Not quite the zombies you would expect

Whoever thought Robert Bartlehe Cummings (Rob Zombie) was the first (pop) musician to choose the undead for an image is mistaking. Zombies did not enter pop music with Eddie "The Head", the mascot of Iron Maiden, either. Nor did they with the famous 1983 Michael Jackson video, Thriller.

No. I all started back in 1911, when Robert Jeroy Johnson was born to a poor family down south in the Mississippi Delta. His claim to fame came when he became the umber one blues musician of all time. He died in 1938, aged 27. After leaving 24 recorded songs and giving rise to the myth of having sold his soul tot the devil and being taken away by Satan. He was the first one of the legendary musicians to die at 27, just like Janis Joplin, Jim Morisson and Kurt Cobain.

Robert Johnson mentions the devil or related forces in six of his songs, giving rise to the myth that he somehow was connected to Satan. A song recorded by various musicians, The Cross Road Blues, mentions hiding on a crossroad where the two would meet. This image was used by the Coen Brothers in O Brother, Where Art Thou, their film about the Delta during the Depression. A Johnson-inspired guitarist shows up there.

The idea of a musician selling his soul to the devil is older. It was also a common believe that the great violin virtuoso Niccolo Paganini had sold his soul, in order to be able to play his extremely difficult caprices. A famous story goes that Paganini was able to play an entire concerto on just one string. This quickly made him "superhuman" and therefor satanic.

A later, more direct link to the zombie-image than the Johnson-Paganini type myth is a British band, called The Zombies. They were formed in 1961 and became famous with their hit singles "Time of the Season" and "She's Not There". Part of the British Invasion, it could be suggested that their name was inspired by narcotics, that were just emerging in the England of the 1960's.

In any case, the zombies did not last long, until 1969, when they decided they were not gonna be performing any more (note the similarity to the Beatles in 1967). Other bands tried to take over the success and played Time of the Season in various locations, claiming to be the original line-up. Since the bands trade-marks and logos lapsed, other bands took over these as well. One band even went so far as to recruit a bass player called Ronald Hugh Grundy and try to make him pass for Hugh Grundy, the original Zombies-drummer.

This way, many zombie-versions of the Zombies emerged. But I highly doubt any of them will have looked as decent and clear of any supernatural influences as the original line-up.