Just got off the newspaper with a small news item that Diana Ross was jailed for drunken driving. That set me thinking on the how the world of music has transformed beyond recognition over the decades. It’s been a long way from the Beatles to Darkness. I guess it all started with flower power and the hippies. But inevitably since then, music has always been associated with sex and drugs. In fact we have a whole genre of music based on this. Psychedelic rock and acid rock are just this. Bands like Greatful Dead fostered this style of music into a genre, and Pink Floyd pushed it into the stratosphere of mainstream music.
What is it about drugs that has helped it permeate into the music industry like a virulent pathogen? If it is the mood/mind altering property of its, then why should the musicians be any different from the doper on the streets? Why is it that if a doper is begging for some drugs he is loser in life, but if a rock star is doing drugs, it’s his lifestyle? Having said that, lets not forget that the most terribles losses to the world of music has been due to drug abuse. Jimi Hendrix choked on his own vomit simply because he was too damn doped to turn over to his sides when he started puking. Jim Morrison (of “The Doors” fame) dies at the age of 27 of alcohol abuse. Rolling Stones magazine referred to Steven Tyler and Joe Perry (of the the “Aerosmith” fame) as the “toxic twins”. And the list goes on, it’s endless.
Needless to say, all this arguments and facts seem to reflect the fact that the morals in the industry are, so to say, “liberal”. But this is not endemic to the western rock-n-roll alone. In fact we have instances in the indian classical music scene. Balamurali Krishna, one of the greats in carnatic music, is, more often than not, high on alcohol while performing. He says he cant do without it. The story of Pt. Ravi Shankar’s daughter Norah Jones in only too well known (BTW she has just released her second album “Feels like home”). In fact, classical musicians and dancers have often been associate with “loose” morals and bohemian lifestyle. What strikes me funny is that the people whose talents are praised beyond compare, whose performances are savoured by millions, are also the ones whose lifestyle would repulse you. It’s like they are walking on the razor’s edge, and a slighten movement bleeds their feet, and while we cheer the act, unmindful of the blood, they are dying everyday. Their life is spiralling out of control. More often than not, their personal life is in shambles. They may be broken in body, but not in spirit, and that’s what keeps them going. It’s sad the way things are. Being an audiophile, it’s difficult for me to imagine that the people who make great music are doing it at the cost of their lives. Makes me wonder if it’s all worth it.
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