Amy Winehouse in Prosebox Desert Island Discs

I really love Amy Winehouse. Here is a unique sound, an instrument which is a voice.

I was watching the documentary this evening which I’d put off watching because it felt like a very scary story for me.... my history is not as well documented but there are a lot of parallels.

What struck me about the whole thing is that the whole sorry story would never have happened 15-20 years ago.

Have you ever questioned how so many people who should be dead are still alive? Iggy Pop, Ozzy Osborne, Keith Richards, Robbie Williams etc? Well mostly it’s because their record companies put them into strategic stints of rehab in order to protect their investment.

Someone at the label would have been watching over them and realised that something was going wrong and shoved them in a facility or at least put a zero tolerance security crew in place and cleared all booze and drugs from any place they might be along with a tour shrink.

But the quantity of people at labels have shrunk so much that each a&r manager is probably looking after 20 different acts. None of whom are especially significant for their bosses as they never heavily invest in anyone long term - in fact usually someone has already recorded the album and the record company just licences it. They don’t have time to go sit in the studio and hang out any more. They don’t have enough people to get proper security in place or to ensure that the artist manager is actually up to the job.

I’ve been in enough meetings where it is politely suggested to the band that they need to fire their “manager” - who is usually a chancer who happened to have a van when they first started as opposed to anyone with any sort of experience booking international routings or checking the accountancy. Artists were very strictly managed by the record company but that whole balance has changed…

I guess it goes back to how the big film studios were… They would sign a starlet for a 7 movie deal paying them an advance and making them into that star as long as the aspiring actress agreed to do as they told her. These days actors just pick whatever film they want to make and get paid what it earns… I tend to think we will get to that model in music too - eventually!

My friend tour managed her for a while - they actually had paramedics at each show with cardiac panels charged in case she went into shock. I can’t imagine what state her body must have been in to warrant that “precaution”. She should never have been out on the road… and in fact the promoter most probably did not have any insurance should she drop dead because he would have had to have gotten a medical beforehand. Clearly that did not happen.

An accident waiting to happen… and yet a sweet soul.