SCNDLS said:

Russell Brand, who famously battled addiction for years, wrote a long and touching blog about his friend Amy Winehouse -- whom he called both a genius and a junkie. Russell says he finally conquered his addiction at the age of 27, the same age Amy was when she passed away. He says he'd known Amy for a long time before he had ever heard her sing ... calling her voice "entirely human yet laced with the divine."

Here's his blog, in its entirety:

For Amy

When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they've had enough, that they're ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it's too late, she's gone.

Frustratingly it's not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.

I've known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool Indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma. Carl Barrat told me that "Winehouse" (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it's kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance; "Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric" I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable.

I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they're not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his "speedboat" there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they're looking through you to somewhere else they'd rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.

From time to time I'd bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was "a character" but that world was riddled with half cut, doped up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn't especially register.

Then she became massively famous and I was pleased to see her acknowledged but mostly baffled because I'd not experienced her work and this not being the 1950's I wondered how a "jazz singer" had achieved such cultural prominence. I wasn't curious enough to do anything so extreme as listen to her music or go to one of her gigs, I was becoming famous myself at the time and that was an all consuming experience. It was only by chance that I attended a Paul Weller gig at the Roundhouse that I ever saw her live.

I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I'd only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound. So now I knew. She wasn't just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a f**king genius.

Shallow fool that I am I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that youtube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition. Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre, Focus12 I found recovery, through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts which are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive.

Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy's incredible talent. Or Kurt's or Jimi's or Janis's, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn't even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.

That story is so intriguing yet sad. Amy's death reminds me of soul singer Minnie Ripertons death.Because I got to know who Minnie was after she died. Now i'm intrigued by Amy's peculiar life & her struggle & secrets, She seemed like a tortured soul.

Dr Funkenberry has posted a video of the Amy/Prince performance. Thanks Dr.!

http://www.drfunkenberry....sing-game/

^^^Yeah, I posted that on Facenook two days ago... That was the best version I could find.

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

That story is so intriguing yet sad. Amy's death reminds me of soul singer Minnie Ripertons death.Because I got to know who Minnie was after she died. Now i'm intrigued by Amy's peculiar life & her struggle & secrets, She seemed like a tortured soul.

How? I'm mean (respectfully) how about starting a thread about Minnie Riperton.

purplethunder3121 said:

^^^Yeah, I posted that on Facenook two days ago... That was the best version I could find.

thanks to you too then!

Serena said:

purplethunder3121 said:

^^^Yeah, I posted that on Facenook two days ago... That was the best version I could find.

thanks to you too then!

Hope a better one surfaces.

Ugh, her funeral is tomorrow.

http://www.tmz.com/2011/0...on-singer/

R.I.P now Amy and blessings to your loved ones, friends and fans.

Serena said:

It's just that it's cluttering up the thread, not that I'm trying to control things, but it makes it harder for those who want to discuss Amy to wade through all the other crap.

Well, you're not discussing Winehouse either... you're just posting countless Youtube links, like you're the only one who knows Youtube.

Not to be rude, but really someone with a MJ avator, talking bout posting endless links?

I give some cred to Serena atleast she's trying to keep an out of control thread on AW on track.

^^You're not rude... you're something else... what does my avatar have to do with anything?? Where have I posted countless links? I brought exactly 2 external things into this thread!

PatrickS77 said:

^^You're not rude... you're something else... what does my avatar have to do with anything?? Where have I posted countless links? I brought exactly 2 external things into this thread!

Patrick, why come here just to cause trouble and be rude to those of us who are trying to honor an artist we like? I'm asking you nicely, please leave it alone now.

Wow.... There is some really crazy stuff going on with Amy Winehouse's internet pics.

One thing is for sure.... the paparazzi loves photoshop.

Serena said:

PatrickS77 said:

Why not?? Fellow musicians (who mostly were fighting the same problems) commenting on the passing of one of their peers! And they are relevant... at least some of them. If you don't like what they have to say, that's your problem. At least they (some) seem more honest than some of the other commenting people.

