Substance Abuse.

Not strictly Blues but please bear with me. I have just recently watched the full length documentary about Amy Winehouse ‘Amy’ AND an equally long documentary about Kurt Cobain ‘Montage of Heck’, both stunningly put together and equally heart-breaking. Not a joyous experience for me. But, glutton for punishment that I am, this also coincided with me finishing the autobiography of Art Pepper ‘Straight Life’ (mentioned in previous post.).

Conclusion (straight from a graduate of the University of the Bloody Obvious) doing drugs screws you up!

But really; Winehouse, Cobain, Pepper all terrific talents – the first two snuffed out prematurely at the magic age of 27 (I know, you can add to the list, Johnson, Joplin and Hendrix) and Pepper who arguably lost his best years doing time for drug offences; so, so sad.

I really don’t believe that indulging in mind-altering substances is a prerequisite for the nurturing of talent. In my mind there are a lot of ‘what-ifs’.

I’ll expand this to the world of Art –
My first visit to the Van Gogh Museum lead me to the conclusion that if dear old Vincent hadn’t fallen prey to his largely untreated malaise I’m sure he would have gone abstract! Someone says that Cobain would have probably veered heavily towards the Blues – who knows? Maybe Amy Winehouse would have escaped the grip of Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone etc. and branched out into work that was truly groundbreaking?

Alcohol and weed were part of the Blues culture as well, look at Otis Spann and Jimmy Reed; watch on Youtube as Wolf berates Son House for his squandered talent through love of the bottle! But also think of those true great artists who had no need of substances.