Amy Winehouse Biography

From Charlie Parker to Amy Winehouse and beyond, countless musicians have struggled with destructive lifestyles that ultimately consume them. Using a case study of your own choice, discuss why popular music remains fascinated with these tragedies. Tragedies often occur in the world of music. It has seemingly become a pattern, over many generations and genres of music, for musicians to develop a negative relationship with drugs, alcohol and hard partying lifestyles.

‘Charlie Parker was a legendary Grammy Award-winning jazz saxophonist who, along with Dizzy Gillespie, created the musical style called bop or bebop.’ (ref). Parker was born into the jazz era in Kansas City, 1920 and started playing at local jazz nights at the tender age of 15.
Amy Winehouse was born in London in 1983 and grew up in a family surrounded by jazz musicians. She was influenced from a young age by artists including James Taylor to Sarah Vaughan and took a strong liking to American hip-hop and R&B. Her first album, “Frank” showed a flawless combination of these musical genres, as well as pop and soul, generating a critically acclaimed album reaching double platinum status. However, it was around this time that her doomed relationship with alcohol and drugs became evident and her turbulent relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil, who ‘admitted to introducing Winehouse to hard drugs’ (ref) began. In 2006, Winehouse’s friends, family and record company became increasingly concerned with her well-being and recommended that rehab may be necessary, her refusal lead to her writing the hit single “Rehab” which became a top 10 hit in the UK. Throughout her career, Winehouse went from strength to strength. “Back to Black” was titled the best selling album of 2007 and in 2008, she became the first British singer to win five Grammy’s in one night. Her success however, was overshadowed by her relationship with alcohol and drugs. Winehouse had several run ins with the law and was even denied a US visa for ‘use and abuse of narcotics’. In 2007, she was hospitalised after overdosing on heroin, cocaine, ecstasy, ketamine, whisky and vodka.(ref) In the final years of her career, Winehouse’s phenomenal talent was overlooked due to her drug and
Lana Del Rey recently found herself being called up by Cobain’s only daughter Frances. Del Rey had stated in an interview with the Guardian, "I wish I was dead already" which lead to Frances to speak out publicly, stating that "the death of young musicians is nothing to romanticize". (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lana-del-rey-explains-i-wish-i-was-dead-quote-to-frances-bean-cobain-20140624) Del Rey, however, is not the first nor last of us to romanticise such events. “It’s better to burn out than to fade away”, a lyric from Neil Young’s “My My, Hey Hey” which was famously quoted in Cobain’s suicide note. Their seems to be a fascination with great musicians dying young, it could be argued that their image of greatness is persevered, and will hold it’s place in time forever, leaving no time for a slow demise or