Welcome to the artist healing & gratitude circle

A way to give back to those who have given us great music

The call for healing and gratitude

We lost a long list of rock ’n’ roll musicians in 2024, whether you go by the list from Ultimate Classic Rock or Loudwire or Planet Rock or somewhere else.

Of course, the list of all musicians lost in 2024 in popular music is far longer. The 2025 list already includes the fabulous folk singer Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary, on the left in the group’s debut album above.

A number of rock ’n’ roll artists are also suffering with serious injuries and illnesses. For example, Elton John has gone blind in one eye as the result of an infection he contracted last July in France, which is delaying his next album with long-time collaborator and lyricist Bernie Taupin.

As another example, Eric Clapton is suffering from peripheral neuropathy, but in spite of that has persevered and has a new album coming out on January 24th.

Pete Townsend is struggling with suicidal thoughts every single morning.

We might say, “These artists are rich and can afford the best medical and psychological help that money can buy.” However, I have two heartfelt responses to that.

First, there are many artists without the emotional or financial resources to deal with their medical issues and therapeutic needs. One example is Matthew Sweet, who had a stroke while on tour in Canada in October and is still in recovery. A GoFundMe fundraiser for Matthew is only about 75% towards the goal in helping him with months of medical costs.

If you don’t know Matthew, he writes great love songs like “I’ve Been Waiting”:

Second, artists may have financial resources but that doesn’t mean that they have emotional or psychic support. If you’ve read as many rock star autobiographies as I have, you know that even at the height of their success many artists and celebrities struggle with feeling alone and not having the support of people who truly care about them.

Once you attain any level of celebrity, you become subject to those who wish to partake in either your artistic energy and creativity (by leveraging or stealing it), your reflected glory, your assumed-to-be-substantial-and-easily-spendable-riches, or all three, and this increases exponentially as you mount the ladder of success.¹

The perilous music business

My personal feeling is that music-making is, contrary to widely shared assumptions, not an easy path in life. The reality is that there are very few who ascend to the heights of the music business, and there are a miniscule number who manage to stay there for any significant length of time.

That was true in the past, even more so now.

I, for one, am grateful that people continue to make music in the face of rotten odds in a winner-take-all-and-the-rest-of-you-can-eat-grass economic system.

If you want to know what musicians have to put up with, and why so many extremely talented musicians come and go, read some musician autobiographies or read my post on the band Fanny. For something more recent, check out the following:

• Touring musician Matty C on “The Real Cost of Music”

• Mary Spender on “How much money I lost on tour” and “How much YouTube paid me for 4,700,000 views” and “Why my album won’t be on Spotify… for now”

• Music producer and former record industry exec James Barber on “How do you define what an artist’s worth?”

• Music lawyer and former head of Rounder Records John P. Strohm on “Gatekeepers”.

As Liz Pelly says scornfully about Spotify, which is one of the key avenues currently available to musicians to sell their music, “This treatment of music as nothing but background sounds—as interchangeable tracks of generic, vibe-tagged playlist fodder—is at the heart of how music has been devalued in the streaming era. It is in the financial interest of streaming services to discourage a critical audio culture among users, to continue eroding connections between artists and listeners, so as to more easily slip discounted stock music through the cracks, improving their profit margins in the process.”²

I, for one, am not onboard with that. I want to not only maintain my connection with artists, but further to let them know that they are valued and supported within the universe that I inhabit.

And I sure as Joni Mitchell is a creative genius want to have access to human-made music by artists like her, with passion and something to say, not music generated by AI to pad the pockets of tech executives and callous investors interested only in maximizing short-term gains and channeling their money into tax havens.

I grew up in the 60s and 70s, f’crissakes. I’m used to amazing music, and I’m not willing to give that up for pablum and schlock.

So what is this substack all about?

One morning I woke up with the idea for this stack fully formed in my mind — as a place to honor the extraordinary number of musicians who are leaving us for rock ’n’ roll heaven, as well as a place to cherish and support the musicians who are still among us, especially those who are struggling or facing serious challenges.

Just by knowing that an artist is facing a challenge or crisis and thinking about them, people provide that artist with a level of psychic support. If people deliberately generate positive thoughts and feelings for that artist’s wellbeing and healing, or choose to pray on their behalf, even better.

If many people are doing this, we trigger the potential for distance healing. I will write more about this well-documented and evidenced phenomenon in another post. We are connected and we can provide powerful forms of psychic support to one another through positive intentions even when we’re not with them in person.

People may also want to express emotional support directly or even contribute to a fundraiser on the artist’s behalf, which would be up to them.

By documenting what is happening with artists in this way, it’s also a means for honoring what we receive from artists and according their contribution the value it deserves. Where would we be as a species without the music-makers?

What to expect

This will evolve as I get my feet, but I’m anticipating that I will publish on Notes most of the time and then summarize those notes with a weekly or biweekly post.

At the moment, I learn of deaths and injuries from various sources, including Mark Crispin Miller’s News from the Underground here on Substack, Stereogum, and google alerts. If you know of other good sources, please do let me know.

If I somehow miss the news about an artist, I welcome your letting me know.

I can be reached at ellenendwell@proton.me.

And if you enjoy my writing, please check out my other substacks — Rock ’n’ Roll with Me where I’ve been writing about rock-and-roll artists, their lives, and their contributions from the sixties onwards, with a new focus this year on women in rock, and a new substack called The Wellbeing Experiments, where I try out a different health or wellbeing approach every week and report on the experience and any benefits accrued from it.

1. I have experienced this a number of times, either when I was in an enviable position or when I was working with people who were perceived as highly influential. I would also say that there is sigificant truth to the ‘poor little rich boy’ (or girl) idiom. Any extreme circumstance, including overnight money and fame, tends to bring out the best and worst in people.

2. “The Ghosts in the Machine,” Harper’s Magazine, January 2025.