Rethinking Her Position on Rehab

Or
She Said No, No, No
Amy Winehouse, the British drunk crackhead who occasionally sang has visited Club 27, joining Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Louis Chouvin. No cause of death has been reported, but I wouldn’t bet the house on natural causes. Adopting the John Derek philosophy “Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse” – well, two out of three, anyway – she rode her husky sound and a hip-hop retro soul sound to record her second album, Back to Black, which scored her 5 Grammys in 2008, including the career ending Best New Artist. She also won Song of the Year for Rehab, which in retrospect now looks more like an unanswered cry for help. Before and especially since, her personal life has made more headlines than her singing, as she sought treatment for anorexia, emphysema, injuries from falls, tuberculosis, and rickets, and of course, lots and lots of addictions with several stints in the dreaded rehab. At her most recent appearance, she was even more incoherent than usual, slurring her way through a couple songs she couldn’t remember the lyrics too – a poor showing, even by Belgrade standards, and she was booed off the stage. The rest of her tour was canceled, and her next public appearance came when she was wheeled out of her London apartment on a gurney.