New Reader Q&A with Christine in Guardian UK - post your questions now...

[bombaysaffires]

agree, though I think she got more careful with her voice after she blew it out doing stupid sh&t like smoking cigarettes, smoking pot, singing when she should have let it rest (between performances), doing coke, staying up for days on end, drinking too much, etc.

If she'd treated it more carefully THEN, she wouldn't have had to be so overly careful with it NOW.

But you know she said in the past that she sort of expected to burn out and die young... she had (at the time) this sort of romantic vision of people like Hendrix and Janis et al.... Doesn't seem like she *really* expected to be doing this at 70+, even though she'd say so in interviews from time to time over the years.

As for quality, she seemed to really strive for it in the early days (possibly encouraged in that by LB's perfectionism), but once she got famous, and especially once she made it solo (and got mixed in with the likes of Irving et al) she became far, far more concerned with "numbers" ie sales figures, chart positions, ticket sales, etc. and as long as those were good she seemed to care less and less about the quality of the content. Why grow artistically when you can sell out shows doing more of the same old, and partying along the way??