Scatter Brained

C H A P T E R   8

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198
S C A T T E R B R A I N E D
had to fi nd a new market. Fortunately, that’s why God made 
musicians. . . .
04
  Music and Opiates
BILLIE HOLIDAY
Accomplishments:
  probably  the  greatest  jazz  singer  of  all 
time (sorry, Ella)
Drug of Choice:
 heroin (although she smoked marijuana 
from the age of 12 on)
Consequences:
 As if her life wasn’t sad enough, Holiday 
served eight months in prison for heroin possession. She was 
also banned from singing in clubs for the last decade of her 
life. Heroin wrecked Billie’s voice, and she died—at 44—with 
just 70 cents in the bank and $750 strapped to her leg.
HANK WILLIAMS
Accomplishments:
 made country music darker, more thought-
ful, more fun to listen to, and inspired every country musi-
cian who came after him
Drug of Choice:
 alcohol and morphine
Consequences:
 Williams 
started using morphine to 
treat his back pain caused by 
the birth defect spina bifi da. 
Unfortunately, his drug use 
quickly spiraled out of con-
trol. Shortly after his last 
Other drug users with the name 
Hank Williams include Hank 
Mon-
day Night Football
 Williams Jr. 
and Hank “Punk Rock Country 
Singer” Williams III.

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199
single, “I’ll Never Get Out of Th
  is World Alive,” was released, 
Williams died of a whiskey and morphine overdose at the 
tender age of 29.
JAMES TAYLOR
Accomplishments:
 Taylor’s had platinum albums, won Gram-
mys, and appeared on 
Th
 e Simpsons
.
Drug of Choice:
 Oh, he had a friend, all right: heroin.
Consequences:
 Taylor was addicted to heroin off  and on from 
the mid-’60s to 1985, and while he eventually recovered, you 
don’t want to hear some of the stuff  he was putting out in the 
early ’80s.
MILES DAVIS
Accomplishments:
  Invented  or  participated  in  most  of  the 
important jazz movements of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s, from 
bebop to cool jazz to fusion to free jazz.
Drug of Choice:
 heroin. Th
 en 
cocaine. And sometimes both 
together.
Consequences:
 Davis kicked 
a four-year heroin habit in 
1950 by locking himself in 
a  room. But in the 1970s, 
he discovered cocaine, which 
wrecked his body. In the ’80s, 
he started covering Cyndi 
Lauper songs. Clearly, the 
damage had been done.
But Wait There’s 
More
Other musicians known to 
have used opiates include 
Boy George, Chet Baker, Paul 
 Butterfi eld, John Cage, John 
Coltrane, Ray Charles, Eric 
Clapton, Stan Getz, Billy Idol, 
Joan Jett, John Lennon, Little 
Richard, Elvis Presley, Dee Dee 
Ramone, and Brian Wilson.