I just heard the sad news about Amy Winehouse's death.
She was in a tough position.
In a great TED talk, Liz Gilbert muses on what a difficult position contemporary arts culture puts artists in.
Back in the day, she said, artistic inspiration was understood to be about more than the individual. The creative at work was inspired, in-spired; spirit was in the house. The creative was a channel. Upon her shoulder sat a 'genie' - etymological origin of 'genius' - some small creature who would pour the ideas into the creative, who would then pour them into the work. If the musician was fabulous, they were lucky to have a great genie. It wasn't all about them. If they were having a fallow period, bad old genie wasn't showing up for work. The ego was protected from taking direct responsibility for the inevitable peaks and troughs in creative productivity.
Not so these days with our secular ideas: the individual is responsible for the greatness when the work is great, and has lost it, fallen from grace, when the work lacks spark.
It puts the ego in a difficult place. Especially for someone as talented as Amy. Huge inflation from the huge audiences, deals, money, fame. Huge crashes when her identity struggles to healthily accommodate these bloated notions.
She would have struggled too, I imagine, with the absence of a grounding humility in the idea of the role of the musician.
I once sung with some Kora players from Mali and was struck by their humble, generous, relaxed and playful attitude towards making and sharing music. The Kora player in Mali plays a cultural service, they explained to me, with three main roles. Firstly, to hold the values of the culture that are embedded in the traditional songs. Their role is to learn the songs, know the songs, teach the songs and sing the songs so that the people remember who they are and what they value. (The Shona songs from Zimbabwe that I sing with Chartwell play a similar role in carrying values. "Where will I be when the problem comes? I will be with my father" are the lyrics to one entire song. It tells a lot about the role of a father. "Don't make the children wear patchwork: patchwork clothes are only for adults," sings another. Patchwork fabric is a sign of poverty. If there is poverty, the priority is to protect the children from feeling poor, the song instructs.)
Two more roles for the Kora player from Mali: to create a party atmosphere for weddings and celebrations, and to keep the peace. The kora is wonderfully soothing - you've heard Toumani Diabate right? So, if you argue with, say, your partner, someone will go and fetch the nearest kora player to come and sit nearby and play the kora while you argue. And when he does, you will not be able to help but soften. You will soften into a way of communicating that is less violent, and as a result, face a better chance of hearing and being heard, and finding a resolution to your conflict.
How cool is that?
I think we need these ideas as musicians, of service, of embedded social role, of being a channel for 'god' rather than 'god' itself.
Malidoma Some agrees. He says:
"[Artistic] talents are widely recognised in indigenous communities because indigenous people assume that the artist is a priest or a priestess through whom the Other World finds an entrance into this world. If the priest or the priestess regards with reverence and humility the world where his or her art originates, then the work done becomes lasting and impressive. If not, the artist does not last very long." - The Healing Wisdom of Africa
I bet a lot of people helped Amy to package herself - her sound, her appearance, her songs, her stage presence, her CDs, her financial management.
I wonder if anybody helped Amy to see the enormous talent she had been given in this way.
Somehow I doubt it. These ideas are not prevalent in our culture.
Poor Amy.
