Quality Inn — Richard Manuel Death Site, Winter Park, Florida

Richard Manuel, pianist and vocalist of The Band, hanged himself in his room at the Quality Inn on Lee Road in Winter Park, Florida, on March 4, 1986. He was 42 years old. Manuel had performed with The Band the previous night at the nearby Cheek to Cheek Lounge and returned to the motel alone. He had struggled with alcohol and drug addiction for years — Robbie Robertson has described Manuel's dependency as apparent from very early in the band's career — and the long slow dissolution since The Band's original breakup in 1976 had taken a severe toll. His death came just hours after what would be his final performance.

Manuel was widely considered one of the great white soul voices in rock and roll — his performances on 'The Weight,' 'I Shall Be Released,' 'Whispering Pines,' and 'In a Station' are among the most emotionally devastating in the Band's catalogue, and his multi-octave range and willingness to expose raw feeling set him apart from virtually any contemporary. Robbie Robertson has said that Manuel could reduce a room to silence. The tragedy of his final years was that the gift was still there even as everything else fell apart.

The Quality Inn on Lee Road in Winter Park no longer operates under that name or in that form. Winter Park is an affluent suburb north of Orlando. Manuel is buried at Avondale Cemetery in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, close to where The Band first formed around Ronnie Hawkins in the early 1960s.