Doug Fieger, power pop hitmaker for the Knack, has died at 57 in his Woodland Hills, Calif., home. Best known for the 1979 No. 1 smash "My Sharona," the singer-songwriter had reportedly been battling lung and brain cancer for years.
"Sharona" was an obsessively catchy track about one of Fieger's real-life girlfriends, and the bouncy cut off the band's debut album, Get the Knack, scored another jolt of fame in the mid '90s when it appeared on the Reality Bites soundtrack.
In January, in one of Fieger's last interviews, the Detroit-born rocker sounded at peace when he told the Detroit News:
"Everybody knows they're going sooner or later. I don't know any better than anyone else when I'm going. I've had 10 great lives. And I expect to have some more. I don't feel cheated in any way, shape or form."
Rock on.
________
Fieger's passing is as sad as it is surprising, but check out some of these other Shocking Pop Star Deaths.