Oh Amy

Its testament to the obsessive  nature of celebrity-ism that  the untimely demise of Amy Winehouse takes precedence on wagging tongues at the bar and on the front pages in the same weekend that in the region of 100 people were callously slaughtered in  Norway in what is billed as their greatest civilian atrocity since WW11
As recently as 2004 Winehouse was a classic picture of nubile fertility with sheen brushed treeses more akin to last month's FHM cover girl Imogen Thomas than the  toxic waif image she'll be remembered for. Five years later her signature mantra was a bare faced refusal to agree to go to rehab and the music public loved her for it

White fans, liberal and non liberal alike were  sneeringly chuffed that a white chick was sincerely holding it down in a black music genre.
She had the accolade of a modern Billie Holiday who was known for performing her best when she was  both down and high.
Amy gave them that. And though she was under much less pressure to sing the authentic blues than the Holidays of the  apartheid  40s she really sang the blues.
That her talent was legendary is doubtless
The dichotomy is that very forte that claimed her. Winehouse met her end like a proverbial rock nroll hero, like  Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Monroe.
What will get up many peoples noses (no pun) is that she didn’t have to. There’s no drop out and get high culture here or teenage rebellion movement.
Music journalism has eroticised a superficial counter-culture that feeds on 60's nostalgia and a perverse fixation with young icons dying from an overdose of toxins earns them their place in hero worship folk lore


The medical profession have have long had a grip on the psychology of drug  abuse and systems are abound to deal with them. Money buys the best and many rich and  famous people have used them  as conduits towards re-claiming their own lives.
Lord knows Winehouse was offered  time  and time again the public and private services and support to help  her regain her  own remarkable life and  its envious trappings. But literally; no amount of money  can help some-body who doesn’t want to be helped

Maybe her father who often seemed to struggle with her headstrong spiral knew something of the demons that kept her on the path to self destruction in spite of the warning signs, the diabolical performances leading  to cancelled gigs; reminiscent of Elvis’s cataclysmic descent which ended on a toilet seat full of prescription drugs
These ingredients will always come to the fore when Amy Winehouse’s name enters a discussion and it’s their compulsion that will always be a wonder to us mere mortals and fated have-nots raised in the awe-imbued shadows of celebrity