
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, October 22, 1995                   TAG: 9510230142
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW ORLEANS                                LENGTH: Short

BLIND MELON'S LEAD SINGER, HOON, DIES AT 28

Shannon Hoon, whose smooth, high-pitched vocals took the alternative rock group Blind Melon to the top of the charts, died Saturday. He was 28.

Hoon died on his tour bus about 1:30 p.m. His sound manager apparently couldn't wake him and called police, said New Orleans police Sgt. Marlon DeFillo. He said there was no sign of trauma, and the cause of death remains unclassified pending an autopsy.

The coroner's office in New Orleans confirmed receipt of a body named Shannon Hoon, but would not comment further. A security guard at Capitol, the band's record company in Los Angeles, said no one was available to comment.

Blind Melon was in New Orleans to play at the famed Tipitina's music club. The tour bus was in a parking lot on the venerable St. Charles Avenue near where the group recorded its second album, ``Soup,'' in the city's Warehouse District.

Blind Melon went to the top of the charts in 1993 with the song ``No Rain'' off their self-titled debut album. The group's sound was sprinkled with such influences as the Allman Brothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and mixed some hard and alternative rock.

The band's name came from Mississippi neighbors of bassist Brad Smith: unemployed hippies who called each other ``blind melons.''

by CNB