I'm [re]reading Levon Helm's memoir, This Wheel's On Fire, and I've packed the first two Band CDs for my upcoming car ride. The thing that strikes me deepest on this reading is Helm's nonchalant acceptance of heroin entering the scene, and his one paragraph dismissal of his own use (paraphrased:"After I had been sick for a while, I quit it."). Coupling that with Doors aide/lackey Danny Sugerman's offhanded and unemotional description of his girlfriend/fellow junkie's OD, while pregnant (in Sugerman's Wonderland), I'm left wondering. Just that. Wondering.
Wondering how much great art has just never been made because the artists (or their posse) get caught up in chasing the dragon. Of note is the fact that Helm places heroin entering the Band camp sometime after their second record, a record he recognizes in print was the last great one they would release.