American author, poet, and punk musician Jim Carroll is best known for his 1980 song “People Who Died” and 1978 autobiographical work, The Basketball Diaries.
Carroll formed his first band, Amsterdam, a new wave/punk rock group, with encouragement from Patti Smith, with whom he once shared an apartment in New York City, along with Robert Mapplethorpe. In 1979 they changed their name to The Jim Carroll Band and secured a recording contract with Atlantic Records with the support of the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards. Their debut album Catholic Boy contained his best known song, “People Who Died.”
The book “The Basketball Diaries” inspired a 1995 film of the same title that starred Leonardo DiCaprio as Carroll.
Carroll died of a heart attack at his Manhattan home on September 11, 2009, at the age of 60.
