Even though the Doors are inactive as a band – and riven by disagreements – they still put out product, such as a recent reissue of LA Woman with two previously unheard tracks. Doors projects are co-ordinated by a former record-company executive, Jeff Jampol, who has developed a niche career by representing ‘legacy artists’ – that is, dead rock stars. Apart from the Doors, he manages the estates of Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin from his office in Beverly Hills. He knew neither in life, being twelve years old when Jim died.
It must be less hassle representing Jim and Janis dead than alive, as difficult as they could be. ‘You know, a lot of people tell me that,’ says Jampol, ‘but you have the beneficiaries, and lawyers and litigators and business managers and other reps … I think I’d almost rather have one musician than fifteen reps and family members.’ The Doors, for example, comprise numerous interested parties: not just the surviving band members, but also Jim’s siblings, Anne and Andy, Pamela Courson’s elderly mother, Penny, and her granddaughter, Emily. Everybody has to be consulted.
The enduring success of the Doors – only active for 54 months but still selling two million units a year – is in no small part due to the iconic status of Jim Morrison. When young men pull on a Jim Morrison T-shirt they buy into what Jeff Jampol calls ‘the brand’. ‘What does Jim Morrison stand for? He stands for questioning authority; he’s a sexy rock god; he’s an outsider; he’s an iconoclast; he’s a poet, that gentle soul with wit and wisdom and humour; he also stands for – the whole raison d’être of the Doors – it was about breaking on through,’ Jampol explains. ‘When you brand yourself with Jim Morrison that says something. Jim Morrison is like James Dean.’
Kurt Cobain was also a bit like James Dean, a depressed version in tatty clothes. Kurt’s suicide at 27 made him a tragic hero for a generation, and as that generation ages, they cling to their love of Nirvana as older people listen nostalgically to the Beatles or Frank Sinatra. It is the music of their lives.
Thousands gathered at the Seattle Center to mourn Kurt’s death in 1994. Today artefacts from his life are displayed in the EMP Museum in the park. Financed by Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen and designed by Frank Gehry, it was originally envisaged as a Jimi Hendrix museum. Over time EMP developed into a more general exhibition of pop culture, including a collection of Hendrix and Nirvana artefacts. Displayed along with Jimi’s stage suits and guitars are such ephemera as Kurt Cobain’s cardigans, spot-lit on mannequins in glass cabinets as if they are as priceless as Abraham Lincoln’s hats. Jimi and Kurt would surely have laughed to see their lives commemorated in this solemn way.
Kurt’s death put paid to Nirvana as a working band but, as with the Doors, there was still business to attend to. The surviving members, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic, formed a company with Kurt’s widow, Courtney Love, which gave them equal shares in Nirvana LLC. The threesome soon fell out, however, suing and countersuing in 2002 over the use of unreleased material. Family relations also became strained. Courtney temporarily lost custody of her daughter Frances to Kurt’s mother and sister, after Courtney reportedly suffered an accidental overdose, and she gave up custody again in 2009 for unspecified reasons. A year later, when Frances turned eighteen, she came into a trust fund that made her financially independent. Her relationship with her mother does not seem good. They had a public falling-out in 2012 over Twitter messages Courtney posted, suggesting that David Grohl had tried to seduce Frances, which both denied. Frances issued a rebuke to her mother: ‘While I’m generally silent on the affairs of my biological mother, her recent tirade has taken a gross turn.’ ‘Biological mother’ is not a term of endearment.
In happier times Kurt’s mother and sister lived in an old monastery Courtney bought on the edge of the Capitol State Forest in Washington, between Aberdeen and Olympia. This is a beautiful area that Kurt visited in childhood, a remote and peaceful place largely devoid of the noise of mankind, a striking contrast to the racket Kurt made in Nirvana. The family built a Buddhist shrine in the garden, adjacent to McLane Creek in which Frances scattered some of her father’s ashes in 1999. The creek would carry them into local rivers that flow ultimately into the Pacific Ocean, where we might imagine particles of Kurt dancing in the deep with the microscopic remains of Janis Joplin.
