Death
During a world tour with Sylvester in late 1981, Cowley complained of feeling increasingly unwell. Upon returning to the United States, he visited a doctor who diagnosed food poisoning. Weeks later, with his condition only worsening, doctors again failed to identify what was wrong with him. At this early stage in the history of the HIV and AIDS, misdiagnosis was common and so Cowley, who was gay, was discharged from the hospital (in 1982) after doctors could do nothing more for him.
After discharge, Cowley went on to complete two albums, his own Mind Warp and Sylvester's All I Need, which was later retitled Do Ya Wanna Funk after its chart-topping hit. Cowley died at his home, in San Francisco, on November 12, 1982. He was 32 years old, an early victim of AIDS (which was then still known as GRID). A couple of tracks were also completed for a planned Sarah Dash album that year, which was cut short by Cowley's death.
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Famous quotes containing the word death:
“I would not that death should take me asleep. I would not have him meerly seise me, and onely declare me to be dead, but win me, and overcome me. When I must shipwrack, I would do it in a sea, where mine impotencie might have some excuse; not in a sullen weedy lake, where I could not have so much as exercise for my swimming.”
—John Donne (c. 1572–1631)
“To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?”
—Socrates (469–399 B.C.)