Amy Winehouse RIP

[burning dog]

I'm not a fan of hers
but the death of someone so obviously talented so young is tragic and a waste
as are the events in Norway

!)

Another hear hear... part of the problem with modern celebrity is that it's hard for us to distinguish between the talented and merely talked, gossiped, written about.

[Old Grumpy]

Amy was talented - she just got lost.

I think SA has summed it up here:

She worked in jazz to begin with, and had one or top British jazzers in her band who were given rein to improvise, I remember, albeit on just one number from the Hackney Empire video, but probably against her career pushers, and dug the interaction, more than suggesting she wanted to keep that link. There are lots of reasonably good female jazz singers; Amy had a natural jazzer's timing and way of dealing with lyrics and inflections that some were almost comparing with Billie Holiday. If any of her friends in that field had managed to coax her away from the commercial end of the biz, under supportive management mentorship she could have followed the Jamie Cullum path and kept herself straight.

Very, very sad

S-A

[Lateralthinking1]

I'd probably choose this one -

http://open.spotify.com/track/3RE6wbVJOxpE0CTTajuLPq

[hackneyvi]

Here's a short piece that a friend pointed out to me tonight ...

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:UJ_DwEru_3QJ:www.russellbrand.tv/2011/07/for-amy/+russell+brand+tv&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&source=www.google.co.uk

[handsomefortune]

this guardian article, (and comments below from readers), begins to untangle what must surely be a complex emotional response, (if authentic), to the death of a famous person.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/26/amy-winehouse-death-badly-reported

and, horror of horrors:

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/mens-fashion/blake-fielder-civil-style-6148452

lastly, i did note the total contradiction implied, in mr winehouse making a public speech, claiming he is 'speechless'! evidently, he was far from it on monday, at least.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The issue here is not whether AW was talented or not. Indeed, the hype of the last few years has gone right over my head. It is the human tragedy that is the issue. We have created a society in which a significant proportion of young people in their 20s go off the rails and become addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. There is no single cause, but I remember how the first wave of children taught the straight-jacketed National Curriculum (born 1977-78) showed significantly higher behaviourable problems when they arrived at secondary school. There was some improvement in subsequent years, but the pressure to achieve at school has been relentless. Teenagers don't have the time to rebel and mature in a manageable way. So many remain teenagers into their late 20s. Drugs are so easy to obtain and the police make little effort to prosecute the suppliers, even when they are informed. It staggers me that there is a "drug problem" in prisons. Do the inmates really grow cannibis in plantpots in the recreation areas and manufacture class A drugs in their cells?
I wonder what kind of monster society we have created.

[Lateralthinking1]

....yes - and possibly the biggest one of all in many cases, parental separation. Don't get me wrong. I think her parents really did try to help her, I think they did what they could, I feel for them enormously. No one is perfect.

But her father had the talent of music and her mother, who was from an ordinary background, worked admirably at night school to become a qualified pharmacist. Bring those together in one individual and you've "reunited" them in a disturbed way. Then you look at the personalities. While clearly practical, friends describe her mother as being "sweet" but "weak". Amy described her father, who she came to accept and admire, as "shady", seemingly "on the run" every two years for unknown reasons, a frequent "philanderer" and largely absent. You can see the making of a personality there with all the pluses and minuses.

It may seem a little insensitive to write in these terms - I don't feel good about it and I really wish them no further pain - but that, to be direct about it, was how things were. I can forgive that because most ordinary folk are the victims of their backgrounds and that includes parents too. I also recognise that kind of London background of wider family influence - the rented shop, the significant grandmother. It was a tremendous achievement for them all to get that important break.

What doesn't help is the renewed good-and-bad mixed messages of drugs in the cultural mainstream. I date this back to the very early nineties and then increasingly from the turn of the century. There was more of an understandably po-faced attitude towards them for nearly 20 years from the early 1970s not that they ever went away.

[BBMmk2]

I have rather controversial views which about any substance abuser, having looked after them when I was in nursing.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I have rather controversial views which about any substance abuser, having looked after them when I was in nursing.

My real gripe is with the suppliers, who are not dealt with, even when they are well-known. Are they really protected by the Mafia in Britain?

[3rd Viennese School]

Shocked me when I heard the news on Tuesday evening on channel 4 for about 5 seconds about her funeral. I thought-eh? She’s dead!? When was this!?
I’m surprised no one had said anything in the pubs or at work.


I’m not a die hard fan (prefer Shoshtakovich!)- but a few years ago even some of her songs were being performed at our local folk festivals! And saw that documentary a few years ago which was interesting.

Very sad. Obviously a talented musician that could have gone a lot further.

3VS

[Lateralthinking1]

My real gripe is with the suppliers, who are not dealt with, even when they are well-known.

Totally agree. It is probably the generally depressive mood I am in but I have been thinking of her more than I expected. It makes me sad. As I was wheeling the trolley round the supermarket this morning, I glimpsed at the headlines. Speculation that it was a sudden drying out that could have killed her. If so, it seems to completely lack any natural justice and be a warning to anyone on any kind of substance, including on prescription, not to come off it very suddenly.

[Panjandrum]

Totally agree. It is probably the generally depressive mood I am in but I have been thinking of her more than I expected. It makes me sad. As I was wheeling the trolley round the supermarket this morning, I glimpsed at the headlines. Speculation that it was a sudden drying out that could have killed her. If so, it seems to completely lack any natural justice and be a warning to anyone on any kind of substance, including on prescription, not to come off it very suddenly.

Look she wasn't a child. She knew the risks. She had the examples of Morrison, Joplin et al. I know it sounds callous but life is always going to throw up these sordid little episodes. Maybe the gods do take those they love best young. Better to die at 27 than hang on and be a sad old has-been going through the motions with endless reunion concerts a la Claptout et al.b

[amateur51]

Look she wasn't a child. She knew the risks. She had the examples of Morrison, Joplin et al. I know it sounds callous but life is always going to throw up these sordid little episodes. Maybe the gods do take those they love best young. Better to die at 27 than hang on and be a sad old has-been going through the motions with endless reunion concerts a la Claptout et al.b

Ah the compassion and the insight!

[Panjandrum]

Ah the compassion and the insight!

Glad you see things my way am51!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Better to die at 27 than hang on and be a sad old has-been going through the motions with endless reunion concerts a la Claptout et al.b

That is a bit OTT. One can agree that reunion concerts can be a little wearing, particularly those that merely regurgitate old material, but it is possible to retire as a pop singer and do something different.