Go ask that asshole Ted Nugent what he thought of MJ and post it in the MJ thread if you think he's worthy of quoting.

Ted Nugent, Brian Fair, and Tommy Lee had to throw salt. Not cool.

At least Nikki Sixx (who I'm no way a fan of) kept it a bit more respectful

I remember hearing Frank album in 2007 and being absolutely blown away. Songs like Take The Box. You Sent Me Flying, Help Yourself, and Stronger Than Me were in my head for months. I didn't really get into Back To Black, but songs like Tears Dry On Their Own.....amazing

Nobody knows what Amy was dealing with so it's no use to judge. I hope she found the peace that she and so many others weren't able to find in life

My thoughts. I wasn't too impressed with her in 2003 when she first came out. I saw her on TV and thought she had potential, but the lyrics were too bratty and she was a nervous performer (in truth she never did become much of a performer although her set was well put together). Then one day I heard "Rehab" and loved it. I think the difference was simply that she found the right producer in Mark Ronson. His arrangements were perfect. The whole sound of the album was great although I didn't think the songs were all quite as good as that one. My favourite one on there was "You Know I'm No Good", but it's no coincidence her best song was a cover version ("Valerie"). The drugs got to her before she reached her full potential as a writer.

What was great about her though was that she was true. Virtually all of today's pop stars are fakes or shallow mediocrities. She wasn't. She knew music on a deep level; shunned her ritzier, glitzier peers (no Beyonce or Usher duets for her); and in short, kept it real. She also spawned imitators. Adele's whole vocal style is pilfered from Amy, and both she and Duffy are following in her musical footsteps. 60s soul was nowhere before Amy revived it.

She made a lot of enemies along the way with her outspoken comments about other artists, but that's what people who know about music and care about it do. They point out when emperors are wearing no clothes. The ones I remember her bad mouthing were Madonna, Corinne Bailey Rae, Jamie Cullum, and Will Young. In every instance I thought "Thank God at least someone is standing up for good taste". Way to go, Amy.

Okay, that took half an hour to type. I'm out of here. Rest in peace Amy.

Serena said:

PatrickS77 said:

^^You're not rude... you're something else... what does my avatar have to do with anything?? Where have I posted countless links? I brought exactly 2 external things into this thread!

Patrick, why come here just to cause trouble and be rude to those of us who are trying to honor an artist we like? I'm asking you nicely, please leave it alone now.

Oh you do? And what is the next step? I'm not causing trouble, don't know why you think that. I'm not the one telling people what to post and what not to post. I give my piece of mind, like anyone else and when someone comments on her passing, it fits here... on that note, here's what Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath/Heaven & Hell) had to say:

Legendary BLACK SABBATH/HEAVEN & HELL bassist Geezer Butler has issued a statement mourning the passing of his "all-time favorite musicians" Amy Winehouse.

The 27-year-old singer was found dead in her London apartment on Saturday, July 23. There's no word on the exact cause of death, butWinehouse had been struggling with drug addiction for many years.

"It would be disrespectful of me if I didn’t mention the passing of one of my all-time favorite musicians, Amy Winehouse," Butler said. "To me , she was and is up there with Billie, Bessie, Sarah, Dinah, Ella, and I was so looking forward to her new stuff, but will always love the old stuff. A tremendous talent taken from us. Her voice will live on longer than all the crap written about her."

Butler also commented on the two-act tragedy which rocked Norway — first a downtown Oslo explosion, then a shooting at a youth camp — resulting in more than 90 deaths.

"On yet another sad note, my thoughts go out to the people of Norway after such a terrible tragedy there," he said. "So shocking in such a peaceful, beautiful country."

http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=161083

Serena said:

Dr Funkenberry has posted a video of the Amy/Prince performance. Thanks Dr.!

http://www.drfunkenberry....sing-game/

Thanks for posting this. For all my trips to London during the 31 nights, i never caught this. Trust it to be a Scottish guy saying "Are there any bouncers watchin me" half way through the performance.

Is it proper to bury her without first confirming the cause of death? What if the cause of death had something to with organ failure or brain trauma and not necessarily drugs found in her blood stream?