4
Sales of Amy Winehouse’s music enjoyed a boom after her death. She went to number one in the UK charts, as well as in fifteen other countries around the world. Her US album sales increased more than tenfold, and there were 1.5 million posthumous downloads. This was to be expected. What was more remarkable was how her family rushed into action in her name.
Mitch Winehouse was in New York when he was told that Amy had died. He originally said that he had the idea for the Amy Winehouse Foundation on the flight home. Later he told a story about how Amy’s voice miraculously came into his head while he was still in New York. ‘I got the news [when] I was in my cousin’s apartment in New York City. I got the terrible news that Amy had passed away. And almost immediately her voice came into my head and said, “Foundation … kids … Dad … foundation, foundation,”’ he told the BBC in 2013. ‘I do believe in life after death. Some people might think I’m deluded, but it happened. Her voice.’ In any event Mitch announced the foundation at his daughter’s funeral in London, on 26 July 2011, registering the name three weeks later.
The foundation would be a charitable organisation to benefit young people, including those with addiction issues. While this might seem laudable, the Charity Commission recommends that people consider giving money to established charities before starting new ones, which dilute the charity sector and may duplicate work already being done. There has been a trend in recent years for bereaved people to start micro-charities and foundations in the name of the deceased as a memorial, or to cheer themselves up, even as a vanity project, although they might do better to make a donation to organisations that have experience. Mitch Winehouse has been quoted as saying that setting up the foundation saved his life, and that doing good in Amy’s name ‘makes me feel good’. It also gives him a reason to remain in the public eye.
Just as Mitch had rushed to launch the foundation, he charged ahead with publicity. He appeared on two American talk shows in September 2011 to discuss the foundation, speculating to the hosts, Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan, that Amy had not died of drugs, or because she drank too much, but because she was in the habit of stopping drinking abruptly, which could cause seizures that might have accounted for her death. Mitch’s peculiar suggestion that Amy died because she stopped drinking proved incorrect. He was reportedly paid $50,000 (£31,446) for appearing on Anderson Cooper’s show, the money going to the foundation.
Between interviews Mitch found time to sing in concert and sell a book about his daughter. A deal with HarperCollins was announced on 10 October 2011, his proceeds going to the foundation. With Janis and Mitch already the directors of a number of companies handling Amy’s affairs, they now set up more, including Bird and Butterfly Ltd, which became Amy Winehouse Foundation Trading Ltd. Mitch did all this before the inquest into his daughter’s death had even been held.
The first inquest into Amy’s death, at St Pancras Coroner’s Court in London, on 26 October 2011, was a badly organised circus. A large number of press attended, kept outside the building by court staff while the Winehouse family, Amy’s managers and friends were ushered inside, escorted by a phalanx of surly private bodyguards most of whom had no part in the proceedings. Others with a legitimate interest were denied admission. The blame for this shambles must lie with the court staff and police. Meanwhile, the coroner Suzanne Greenaway resigned a month later when it was revealed that she was under-qualified for her job. As a result a second inquest was held before a new coroner at the same court in 2013. These unfortunate circumstances aside, the evidence of the two inquests was consistent and clear.
Contrary to what Mitch Winehouse had said on American television, the court heard that Amy drank herself to death. Patho
logist Professor Suhail Baithun explained that he found 416 milligrams of alcohol per decilitre in Amy’s blood, over five times the UK drink-drive limit, and more than enough to stop her breathing. A police officer also told the court about the three empty vodka bottles found in her bedroom suite.
Dr Cristina Romete made clear in her evidence that she had warned Amy of the grave risk of binge-drinking. ‘The advice I had given to Amy over a long period of time, in verbal and in written form, was about the effects alcohol can have on the system, including respiratory depression and death …’
In her closing remarks at the second inquest, which rehearsed the evidence of the first, HM Coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe said that Amy was not depressed or suicidal, and that a thorough police investigation had revealed no suspicious circumstances. But the singer had a history of heavy drinking, and blood tests showed that she had drunk to a level associated with fatalities. ‘It was a deliberate act which took an unexpected turn in that it led to her death [and] I record a verdict of misadventure.’ This concurred with the 2011 inquest.
