Famous People & Musicians with Tinnitus
Celebrities & Musicians with Tinnitus:
Neil Young - (loud music) main reason for his "acoustic" music during
early 90's
Barbra Streisand - "Streisand has ascribed her volatile temperament to the tinnitus from which she has
suffered since she was seven." source: news.independent.co.uk
Pete Townshend - "I have severe hearing damage. It's
manifested itself as tinnitus, ringing in the ears at frequencies that I play guitar. It hurts, it's painful, and it's frustrating."
Townshend is completely deaf in one ear from an explosion when Keith Moon blew up his drum set live on stage in the early
1960's and loud amps. He has tinnitus, resulting partly from the band's live gigs but mainly the deafening volume in which
he and Entwistle used to listen to playbacks over the studio "cans." There are reports saying that he is unable even to hear
his phone ring. The Sun newspaper reported Townshend said his hearing got worse after the band's recent US tour. Quote from
Pete: "The recent return to touring and to me playing electric guitar - albeit more quietly than in the 1970s - led to further
deterioration of my hearing," the 57-year-old said. "My right ear, which encounters my own edgy guitar and the machine gun
strokes of the drums, has suffered badly. Luckily for me, I still have my left ear, which seems to be less @#%$ up. When I've
worked solo in the past five years I've not used drums. This has meant I could play more quietly I think. With The Who, there
is of course no way to play the old songs without drums. I've no idea what I can do about this. I am unable to perform with
in-ear monitors. In fact, they increase the often unbearable tinnitus I suffer after shows." source from
Sky News John Entwhistle - According to Who scholar Andy Neill, Entwhistle was pretty deaf, and tended to rely on lip-reading.
He didn't have tinnitus but still played bass at his usual "everything on 11" volume.
William Shatner - stage/prop
explosion on set of StarTrek (during mid 1960's)
Leonard Nimoy - stage/prop explosion on set of StarTrek (during
mid 1960's)
David Letterman - T in one ear, has had T a long time: Dave mentioned that he too had ringing in
his ears, and has had it for a long time to William Shatner
Paul Schaffer - "He's got that?! I've got that!" on
Billy Bob Thornton's character with Tinnitus in 'BANDITS'
Bill Clinton? - (wears hearing aid) T probably?
Tony
RandallEngelbert HumperdinckRosalynn CarterSteve Martin - musician (banjo player), actor,
comedian. He acquired Tinnitus while filming a pistol-shooting scene in "¡Three Amigos!" in 1986. "You just get used to it."
Leslie Nealson - (actor in Police Academy movies)
Mark O. HatfieldRonald ReaganJean-Jacques
Rousseau - Influential eighteenth century political philosopher. From "Confessions" (1780) "...a great noise started up
in my ears, a noise that was triple or rather quadruple, compounded of a low and muffled humming, a softer murmuring as though
of running water, a piercing whistle...This internal noise was so loud that it robbed me of the keen ear I had previously
enjoyed and made me, not completely deaf, but hard of hearing... in spite of the throbbing in my arteries and the humming
in my ears, which since that time, some thirty years ago now, have never left me for a moment...The noise was irksome, but
it caused me no suffering: it was not accompanied by any chronic affliction, apart from insomnia at night..." P. 222, Oxford
World's Classics paperback edition, Oxford University Press, 2000
Jean-Francois Champollion - (1790-1832) Champollion
was a French Egyptologist and scholar who is acknowledged as the father of modern Egyptology. He is best known for deciphering
the Egyptian Hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone. His deciphering of hieroglyphics laid the foundations for modern Egyptology
and Egyptian archaeology. In the book "The Keys to Egypt", it describes how Champollion drove himself to complete an encyclopedia
of his work. "Depressed and feeling more and more unwell, Champollion now wrote to his brother about the damage done by the
strain of work: 'My poor head hurts, my tinnitus, the humming and buzzing noises, has worsened and leaves me neither day nor
night. I have frequent spasms and am incapable of occupying myself seriously for more than a quarter hour...' "
Richard
ThomasBrian Wilson? T? - deaf in one ear from when his father hit him in the head with a board at an early
age
Dave Pirner - (Soul Asylum) (loud music)
Bob Mould - (alternative music icon)
Neve Campbell
- loud dance clubs
Jeff Beck - band Yardbirds (loud music)
Burt ReynoldsSting - (loud music)
Liberty
Divito - (Billy Joel's drummer) (loud music)
Eric Clapton - (loud amplifiers)
Eric Johnson - has developed
T (loud music/amps); source from Guitar Player Magazine interview: "I'd run two Marshall stacks onstage and crank the monitors.
