Live and die by the team...

Amy Winehouse was found dead in her apartment at 27. Not a surprise. At all. Her troubles were well documented, both by the media and by Amy herself. But she was talented. Extremely talented. Her issues added to the expression of that talent and then eventually eclipsed it. But this is not a new story. Countless entertainer have done this. And countless more will ignore the messages in their rise and always tragic fall.

I've worked in entertainment. I grew up in LA and around entertainment. It may not look like it now, but it really is my life and my calling. In what capacity at this point, I don't know. But I have learned something that about entertainers. A large amount to them come into this industry seeking all of the things they THINK will solve their problems. It plays out in a number of ways. Living a life of excess so you always appear to be "great", whoring around so you always feel "loved", over eating, starving yourself nearly to death, and the one that usually ends a persons career, addiction.



That may seem like an extreme statement but turn on any awards show this year and see how much over done indulgence, machismo, chest thumping, braggadocio and attention seeking goes on. And that's on a stage with millions watching. The flip side of this business is that the stuff we all see on TV takes an impossible amount of maintenance. The bigger you get, the bigger the expectations and payroll get. And then, there's The Team.

Now The Team is a vital part of any career. Both personally and professionally. A Team can make or break an artist. Because most people who are really famous experience all that this business has to offer BEFORE they figure out who the hell they are. Artists can be a fragile bunch as it is. Especially the ones who actually make art. I don't even need to give you the list of artist, especially female artist, who've lost their shit.

One of an artists biggest issues is that by the time they're making enough money to get out of hand they're also making money for other people. And those people wanna keep cashing in. Once your star reaches a certain height, you can't tell 25 to 40 people that you need a break or that it's all too much. You become a product. A commodity. You will be bought and sold to the highest bidder. You're options aren't completely your own. And that can wear on a person. Especially those who have a self destructive streak.

That means that if it's too much too soon, The Team may not stop you. They may not say "you aren't well enough to make this album" or "you can't keep performing like this". They may walk away from you if you no longer make them money, but they won't sacrifice their checks to stop the money train. They push people out there too soon or too often all the time. *Ahem, El Debarge* They don't care if you're alright. Neither do the fans. They want the product that they've been sold, no matter the cost to the person it's built around. They want you on that stage, giving it your all. In a lot of cases, they come to get what THEY need from you weather you as the artist have to give it or not. And when all pf that becomes too much the artist might Brittany or Lindsay their way through it publicly or they may pull a Lauryn and just walk away.

But, back to Amy. I loved Back to Black. Every time I play it I realize how much I still love it. And like every other fan, I would've loved a new Amy album. Which we'll probably still get because she was recording. They'll pull something together. But it won't be the same. Amy was a young woman who wrote some pretty personal and often dark songs as it was when Frank came out. She was telling her truth and a lot of people related to it. It wasn't crappy pop, she had a clear sens of who she was as artist and she seemed like she was braver than a lot of her contemporaries. She was never "one of them". Never. She was Amy. Period.

By the time Amy recorded Back to Black, she had clearly been through it. She had changed and it showed. She made a brilliant piece of work, but each and every song laid out Amy's pain and sorrow for the world to see. She had a team behind her that really believed in her album. They believed in her talent. They knew that the material she recorded would hit. HARD. And it did.

 But my question was this...was she ready for that fame? Clearly, she wasn't. Her way of saying "fuck you, I'm not conforming" was self-destructive. And it played out in public. She kept touring, the stories on her on stage behavior went from a red cup onstage to barely standing on stage. Her team knew what they were dealing with. Her first E! interview was about the single Rehab and the real life attempts to get her to go. It was her professing that she was FINE. They saw the train working it's way off the track and found a way to make money on it.

And if you think that was all Amy, there's no way.  How else were they going to explain the evolution of Amy from Frank to Back to Black without hitting it head on? And with Rehab, they did that. But should it have been done? Was that in any way going to benefit the woman who was Amy Winehouse? No. Of course not, but it was the product they had to sell and sell it they did. Brilliantly.

rollin in...

I hate that part of the entertainment business. It's where you see the snakes behind the masks. I can't do that, which in turn will always limit my success. When I was working with artist, I was more concerned about getting them where they were going the healthiest possible way. Which takes more work and more time. It's music biz the old fashioned way. It's old school artist development. It's Barry Gordy or Clarence Avant saying "no, we don't think you're mature enough to be an artist, but you keep coming in, working and learning until WE think you are."

No one does that anymore. They want the quickest, hardest bang for their proverbial buck. Artists want to be overnight celebrities. So does the entourage. And the girlfriends/boyfriends. And if 2 episodes of a "reality" show can make you a household name, why take all that time and do all that work? It's there for the taking now. Right now. Labels are no different. They've completely done away with real artist development. A&Rs have been reduced to beat chasers and sales projectors. They're concern, as it's been handed down from the suits who run the show, it to make more money. Find something that makes money and do that again.

For an artist like Amy, I don't think she ever had the team she should've had. When it became to much (and she said it was, she got on video countless times and said the industry sucked and she wasn't going to give them what they wanted) they just used it to market her when they should've stopped the whole show for a while. Amy would've fought, kicked, scream and said she was fine. She wrote a whole damn song about it. But a responsible team would've held their ground. Instead they walked her out of rehab, when it hadn't even worked, and propped her ass up at an un-godly hour for her satellite performance at The Grammys.

She was on stage far more than she should've been after that night. Probably by choice. Amy never seemed like the type that wanted to be told what to do. But when are we going to stop putting people out there over and over when they clearly can't handle it? I remember when the last debacle of a performance Amy did made the rounds on the net a few weeks ago. What I heard the most was "her behavior was SO disrespectful to the band!" Ok, I get that. But what about the promoter that booked her and the person in her team that was handling the booking? The people who got her to the venue when they could've called it off. Don't they hold some responsibility in keeping her out there?

Fame and money make you more of who you are, but they also put a magnifying glass on whatever issue you're dealing with. Not just the addiction, but the demons. They get bigger and stronger with ever added pressure, critic, expectation and expense.

And sometimes, they can take your life.

Rest in Peace, Amy. I hope you find there what you never got here.