The Stupid 27 club - revisited

When I first heard about the Death of Amy Winehouse I wrote this piece

This generated a lot of angry comments. Everything from a very dedicated Alan Wilson fan politely asking me to read more on him. To people pointing out that my blog was full of opinion.

Well, dealing with the extremes. To Rebecca Davis Winters , the writer of the very good book 'Blind Owl Blues', and indeed to all of the Alan Wilson fans who took the time to comment. I apologise for adding his name to a post that also had the word Stupid in the title. It seems that this is unfair , and as was suggested, the issue of self medication is something that needs to be considered. I would say in my defence, I did not actually pass comment on Alan in my post. I did put his name in the opening paragraph, which listed the famous musicians who did not make it past the age of 27. Anyway, here is a piece of Alan's work that everyone should listen to

I like this music. the blues, bluegrass feel to it is very infectious.




To the people who got angry because I put my opinion into the piece and I had the temerity to question the genius of established classic rock acts. Well, guys, this is a blog. The point of the blog is my thoughts on music. The things around it. I try to vary the topics I write on. Posts are about as wide range of music as I know. Although I am yet to get that heavily into the Electronic or classical side of my tastes. If you come to my blog and are looking for a completely factual source , then you are in the wrong spot. Also a bit naive. This blog is about raising a topic and having a discussion about if it is possible.

So, some time has passed and low and behold there is a new Amy Winehouse album. It is a good album. It is of course horribly inconsistent, but that is always to be expected. So, we get three albums from Amy. She went one better than Jeff Buckley at least. Here is a track from the new album . .

That is a cool song, and she does have a great voice for that style.

The Coroner recorded a Death by Misadventure verdict on her death. It appears to have been caused by a huge level of alcohol in her body. Her body could not deal with it and as such it gave up. So , I need to retract the death by overdose of different drugs comment I made. Although , drinking yourself to death is a death by overdose, but I acknowledge not the one I meant when I originally wrote it.

How do I feel about Amy's death now? Well my opinion on it all is a little mixed. I can see the sense of loss when listening to her music. Putting on one of her albums on a day such as today , it is a grey damp and cold day in London, is a pleasurable experience. We have three albums to do it with and maybe that will be enough. I will still stand by my sentiment that she had perhaps reached a peak, the continued substance abuse would have destroyed her voice.

I am not sad at all to no longer see headlines about her being too out of it to perform , or pictures of her in the press doing something they didn't like, or thought would sell papers.

I see today that they have found 4 songs by Jimi Hendrix that were previously undiscovered. So I imagine they will be repackaged into an album with outtakes and other similar things. I hope the same treatment doesn' t happen any further with Amy's music. There is a reason a lot of unreleased stuff wasn't released and the Hendrix foundation would do well to remember this.

Anyway, rest in peace Amy. Thanks for the music