there are some graves that get/got little attention for a while.
Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart
Many are aware that one of the most renowned musicians of all time wasn't so respected until after his death, if only because they've heard the tale that he was buried in a mass grave. The latter half of the story isn't true but, due to his relatively low income and fame at the time, he was buried in what was known as a "common grave." Only aristocrats got marked graves in those days so odds are that the composer's body was dug up (along with his neighbors) so that newer deceased could take his place a little while later. Scientists exhumed what they believe was Mozart's skull during 1801, then it sat in storage for 190 years before being examined again. The remains of who we believe to be Mozart are now housed (with a monument) at St. Marx Cemetery in Vienna.
Bessie Smith
The era of crowdsourcing has made some problems of old irrelevant. Such as the burial marker of iconic blues vocalist Bessie Smith. She was killed during a motor accident at the age of 43 and no one bothered to get her a burial marker. The issue wasn't the apathy of the general public as with other famous blues musicians (read more further down) but that her husband Jack Gee refused to purchase one. It wasn't a money issue but an emotional one. The car Smith was in during the accident was driven by her well-established lover Richard Morgan, so Gee was not in the mood. More than 10,000 attended her wake and twice groups attempted to raise funds for a marker. Gee is believed to have pocketed the money. Janis Joplin, a huge fan, eventually paid for a stone during 1970.
Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison, one of the great rock 'n' rollers that came out of the Sun Records scene during the '50s, remains in an unmarked grave although everyone knows where it is. He's been interred at the Westwood Village Memorial Park since 1988 but his family hasn't gotten around to putting a marker on the grave. No, really: The Orbisons rushed to get him buried and Westwood and planned on moving the body soon after. That certainly hasn't come to fruition and the grave remains unmarked. The cruel irony is that his wife Barbara Orbison died during 2011 and promptly received a stone on her grave, which lies right next to her husband's. Frank Zappa is buried a few plots down from Roy, also in an unmarked grave, albeit by choice.
Michael Jackson
Sadly, in a world so driven my fanaticism, some people can't even have a monument to mark their final resting place because of fears that it will be vandalized by fans and, God help us, ransacked by grave robbers. Hence the fact that no one outside of a few cemetery staff and the Jackson family know the final resting place of Michael Jackson. He was buried at Westwood Memorial Village like Orbison and many other celebrities however no stone marks his spot. Unlike Orbison however, no one actually knows where the spot is. Upon his burial, employees at the cemetery (which is more of a tourist hotspot now) were all told different locations where The King of Pop now rests. None of them know the actual location but they can all be sure that it probably isn't where they were told.
Blues Performers
As referenced during our look at Bessie Smith's final resting place, we mentioned that a great number of performers from the blues era passed on and received no courtesy to mark their influence on the music world. This was both an indicator of listener apathy (fans were less keen to meet the black stars behind the music as they are now). Fortunately fans have started to push for monuments over the years. Robert Johnson now has three gravestones, all marking possible locations for his body. Steven Salter was bothered that Muddy Waters' pianist Otis Spann had no stone to mark his grave in Illinois and went about fixing it. From there he founded Killer Blues, an organization dedicated to finding and marking the final resting places of blues greats. Read more about that at The Daily Beast.
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