The day before she died, Amy had told her doctor that there were still things she wanted to achieve in life, which was partly why Dr Romete concluded that her patient was not suicidal. One thing Amy had failed to achieve was the completion and release of a third album. She’d agonised over it for years. After her death her record company resolved the matter, with the family, in a flash. Lioness: Hidden Treasures was rushed out in time for Christmas. The album (titled after one of Amy’s nicknames) received generous reviews on a wave of media sympathy, though this scrappy collection of odds and ends was surely not a CD Amy would have chosen to put out. Most of the twelve tracks were covers or out-takes of songs already released. ‘Between the Cheats’ is the only original song of note on the CD, and the fact that this recording dated from 2008 demonstrated that Amy’s creativity had long since dried up. There were a few more songs in the can, arguably better ones, but the family vetoed their release on the basis that Amy hadn’t wanted them to be heard. ‘We’ve had to qualify [the album choice] in front of Amy’s family. Her mum, her dad, her brother – that’s her very vocal, protective brother – plus fiancés, stepfathers and more,’ said record-company executive Darcus Beese, revealing that Universal faced the same headache as Jeff Jampol with his dead rock stars. Instead of dealing with one artist he had to handle a committee. Marketed with the spin that one pound ($1.59) from the sale of each CD would go to the Amy Winehouse Foundation, Lioness: Hidden Treasures went to number one in the UK.
Mitch maintained his high public profile in the months ahead, appearing with Janis and Tony Bennett at the Grammys in February 2012 to accept an award for the duet Bennett had recorded with Amy.
Back home the probate settlement of Amy’s estate was announced. Because Amy had died intestate, without a spouse or children, her fortune was divided equally between her parents. Net of taxes this amounted to £2.9 million ($4.6 million). In death Amy made her dad a millionaire. While Mitch is tireless in raising funds for his foundation, neither he nor his representatives made any reply when asked for this book how much, if any, of his share of the estate he intended to give to charity.
Along with Mitch and Janis, their spouses became directors of the Amy Winehouse Foundation in April 2012, sharing in doing good work in Amy’s name. Interestingly, Amy’s brother, Alex, who had been a director, chose to resign.
Blake received no money from Amy’s estate, of course, though Amy may well have wanted him looked after before others. For all his faults, he was the love of her life and a needy case. Blake remained for the time being in HMP Leeds, struggling to deal with addiction issues, trying to work out what to do with his life when he got out. He thought about Amy a lot, and dreamed about her. In his dreams Amy had died falling off a cliff, a classic anxiety dream, which may betray his feelings of guilt.
In Amy, My Daughter, written in haste for publication in advance of the first anniversary of Amy’s death, Mitch made clear that Blake had been a nightmare son-in-law. In chronicling his daughter’s life, Mitch left Janis and Alex in the background, concentrating on his own dealings with his daughter during the years of her fame. The reader gained the impression that neither he nor Janis had managed to be a figure of authority in Amy’s life, and as a result they could not curb her behaviour. Mitch did not identify, let alone address, what was fundamentally wrong with his daughter, perhaps because he was part of the problem. He admitted that he felt guilty about leaving home when Alex and Amy were children. Amy’s waywardness might be interpreted as retribution for that misdemeanour, punishing her father endlessly, as if he were a soul in Purgatory. It was clear, however, that Mitch loved Amy. If setting up the foundation helped him feel better now that she was dead, she would probably approve. ‘She always wanted her dad to be ’appy,’ says Reg Traviss. ‘If he was ’appy, she was ’appy. It was as simple as that.’
5
Amy Winehouse made a big impact on popular music in a short career without doing very much or going very far. As we have seen she lived her whole life in London, her homes within a few miles of each other, mostly connected by the Northern Line. Edgware is the last stop on the western fork of that line, nine stops from Camden Town. A short distance from the station is Edgwarebury Cemetery.
After Amy’s body was cremated her ashes were passed around family and friends for a year while it was decided what to do with them. The family were mindful of the attention that other 27 graves had attracted, not least the worrying example of Jim Morrison in Paris. Ultimately Amy’s wishes prevailed. She once said she wanted to be buried with her grandmother, Cynthia, who had been cremated in 2006.