Poor thing. Its been reported that she wasn't eating. I think her body couldn't handle the damage really. Heroine, crack, hard liquor...all the devil's work.

HotGritz said:

Is it proper to bury her without first confirming the cause of death? What if the cause of death had something to with organ failure or brain trauma and not necessarily drugs found in her blood stream?

Poor thing. Its been reported that she wasn't eating. I think her body couldn't handle the damage really. Heroine, crack, hard liquor...all the devil's work.

Eh? She's had an autopsy - that would have revealed a cause of death were it due to anything like organ/heart failure etc. This proved inconclusive and now they're waiting for the results of other tests, like a toxicology report and that takes some time. They do know what they're doing, you know? They'll have taken what they need and to be in accordance with Jewish tradition, she needed to be buried today.

Anyway, its all rather irrlevant (unless there had been signs of foul play, which there weren't) - the only thing that matters is that she's gone.

Mindflux said:

HotGritz said:

Is it proper to bury her without first confirming the cause of death? What if the cause of death had something to with organ failure or brain trauma and not necessarily drugs found in her blood stream?

Poor thing. Its been reported that she wasn't eating. I think her body couldn't handle the damage really. Heroine, crack, hard liquor...all the devil's work.

Eh? She's had an autopsy - that would have revealed a cause of death were it due to anything like organ/heart failure etc. This proved inconclusive and now they're waiting for the results of other tests, like a toxicology report and that takes some time. They do know what they're doing, you know? They'll have taken what they need and to be in accordance with Jewish tradition, she needed to be buried today.

Anyway, its all rather irrlevant (unless there had been signs of foul play, which there weren't) - the only thing that matters is that she's gone.

Whoa, slow down I don't think Gritz meant any harm. All folks don't know that the autopsy results were inconclusive as of yet...I just read about it an hour ago myself. While what you have stated is true (autopsy has already been completed, toxicology results won't be completed/released until 2-4 weeks from now) I just think people's comments on here are being taken out of context in light of the situation. I think universally we can all agree that the situation is sad...but let's all be a little bit more sensitive to each other. Just sayin'.

http://music-mix.ew.com/2...e-funeral/

Amy Winehouse's family and friends gather to mourn at singer's funeral

missfee said:

Mindflux said:

Eh? She's had an autopsy - that would have revealed a cause of death were it due to anything like organ/heart failure etc. This proved inconclusive and now they're waiting for the results of other tests, like a toxicology report and that takes some time. They do know what they're doing, you know? They'll have taken what they need and to be in accordance with Jewish tradition, she needed to be buried today.

Anyway, its all rather irrlevant (unless there had been signs of foul play, which there weren't) - the only thing that matters is that she's gone.

Whoa, slow down I don't think Gritz meant any harm. All folks don't know that the autopsy results were inconclusive as of yet...I just read about it an hour ago myself. While what you have stated is true (autopsy has already been completed, toxicology results won't be completed/released until 2-4 weeks from now) I just think people's comments on here are being taken out of context in light of the situation. I think universally we can all agree that the situation is sad...but let's all be a little bit more sensitive to each other. Just sayin'.

Thanks missfee. I felt mindflux response was rather condescending and dismissive. I'm catching up on a lot of the details of Amy's death myself and wasn't aware she or her family were practicing jews as not all jews keep with tradition. She was too young to die and its sad she couldn't recover from her addiction. I certainly hope there wasn't any foul play.

HotGritz said:

missfee said:

Whoa, slow down I don't think Gritz meant any harm. All folks don't know that the autopsy results were inconclusive as of yet...I just read about it an hour ago myself. While what you have stated is true (autopsy has already been completed, toxicology results won't be completed/released until 2-4 weeks from now) I just think people's comments on here are being taken out of context in light of the situation. I think universally we can all agree that the situation is sad...but let's all be a little bit more sensitive to each other. Just sayin'.

Thanks missfee. I felt mindflux response was rather condescending and dismissive. I'm catching up on a lot of the details of Amy's death myself and wasn't aware she or her family were practicing jews as not all jews keep with tradition. She was too young to die and its sad she couldn't recover from her addiction. I certainly hope there wasn't any foul play.

