Safe Journey

Now on-line in a little motel just outside Auckland, with the troops freshening up after the rigours of the journey. Or, to be more precise, one of the troops is freshening up and the other two are crashed out on their beds downstairs claiming not to have slept on the journey. In contrast I managed quite a reasonable amount of shut-eye, inspired by the physical exhaustion of the last few days.

I did, however, also manage to catch the documentary Amy, on the Singapore - Sydney leg of the journey, concerning the short, sad life of the extraordinarily talented and self-destructive chanteuse. It was a reminder of just how good Ms Winehouse was, and how utterly musical. In her mid-teens she already sounded like a genuine jazz singer of the golden age. I think she had it in her to be another Ella, albeit an edgier, Lady Day version. The problem, I suppose, lay in the edginess. It looked suspiciously like the daemon fueling her art was the same demon fueling her excesses - though I don't want to sound as if I'm simply blaming her. The film left the issue of blame open to question, though at least one of the individuals close to her looked like seriously bad news for anyone he came into contact with.

It was also possible to see a powerful case being made for her celebrity as being central to the downward spiral that she appeared to become trapped in after she became an international figure. I was left despondently wishing she had remained an essentially independent artist doing the kind of music she loved, sticking to the small clubs and a small loyal following. In some ways the saddest parts of the film came when she was singing with Tony Bennett for a duets album he did, and Questlove of The Roots was talking about her enthusiasm for sharing musical ideas with him, all this following years of depressing meltdown. It was as if we were given glimpses of who she really was and really should have been all along.

Life isn't always safe, though, is it? Some journeys do not end well, especially those involving illicit substances.