Percy Grainger
mmm, I know about Syd Barrett and Brian Wilson, but there are a lot of names in this thread that make me want to hear the stories.
Hendrix (a LOT of drugs, but crazy?)
Chuck Berry (Some strange sexual needs, but crazy?)
Baez?
Beefheart?
Waits?
And I can readily believe Keith Moon, but haven’t read any of the details.
I’d say that anyone who deliberately becomes addicted to heroin because they think it will make them more authentic players… that could be a gimme.
So, Eric Clapton. And maybe Keith Richards, but I’m not sure on that.
Papa John Phillips probably qualifies, what with the incest revelations and the admissions of introducing his child to heroin.
Prince.
Do you mean a book about The Who?
How is Prince insane? How was Jimi Hendrix insane? How is Bob Dylan insane? None of those people are/were insane.
Now, Brian Wilson was legitimately psychologically unbalanced.
I’m not sure how to classify Amy Winehouse. She’s very stupid, and a drug addict, but when someone’s on the booze and the pills, is that insane? So many celebrities have been into drugs it seems to cheapen the notion of “crazy” to call anyone on drugs crazy.
gaga
Vliet was “insane” in the same way Salvador Dali was: “The only difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad.” Beefheart’s Dadaesque musical style wasn’t the result of mental illness, but of his idiosyncratic creative muse. And he spent the last 30 or so years of his life painting quietly in the desert.
This name should be at the top of the list.
Yea, this thread really seems to be defining insanity down. If overuse of narcotics, hating the Catholic Church and weird medical beliefs are signs of insanity, half the people in my Highschool needed to be committed.
I’ll nominate Kurt Cobain, as killing yourself seems like a legitimate mental health issue.
Sly Stone is definitely erratic, but I’m not sure it rises to insanity.
Jim Morrison was so interested in getting a rush and experiencing new things that he didn’t care about his personal safety–from what I’ve heard, in the last year or two of his life he would wreck cars etc. just for the thrill. Reminds me of Tyler Durden.
Sounds insane to me… at least compeltely divorced from normal concerns.
Came into the thread to say Syd Barrett and Brian Wilson, though.
Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Band. The alcholism didn’t help, but even his admirers consider him one of England’s great eccentrics." He would keep up crazy for crazy with his pal Keith Moon. When he was in a hospital for his alcoholism, he would go up to visitors and told them if they paid him a few pounds, he’d start frothing at the mouth for them.
A sadder case is Jim Gordon, rock drummer and co-writer of “Layla.” He suffers from paranoia and has been locked up for a couple of decades after murdering his mother.
Yes, and I am an idiot. Sorry!
Read about Zeppelin about the same time; the library had a lot of those books! (And it was a long time ago…) Bonham was great but I don’t think crazy. :smack::smack::smack::smack::smack:
Half the antics I’m thinking about, I am sure were about Zeppelin…but the distinct mental image of Moon having someone shoot him up in his ankles WHILE HE WAS PLAYING has stuck with me for over 20 years, and now I have to go find those books again and re-read them, argh.
I always thought Garth Brooks’ “Chris Gaines” thing was pretty insane.
A fair amount of Keith Moon’s antics were not really “insane”, they were pranks that were meant to be amusing and attract attention. Some of the more extreme stories, like the infamous driving-into-a-swimming-pool one, were simply made-up to add to the “Moon the Loon” legend. His substance abuse problems also contributed to his erratic behavior.
However, in Tony Fletcher’s excellent biography Moon: The Life and Death of a Rock Legend (titled Dear Boy: The Life of Keith Moon in the UK) he makes a good case for Moon having suffered from serious mental health issues in addition to his drug problems, and argues that he probably had Borderline Personality Disorder.
John Belushi
Gerry Rafferty
In musical theatore, the immensely talented and so troubled Steve Barton
Townes Van Zandt comes to mind.
People who stumble upon his work are often astonished by how great some of it is, and they wonder, “How did this guy not become huge?”
And the answer is… he was so manic-depressive, so unstable, so heavily addicted to booze and drugs that he pissed away all of his many opportunities to achieve success. He also pushed away all the many friends and admirers he won.
There was an old saying in Hollywood: “You can count on Errol Flynn- he’ll ALWAYS let you down.” Townes Van Zandt was just the same.
Thelonious Monk for sure. Guy was just out there
Possibly Leonard Cohen. Incredibly talented, but with issues although I believe his problems have mostly stemmed from severe depression which is *not * insanity.
SS