Band/artist documentaries.

I'm old enough to remember when cocaine was described as a safe recreational drug. 

What!?  You mean it is not!?

Gimme Shelter (1970) about the Rolling Stones Altamont free concert of which one of the mistakes made was having the Hells Angels in charge of security.

In my old age I am no longer a super big fan of The Eagles, but I really did enjoy the 2 part doc film about them, The History Of The Eagles. 

I watched the Chicago documentary. The amount of cocaine they consumed is astounding.

I am not a huge fan of Chicago either, but that sounds like an interesting doc.  

Be Here to Love Me and Heartworn Highways-Townes Van Zandt documentaries

Absolutely!

I watched the Chicago documentary. The amount of cocaine they consumed is astounding.

I didn't know much at all about Chicago, and although I only had a passing familiarity with them from the days listening to certain FM stations in the '70s/80s that was a great documentary I just watched.  It was so good I watched it twice today just trying to keep all the players straight in my mind.  

If I Leave Here Tomorrow was a pretty good doc film about Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Another band whose music I am not really crazy about, but their story fascinated me.

This old engine makes it on time
Leaves Central Station
'Bout a quarter to nine
Hits River Junction at seventeen to
At a quarter to ten
You know it's travelin' again

You gotta love it, @wharfy !  **snort**

Ooh here is a great documentary I totally forgot about - Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003).

It's not about specific musicians but rather the life of rock impresario and longtime KROQ DJ extraordinaire Rodney Bingenheimer. It's also a great reflection on fame and success and time and the fleetness thereof.

Anyone who was in the music scene in LA around 1980 ought to watch this.

I cannot remember how long ago (sometime post summer of '15) I was surfing the streaming channels and as that piqued my interest I watched it.  I'd never heard of Bingenheimer and I was most definitely not in any music scene, let alone the LA scene in the '80s,  but I still found that interesting.

On an aside, wasn't that about the same time and area that the Wonderland murders happened?

 Robbie Robertson looks kinda wired throughout the film.

"Kinda wired"?   @bdp24 , the whole time he is introducing Neil Young before Helpless he is sniffling and snuffling!  He looks lit up when he is playing with Clapton!

On edit6:  I am pretty sure I remember in Once Were Brothers Hawkins talking about a cocaine buy that was made prior to the concert and I am thinking he said that in his opinion it wasn't very good coke.  But they all looked like they were doing okay to me.

" [. . .] it’s such a fine  line, I hate to see it go [. . .]"  from Cocaine/Jackson Browne/Running On Empty/Electra Asylum 1977/"Recorded in room 124 at the Holiday Inn, Edwardsville, Illinois-8/17/77."  (I presume he was performong at MRF Edwardsville.)

@wharfy , when I read your post I thought maybe it was this performance that you were alluding to

Bing Videos

and I was going to say I kind of liked Nicks husky sound which I was thinking may have been attributed to the use of some cocaine, but I do see where this performance was from ’76, so I guess not.

How about Linda Ronstadt, the Simple Dreams album?  I always thought (and still think) that Linda’s voice had a nasal (but not objectionable quality) to it.

And Eric Clapton/Slowhand?  When he recorded that one his voice was definitely suffering from what I am thinking were certain excesses.  Cigarettes and what have you.  

Martin Scorsese developed quite a coke habit in the 1970’s (I believe when he and Robertson were at one point living together in L.A.), and on one binge overdosed, ending up in the hospital.

It sure looked like both Robertson and Clapton had been into the happy powder pretty heavy when they were playing together. . . .

. . . and speaking of indulging in happy powder, check out Steve Earle in Austin (1988) doing San Antonio Girl for an encore:

Steve Earle - "San Antonio Girl" [Live from Austin, TX]

This is Linda Ronstadt on Glen Campbell’s Good Time Hour (1971), doing Long, Long Time solo and then a duet (Carolina In My Mind) with Glen.  When I first watched it several years ago on Tubi, my initial impression was that her voice was sounding on the nasal side, and then before she gets started singing with Glen the side of her hand goes up to her nose and there is that telltale "snarff." . . .

Linda Ronstadt & then Glen Campbell - Long, Long Time & Carolina in My Mind