^ the bottom line

DiminutiveRocker said:

HotGritz said:

Thanks missfee. I felt mindflux response was rather condescending and dismissive. I'm catching up on a lot of the details of Amy's death myself and wasn't aware she or her family were practicing jews as not all jews keep with tradition. She was too young to die and its sad she couldn't recover from her addiction. I certainly hope there wasn't any foul play.

^ the bottom line

She had beat the drug addiction and was trying to chill on the drinking. Her father's statement was very touching and I like that they'll be starting a foundation to help others.

I also just read that MTV will be broadcasting the 2007 concert on Wednesday at 6:30 ET/PT. While I enjoy her performing, this show bugs me because that fucker Blake is in the audience. BOOO!

[Edited 7/26/11 17:04pm]

I hope her death wasn't in vain. Hopefully others who are dealing with addiction take her death seriously enough to want to truly overcome. I suppose that is easy to say as a non-addict and seeing as how drugs have a strong affect on both the body and the mind but maybe, just maybe, her death at the tender age of 27 will scare somebody enough to want to get better and commit to a disciplined rehab program/center and not one of those liberal facilities or resort type clinics that let you check in and out whenever you feel like it.

I'm remember parts of a book I read by Susan Powter who was some fitness guru in the 90s. She talked about how diet and therapy helped her beat her addiction to prescription drugs. The program she used was meant for crack addicts I believe but it worked for those addicted to prescription drugs, alchohol and even cigarrettes. IIRC she said that drug residues are in a person's fat cells and that's partly why it is so hard to beat the addiction because the drug doesn't fully leaves your system even if you haven't used in awhile. You are prone to relapse and substituting one drug with another just makes it harder to beat addiction.

A great eulogy written on Amy from PopMatters:

Amy Winehouse: A Voice to Make You Believe

By Steve Jasen

Read here: http://www.popmatters.com...ou-believe

Even given all of the media saturation in our desensitized age, the sheer speed of Amy Winehouse’s demise was astonishing. Yet, at the same time as she was struggling on this Earth, she possessed a true, utterly rare, gift of a voice.

I can still remember the first time I heard Amy Winehouse sing. She was sound-checking for a TV show I was producing for Channel 4 in the UK, and it was to be her debut appearance. There she was: no make-up, wearing sloppy oversized white t-shirt and black-leggings, absentmindedly strumming a Fender guitar put through a tiny amp in a television studio while lighting engineers and floor-staff hustled around preparing for what would be that night’s filming. And because she was (a) unknown at that stage, and (b) demure, no one had even noticed her walk out onto the floor. There’d been no entourage, no drama; just little Amy Winehouse, shy as you like.

But then, seemingly without effort, she closed her eyes, tilted her head to one side and rolled out the opening line of what was to be her first single, “Stronger Than Me”. And I kid you not, everyone—and everything—just stopped, in sheer disbelief. The entire studio-floor, the control room—all the clanking and banging and cursing you get on set. Zip. And the craziest thing was she didn’t even look like she was trying. In that moment, I knew what people in books meant when they tried to explain hearing Elvis Presley or Mahalia Jackson or Marvin Gaye sing in chapel or around the place. Because some rare souls, it seems, are born blessed with the kind of voice to make you believe.

I relate this not to bag myself some history, as Amy Winehouse becomes canonized around the globe and by the hour following her sad passing over this weekend at age 27. But because that day afforded me a view of both the early Amys; one of which would clearly take the world by storm, while the other would sadly get lost along the way. Previous to hearing her blow Channel 4 studios away, I’d also witnessed her walk in as a no-one earlier in the day. All pre-fame and on a budget; just her and my friend Mike from the record company (who’d slipped me a demo CD weeks before) carrying Winehouse’s little amp and guitar.