I started using Fender Deluxe Reverb amps and 50-watt Marshalls around '97, after I started having some problems with tinnitus.
It was my own doing -- being irresponsible and thinking I was invincible...Yes, though it has been better lately. Take care
and wear plugs. Don't think it can't happen to you. When I had a speaker reconed at the been here for years reconing shop
in Austin the owner said, "I've reconed speakers for every guitarist in Austin for years and as far as I know there aren't
any rock 'n roll lead guitarists here who don't have tinnitus to some degree or another. Many have it so bad they have trouble
sleeping."
James Hetfield - Metallica rhythm guitar and uses Sonic II Ear plugs
Lars Ulrich - drummer
for Metallica
Vanilla Fudge - Tim Bogert (bassist): "Tinnitus, big time. Thats the price you pay for having a darn
good time. Nothings free!"
Radiohead - lead singer
Motorhead - Lemmy Kilminster (thrash-punk-metal pioneers):
"We just like it loud, you know?"
Kevin Shields - guitarist/singer for My Bloody Valentine: "I did the damage to
my ears listening to mixes in headphones at very loud levels without giving my ears time to recover."
Blinda Butcher
- bassist/singer for My Bloody Valentine: "I had a punctured ear drum which fortunately they were able to put right but for
a while I couldn't hear out of one ear and it was very depressing. On stage we all wear hearing protection and encourage anyone
who sees us regularly to do the same."
George Martin? - retired from music due to hearing loss
George Harrison?
- had hearing damage from loud music
Thomas EdisonGraham Cole - UK actor and singer, suffers tinnitus
and hearing loss
Sylvester StalloneTed Nugent - Amboy Dukes guitarist: "My left ear is pretty much whacked.
But I can still hear really good in my right ear. Early on, I would stick shell casings, which I always had handy, in my ear,
to protect my right ear because that was the one that was facing the amp the most."
Rick Emmett - Triumph, from
Guitar Player Magazine
Bono - U2 lead singer, he even sings about it in his lyrics
The Edge - U2 guitar
player
Peter Jennings Jerry Stiller - Frank Costanza on Seinfeld
Lorence HendersonJeff
BeckHusker Du/Sugar - frontman
Dwight D. EisenhowerMartin LutherPhil Collins
- sources: newspapers/website. From Sky News: He will have to severely cut back on live performances "thanks to the buzzing
in his ears."
CherMorgan Fairchild - T? Actress; She was born a preemie who developed scarlet fever.
She has so many kidney and ear infections as a child that she admits she is "partially deaf."
Cheryl Tiegs - Super
model
Blixa Bargeld - (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Einstuerzende Neubauten)
Ozzy Ozborne Huey
LewisTony FranklinAlan Shepard - (T and Meniere's Disease)
Ira Flatow - National Public
Radio - Host, Talk of the Nation: Science Friday
"Some interesting and hopeful news for people, like myself, millions of
us, who have a constant ringing in one or both of our ears... Researchers have figured out where in the brain that ringing-
called tinnitus - originates." Click on the below link to view and listen to Ira Flatow's program on Tinnitus with guests:
Dr. Alan Lockwood
(Professor of Neurology, Nuclear Medicine, and Communicative Disorders and Sciences, State University
of New York at Buffalo, Research Physician, Veterans Administration Hospital, Buffalo, New York) and Dr. Richard Salvi
(Professor of Communicative Disorders and Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York) Science Friday: Tinnitus Don ImusVincent Van Gogh - maybe why he cut off his ear
Ludwig Van Beethoven - Famously deaf,
Beethoven was also a famous tinnitus sufferer. The great composer was driven mad by "rushing and roaring sounds" in his head.
Robert
Schumann - composer
Bedrich Smetana - it was a high E, and it was in his string quartet "From My Life."
Charles
Darwin - who kept records of its daily amplitude and frequency
CliveBarker? - disturbing story "Dread"
Stewart
Copeland - hearing loss but no T yet
Keanu Reeves - plays bass in the band Dogstar
Larry King said
he has tinnitus on his left ear. He also said his is very low and it dosn't bother him
Dave Swarbrick - fiddle player
Fairport Convention mammoth onstage amplification (ironic for a 'folk rock' band).