Two days after what would have been Amy’s 29th birthday, the family interred the ashes of Amy and Cynthia together at Edgwarebury Cemetery. They chose a plot near to the cemetery office so staff could keep an eye on the grave. A substantial black memorial was erected to mark the spot, standing out among the other stones because it is inscribed uniquely in sugar-pink lettering. There is a quote from the Bible, in Hebrew, expressing the hope that the souls of the deceased will be bound with God in eternity, a Star of David, the Amy Winehouse Foundation logo, and a list of Cynthia’s and Amy’s friends and relations. Mitch gets top billing.
* Ray Manzarek died in 2013 as this book was going to press.
Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney sweepers, come to dust.
Cymbeline
Appendix
27 LONG-LIST
Dave Alexander played bass with the Stooges. He was born on 3 June 1947, dying in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on 10 February 1975. Fired by Iggy Pop for being unreliable, Alexander drank himself to death.
Elizabeth ‘Bipsy’ Amirian was an American singer. Born on 20 January 1982, she was stabbed to death by her fiancé in Temecula, California, 12 February 2009.
Alexander ‘Sasha’ Bashlachev was a Russian singer-songwriter. Born in Cherepovets, on 27 May 1960, he died in a fall from his Leningrad apartment, 17 February 1988.
Chris Bell was co-founder of the 1970s rock band Big Star. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, on 12 January 1951, he died in a car crash in Memphis, 27 December 1978. Leaving a rehearsal, his car hit a telegraph pole.
Jesse Belvin was an American singer-songwriter known as ‘Mr Easy’. Born in San Antonio, Texas, on 15 December 1932, he died with his wife after a car crash in Arkansas, 6 February 1960.
Dennis Boon was singer and guitarist with the Minutemen. Born in Napa, California, on 1 April 1958, he died after being thrown from the band’s tour van in an interstate accident near Phoenix, Arizona, 23 December 1985.
Louis Chauvin was a ragtime jazz pianist. Born in St Louis, Missouri, on 13 March 1881, a dissipated life ended in Chicago on 26 March 1908.
Arlester ‘Dyke’ Christian fronted Dyke and the Blazers. Born in Buffalo,
New York, on 13 June 1943, he was shot dead outside a bar in Phoenix, Arizona, 13 March 1971.
Kurt Cobain was the leader of Nirvana. Born in Aberdeen, Wa
shington, on 20 February 1967, he committed suicide in Seattle, 5 April 1994.
Pamela Courson was Jim Morrison’s girlfriend and companion at the time of his death. Born in Weed, California, on 22 December 1946, Courson died of a heroin overdose in Los Angeles, 25 April 1974.
Zenon De Fleur was the stage name of Zenon Hierowski. Born in London on 9 September 1951, he played guitar with the Count Bishops. He died in London, 18 March 1979, following a car accident.
Peter de Freitas was the drummer with Echo and the Bunnymen. Born on 2 August 1961, he died on 14 June 1989 of head injuries suffered in a motorcycle accident on the A51 in Staffordshire, England.
Roger Lee Durham was a member of American R&B band Bloodstone. Born in Kansas City, on 14 February 1946, he was killed in a horse-riding accident, 27 July 1973.
Richey Edwards played guitar with the Manic Street Preachers, whose songs included ‘Suicide Alley’. Born in Wales, on 22 December 1967, he went missing on 1 February 1995, possibly falling to his death from the Severn Bridge. Although his body was never found, he was declared presumed dead in 2008.
Valentín Elizalde, known as the ‘Golden Rooster’, sang songs glorifying Mexico’s drug lords. Born in Navojoa, Mexico, on 1 February 1979, he was shot dead along with his driver and assistant after a concert in Reynosa, 25 November 2006.
Malcolm Hale was a member of Spanky and Our Gang. Born in Butte, Montana, on 17 May 1941, he died of carbon-monoxide poisoning in Chicago, 30 October 1968. He had slept in a room with a faulty heater.
Pete Ham was the leader of Badfinger. Born in Swansea, Wales, on 27 April 1947, he hanged himself at home in Surrey, 24 April 1975. His band mate Tommy Evans died in the same way seven years later.
27 Page 34