Amy Winehouse

I’m writing this post following the death of Amy Winehouse.  I have something to say about this woman, and about music in general.  Every single musical genre is plagued with drug/substance abuse, there’s no way around it.  My problem with this is not one of famous musicians doing drugs and influencing younger fans to follow in their footsteps.  You cannot blame that on musicians, but rather on poor parenting and/or bad decision making.  I stand firmly behind the opinion that even a twelve-year-old has the decision making capability to choose according to what is right or wrong, not what is cool.

What really bothers me is something more from the aspect of a musician.  There are so many great, unknown musicians in the world that receive little to no recognition for their talent or hard work, yet are eclipsed by great musicians who choose substance abuse over life and making great music.  It is such a letdown to hear of musicians dying of drug overdoses and alcohol poisoning when there are so many great musicians that are staying clean that receive none of the monetary compensation or fame that they do. 

It seems like such an abuse of a great amount of talent and fame to simply squander it by dabbling in drugs.  It’s interesting to think of where music would be today if some of our musical heroes that passed on too early; Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, John Coltrane.  They not only took something away from themselves, they took something away from the rest of the world, their fans, and away from music in a general sense.