Charles Arthur - guitar player
Charlie Haden - jazz bassist, Charlie Haden to Charles Arthur (Q&A), "Over the years I have learned to adjust
my life to this problem and accepted these ear problems as part of my being. In other words, I tell myself that I've been
this way since I was born. This helps me to reduce the stress and frustration of this condition. I wear earplugs when I play
that cut out 32 db's, as well as using plexiglass baffles. You are seeing the right person in Dr. Jack Vernon. Many musicians
have this problem. I take it you know about "Tinnitus Today" and "H.E.A.R." from Dr. Vernon. Good luck and keep positive,
Charlie Haden"
Kathy Peck - bass player/singer-songwriter: "My life had really changed when I experienced the loss
of my hearing and Tinnitus damage after the Contractions opened up for Duran Duran."
H.E.A.R. - "As a former bass player and singer for the San Francisco rock band The Contractions, Kathy had suffered hearing damage
while playing a set at the Oakland Coliseum in l984. The repeated exposure to excessive noise caused a ringing sensation in
her ears called tinnitus, as well as decreasing her ability to hear."
Michael Tomlinson - musician/singer-songwriter:
After an ear infection, he temporarily lost 90% of his hearing for a few weeks, but still has Tinnitus in one ear.
Al
Di Meola - musician/guitarist: "I do. That's why i don't play electric anymore."
John Densmore - drummer for
The Doors, Ray Manzarek says that things are looking grim for Densmore, in terms of his future as a musician: "Tinnitus, man,
you can't...You know, there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't get better. It can only get worse--that's the hell of
that thing. You'd say, 'Well, you know, when it's better, you're gonna play, man.' Well, it doesn't get better. The nature
of that problem is that it can only get worse."
Jimmy Savile - "It doesn't bother me in the slightest," he told
Michael Church. "It reminds me of all the girls I've known, and all the discos. I'm very happily ensconced with this friend
inside my head." Source from:
news.independent.co.uk Michael Church - "I acquired my own tinnitus in the stupidest possible way: on the rifle range at Catterick army
camp, while training as an officer cadet. St Albans School in the late Fifties was a grotesquely spartan place, where ear-defenders
were unheard of (my fellow victim Stephen Hawking improvised earplugs from blotting paper, and the doctor had to dig them
out). After a noisy afternoon with a Bren firing 12 inches from my left ear, I returned home deafened, and though my hearing
eventually returned (minus the high frequencies), I was left with a loud hiss. (Yes, I should have sued both the school and
the MoD, but 16-year-olds don't have time for such niceties.)" Source from:
news.independent.co.ukFrancis Rossi - lead singer and guitarist for the band Status Quo.
Mick Ronson - David Bowie's guitarist,
had tinnitus in the ear that was closest to his speaker column.
Hansi Kursch - lead singer and bass player for the
band Blind Guardian. Kursch actually lost all hearing on one side, and then suffered tinnitus in the same ear. source from
DynamiteMetal.comJarmo Miettinen - Rhythm guitar & vocals for the band Status Quiz
Todd Rundgren - Musician
Tinnitus
In Song: Peter Framptom - based on lyrics to
Show me the way - "I wonder how you're feeling....there's
ringing in my ears....and no one to relate to...cept the sea (?)Who can I believe in?I feel so ....."
Robert Plant
-
Stairway to Heaven - "You´re head is humming and it won´t go in case you don´t know..."
Bob Dylan -
Call
Letter Blues - "My ears are ringing, ringing like empty shells... (2x) Well, it can't be no guitar player.Must be...convent
bells"
Nine Inch NailsGarbage -
Push It - "This is the noise that keeps me awake, my head explodes
and my body aches"
U2 -
Staring At The Sun - "...There's an insect in your ear, if you scratch it won't disappear,
its gonna
itch and burn and sting, you wanna see what the scratching brings...waves that leave me out of reach,
breaking
on your back like a beach, will we ever live in peace? as those that can't do, often have to preach,
to the ones, staring
at the sun..."
Francis Rossi/Status Quo - from 1998 single
Burning Bridges - "I can't escape this ringing
in my ears..."
Bob Seger -
Turn the Page - "Later in the evening as you lie awake in bed, with the echo
from the amplifiers ringing in your head."
The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band -
Hillbilly Hollywood - (Jim Photoglo,
Vince Melamed) "I played some bars where you never wanna go. From Oklahoma City down to Tupelo. My ears would be ringing like
an old fire bell when I'd lay me down in some cheap motel."
*sources: websites, news, radio, newspapers, newsgroups,
magazines, published interviews, alt.support.tinnitus, talk radio, ATA, tinnitus discussion forums,
tinnitus support message board E-mail me to add people to the list: sunspot6@hotmail.com