Winehouse was short, perhaps 5’3”; all sloppy figure-hiding clothes. She possessed a prominent nose, which tended to dominate her face and (you couldn’t help but get the feeling) was a major source for her very obvious self-consciousness. When, if, she spoke, it was in almost expectant, self-defensive bursts; all North London, clipped with the kind of affected Jamaican angularity that suggested she hung out on—and was keen to be accepted on—London’s urban music scene. A realization which almost immediately had me feeling for her; for that was a scene full of front and bullshit, competitive bordering on combative. An environment Winehouse just didn’t seem thick-skinned enough to navigate amongst.

All of which would quickly become odd recollections to have. Because beyond that day and once Winehouse hit it big, she seemed to morph into an altogether different form: that of a pop star; glamorous, filtered through clever photographs angled so as not to stress her nose or lack of height. And as the storm of headlines brewed, grew, and burst into national fame, Winehouse became nothing of the shy girl I’d met and witnessed hypnotize a studio full of impatient people, and more about this fantastical chanteuse character: skirts as short as her heels were high, a ‘60s tart somehow out of time, yet steadily ushering in a very cool fascination with retro sounds and style. But she had the talent, and you absolutely could not begrudge her any of it.

Everything goes in cycles; in contrast to the corporate histrionics of Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and latter-day Mary J. Blige, radios began to sparkle with Winehouse and other less-fidgety female soul vocals. Now a bone fide pop star, she became the allotted leader of a fresh wave of no-shit girl singers with great big voices. Until that point, Joss Stone had been tipped for big things, but almost as quickly as she was hot, she was not; stunt vocals eclipsed by real emotion. Because that’s what Amy Winehouse delivered: feeling, truth—you name it, she brought it. In a world gone plastic, she was the real deal. Like a solarized Dusty Springfield, she’d evolved further into some kind of raven-haired mistreated honey; bruised, battered, and done wrong to—all the better for lady to sing the Blues.

However, if Winehouse’s debut album Frank (2003) had been—for all the archness of its title, hinting at Winehouse’s manner—too polite, it was the Mark Ronson-produced follow-up Back to Black (2006)—brimming with tales of “fuckery”, wurlitzers, and horns finesse—that would hit big. It was a perfect distillation of Winehouse’s ‘60s girl-group obsession, meeting boozie altercations of the heart, all set to beats that suggested something other than cocaine and quantization. As Rick Rubin is to rock, Ronson is beyond; a music obsessive clearly adept with acts, and capable of excising real feel from instrumentation in this otherwise crisp digital age. As a match, Winehouse and Ronson’s Back to Black did the trick, and singles like “You Know I’m No Good” and “Love Is a Losing Game” helped usher both of them into the super-league.

But there was also “Rehab”. And that’s when the darkness began to shift in. Almost as if she and her contrived persona (her handy fantasy, turned outwards reality) had merged to become one and the same. In short, Winehouse suddenly seemed to be living her fallen woman schtick for real: getting drunk in public, looking worse for wear, stumbling out of cabs. Which, given the rabidity of the British tabloid press and sheer ubiquity of celebrity (grades A-Z) these days, is hardly a rare visual. But Winehouse kept doing it. And along with the tattoos and tales of drugs came a dubious looking boyfriend called Blake, the kind of character North London’s Camden (Winehouse’s hometown and the former Ground Zero of Britpop) stocks in spades among its shadows and pub doorways.

After which, everything became a blur of cancelled shows, court appearances, and a virtual flicker-book animation of decline, as tabloid snap after snap caught Winehouse careening through one late-night scenario after another. Yet, in hindsight, to think that Amy Winehouse is now dead at just 27 belies all that happened over the intervening four years between Back to Black and last weekend.

Most obviously, we got Adele and Duffy; all the new breed of young soul singers to dig, as led by Winehouse’s individuality. More simplistic voices, indebted to Dusty and the ‘60s. Yet if Winehouse was anything, she was more a catalyst to an industry style-change, inspiring not so much a cultural but more a market shift. Especially given how Duffy had previously been spied as a pop wannabe, before Back to Black‘s sales saw her paired off with ex-Suede guitarist and ‘60s styled songwriter/producer, Bernard Butler. No, if anything, Winehouse was no leader of a revolution, but more a rare spark of brilliance; a unique talent more an exception to prove the rule that reality—and not the artificial television type—by the mid-2000s was in desperate short supply.

