Jesse Singer articles

Coming up with a band name is hard. Coming up with a song title is also hard. Well, in a two-birds-one-stone kind of move, some artists solved both problems at the same time—by just using the same name for everything. It’s bold, a little shameless, and sometimes surprisingly great.

For a while in the 80s, Jan-Michael Vincent seemed untouchable. But away from the cameras, a very different story was already unfolding—one that would soon turn his life into one of Hollywood’s most turbulent cautionary tales.

Mud. Half a million people. Hendrix at dawn. That’s the Woodstock we remember. But there were several major artists invited who didn’t make it—for one reason or another. Imagine if every confirmed invitee had said yes? We did.

In the 70s, The Carpenters felt untouchable. Hit after hit. Television specials. Karen’s voice drifting from car radios across America. Then, in 1983, everything stopped. The world mourned her—but few stopped to wonder what happened to the brother who built the sound beside her. For Richard Carpenter, the future suddenly looked uncertain in ways no chart could measure.

For years, Jon Walmsley felt frozen in time—forever strumming a guitar on Walton’s Mountain, forever part of one of television’s gentlest families. But life after the cameras stopped rolling didn’t follow a script. At least not the one most fans expected.

There was a very specific moment every 70s and 80s TV fan experienced. You’re watching The Love Boat and then Fantasy Island and suddenly you think, “Wait… weren’t they just on the boat?” You weren’t imagining it. ABC recycled guest stars like it was part of the business model—and honestly, we loved them for it.

There was a time when these artists felt untouchable. Platinum albums. Sold-out arenas. MTV on constant rotation. They weren’t just famous—they were inevitable. The kind of famous that makes you assume it’ll last forever. And then… it doesn’t. Ask someone born after 2000 about them and you might get a polite smile and a quick Google search.

At some point, this argument happens in almost every family. Your dad insists Steve McQueen was the real deal—cool, dangerous, unpredictable. Your grandfather doesn’t even hesitate: John Wayne. End of discussion.

He was working steadily. No scandals. No public spirals. Lee Thompson Young looked like one of the rare former child stars who had figured out how to grow up in Hollywood without crashing. Then, one August morning in 2013, he didn’t show up to work—and everything changed.