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

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Originally Posted by Macfan4life

Not only that but it took over her life. She was a big star but did not care about the quality of the product she was putting out. Besides spending a million on coke (that was her quote from People 1998), she also wasted so much money renting recording studios that she never showed up in, paying people to wait all day when she would show up late at night, could not show up for recording a video, ditched her own tour rehearsals to party with Tom in Australia, etc. It controlled her life in a way that the only thing that mattered was getting high. Everything else including her career did not matter.
When she released that video package many years ago she commented on her videos and it was painful for her to watch because she saw herself high. She said something like "why could I not lay off the coke and tequila for a few days before shooting this video" IMHO the only video she looks high in is I Cant Wait but she knows the story behind each video. But the worst part of all this is during the 1980s when concert videos sold and her 1981 solo concert was a HBO smash and sold in stores, her Wild Heart show professionally shot was scrapped. She looked too high. Her RAL show she looked so bad she had to reshoot close ups. Most rock stars who had drug addictions did not let it affect their stage performances but Stevie could not. Didn't Tom Petty who eventually died of a drug overdose say that he was just waiting for the call that she was going to die on the road and it would not surprise him. In late 1985 when RAL was released, Stevie was hanging out with the Wilson sisters on Heart's tour in AZ and CA. One of the Wilson sisters wrote in a book that they too indulged in lots of coke in the mid 80s. Stevie took them to her AZ house and they partied. They were seasoned rockers and partiers but were in shock how much Stevie could partake.

Benmont Tench said something very similar... he said with the Hearbreakers he saw a lot of coke, but when he worked/toured with Stevie he was totally gobsmacked at just how much more coke was around than he'd ever seen before.

What has always irritated the crap out of me has been how much she didn't take care of her talent-- her voice, her writing skill, her creativity. You are so right that she didn't make quality a priority at all.