There’s talent and then there’s fame – and sometimes the two collide into a smoldering inferno that can singe anything within its path.  And I could almost smell the ash in the air and feel it catch in my throat as I watched the new documentary about Amy Winehouse.

The truth is that I’m far more a fan of documentaries that I am of Amy Winehouse.  Sure, I’ve got about eight of her songs on my old iPod and I’ve danced on leather banquettes to Rehab and I read the withering Rolling Stone cover story on her back in a year that I think might have been 2011, but other than that I never felt any real tie to her.  I found her voice gravely and gruff – and truly great – and she certainly looked differently than anyone in the harsh glare of the public eye at that time did with a beehive that got taller and rattier the more substances she ingested and the pinup girls tattooed on her arms appeared more pronounced as her frame shrank to emaciated proportions noticeable to even a casual fan like myself.