But even given all of the media saturation in our desensitized age, the sheer speed of Winehouse’s demise was still daunting. What once upon a time would have taken an eclipsed, nose-diving superstar the entire autumn of their career to consume, hard-drug and booze-wise, Winehouse compacted into a fast-forward daily soap opera of woe. One played out for being as utterly, stereotypically rock star stupid as it was accelerated. But one which, clearly, was much darker at heart, for being as hardcore as it was tough to disguise.

The simple fact is: fame killed Amy Winehouse. As did her crushing lack of self-worth. Fame’s role being to blow her disconnect up as big-as-billboards, into Benday dots, until all she could see was the chasms in between her substance. And the raging fire of addiction did for the rest.

Thinking back to that day when I first met Winehouse pre-fame, if she couldn’t hide herself in an oversized t-shirt then, what chance did she have as a global star? And once the tabloids had trapped her into her chanteuse’s skin—their daily presence outside her house necessitating she lose herself in the hallway mirror of pop star mascara and the beehive weave, if only to go fetch some milk—where was there left for shy little Amy Winehouse to be?

Nowhere, it seems. And the biggest, yet most basic, tragedy of all this is that Winehouse died because she couldn’t find inner peace within herself. Because something, somewhere inside her didn’t connect; and for all the money and all the fame, she couldn’t find what she needed to get by.

Yet, at the same time as she was struggling on this Earth, she possessed a true, utterly rare, gift of a voice which enriched the lives of others. One which, I can vouch—albeit for only the briefest of times shared with her—was, if experienced in person, one of the closest things to pure, heavenly beauty I’ve ever experienced.

And that’s both the biggest loss, and the greatest shame.

Until the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change, absolutely nothing can be done for an addict. Nothing will be learnt from this in that regard.

It's also a waste that didn't she record more music, think of what an effective marketing tool this is now. All those that otherwise would've deemed the poor girl as old hat now will show interest in her work.

Ahem....

Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away.

Okay, let's disuss THE ARTIST Amy Winehouse. The first time I heard that voice was in the fall of 2006. I was on some messageboard and someone said that if you liked Erykah, you would like Amy. I downloaded a few tracks from Frank and a few from her upcoming album (at the time) Back To Black. I was floored! I thought the lyrics were clever and not the usual shit you hear on the radio but it was the voice that did it for me. It was big, brassy, robust, flexible, etc. I could go on and on! I am usually more of a soprano man, but her contralto just did me in. I just loved how she sang.

She wasn't usually on the beat...either before it or after it. I loved how she syncopated her vocals. I loved the jazz quality of her voice and how she really could project a lot of emotion without even trying it seems. She just has a cool, one-of-a-kind amazing voice. I have tons of concert mp3s on my computer and she never sings a song the same way twice. Sometimes she'll go up an octave on certain runs and glide with the music and other times she'll go really low like a dude, lower than the CD. She just had so many things going on with her voice that I loved. Sometimes she'd get all stanky with the vocals, like a mix between Lauryn Hill and Esther Phillips but all her own at the same time.

I just really loved her spirit. She was very witty, sarcastic, smart and completely blase about everything! LOL! It's like nothing ever fazed her. She didn't want to be a celebrity. She was really in it for the music and that is what she cared about. When I found out she died I had walked into a record store and they were playing her music. I told my bf that I loved Amy and a few minutes later I found out from the cashier that she had died that morning. I wasn't so much sad as angry...angry that I won't be able to grow old with Amy as she releases more and more material. I know it's selfish but that was my thought at the time. I'm going to miss her but I cherish the music she left behind.

HotGritz said:

Is it proper to bury her without first confirming the cause of death? What if the cause of death had something to with organ failure or brain trauma and not necessarily drugs found in her blood stream?

Poor thing. Its been reported that she wasn't eating. I think her body couldn't handle the damage really. Heroine, crack, hard liquor...all the devil's work.

They did an autopsy. So no problem putting her to rest. They would have looked for organ failure and trauma.

If the toxicology reports come back within range, cause of death may remain unknown.

HotGritz said: