There's been an excessive amount of media coverage this week concerning the July 23 passing of Amy Winehouse. Much has been made of the so-called 27 Club, named for the group of influential musicians who all died at that age, and the fact that so many saw the “Rehab” singer’s untimely passing coming a mile off. The consensus is that it was inevitable and that it was a drug overdose that finally did her in, this after reports that no drugs or paraphernalia were found on the premises.
I paused when I sat to write this piece because in the sea of current news stories dissecting her life and providing endless speculation over what it was that finally broke the camel’s back for this “tragicomic train wreck,” what could I possibly add that’s not already been said ad nauseam. But as a fan, as someone who was rooting for her, who was moved not only by her music but by her struggle with addiction, how could I ignore the elephant in the room. Amy Winehouse is gone.
With her sultry, world-weary voice and a look that was part biker chick, part '60s girl group, Amy Winehouse was one of music's most celebrated talents and certainly one of its most feisty. As famous for her ravenous demons as she was her music, she made headlines for a plethora of youthful indiscretions that included drug and alcohol abuse, cutting, an eating disorder, public brawls, destructive relationships and aborted performances, the most recent of which occurred just last month when a video of the staggering, incoherent singer getting booed off a stage in Belgrade went viral and ended a planned European tour before it could even get off the ground. But Amy endured her innumerable public shames with aplomb and swagger. She was fearless and unapologetic in admitting her flaws to those who fed on her many weaknesses. Her attitude was, "Yeah, I got drunk and fell down. So what." Winehouse was headstrong, rebellious, and perhaps most admirably to me, she lived without regret in the face of what could've been a mountain of it. Yet for all her bad-girl bravado, at the heart of Amy Winehouse lie a delicate, vulnerable, simple girl who was in love with love. By her own admission, and by the blatant disregard she seemed to have for her career, becoming an artist wasn’t the be-all and end-all for her. Becoming a wife and mother was.
Amy Winehouse grew up singing to old Frank Sinatra and Dinah Washington records, which were played frequently in her childhood home. When she was 10, Winehouse and her best friend, Juliette Ashby, formed a rap duo modeled after Salt-n-Pepa that they called Sweet ‘n Sour. Her older brother Alex owned a guitar, and whenever he was out of the house, Amy would fiddle around with it. She eventually bought her own when she was 14 and started writing songs, though she didn’t aspire to be a musician. Instead, she fantasized about being a roller-skating waitress like the ones she’d seen in American Graffiti.
When she was 17, Winehouse landed a recording contract with Island Records and in 2003, released her first album, Frank, which was dedicated entirely to an ex-boyfriend. Inspired by hip-hop and jazz, the record earned her a nomination for a Mercury Prize, an annual music award handed out for the best album from the UK and Ireland, and won her the Ivor Novello Award for songwriting. Shortly after launching her singing career, however, a handsome hanger-on from rural Lincolnshire strolled into a watering hole where Amy spent a lot of time shooting pool and listening to the jukebox and forever altered the course of her life.
Blake Fielder-Civil, who worked part-time on music video sets, was the love of Amy Winehouse's life. He is widely thought to have introduced her to hard drugs and is often blamed for distracting Amy from her work. Theirs was a tumultuous romance, fraught with breakups that Winehouse took especially hard. When Fielder-Civil left her for another woman, a dejected Winehouse took pen and guitar in hand and poured her heart out in a collection of songs that would make up her second album. That record was Back to Black. With its eclectic mix of R&B, soul and jazz, Winehouse's highly acclaimed sophomore effort became the highest-charting US debut ever by a British female. It has sold in excess of 2 million copies and won Winehouse five Grammy Awards. Not unexpectedly, the album is back in the Top 10 this week on both UK and US charts, selling 37,000 units, more than the record has sold in the past three years combined.
Back to Black, and her dysfunctional union with Fielder-Civil—they, of course, reconciled and eventually married before he was promptly sent to prison—made a media sensation of Winehouse. The ever-present paparazzi camped outside her home had a pet name for Amy, who was pining for her beloved. They lovingly called her "the pied piper of Camden" for the constant stream of musicians, dealers, masseuses, friends and fans who would come and go freely throughout the night. But she was enchanting, they say. She made them tea. Made them laugh. They spoke of her talent and way of life with reverence.
Sharon Osbourne likened the diminutive Winehouse to a “little bird,” said she was polite and mannerly and went around in ballet slippers calling her mum, an image that is hard to reconcile with so many of the ones we’ve seen of Amy wrecked, bruised and half-naked.
Mitch Winehouse says his daughter was trusting to a fault and devoted to her family, friends and fans. “She was about one thing,” he says, “and that was love.”
"I've done a record I'm really proud of. And that's about it," Amy once said. "I don't want to be ungrateful. I know I'm talented, but I wasn't put here to sing. I was put here to be a wife and a mom and look after my family. I love what I do, but it's not where it begins and ends."
Winehouse, divorced from Fielder-Civil since 2009, had been in a new relationship with film director Reg Traviss, her boyfriend of the past year. At the time of her death, the union was rumored to have hit a rough patch. Depending on who you read, Traviss had become fed up over a) Amy’s drinking, which had supposedly become more pronounced as she grew lonely while he was busy making and promoting a film earlier this year, or b) her continued contact with Fielder-Civil, who is currently incarcerated.
Amy Winehouse blamed heartbreak, being separated from her true love, as the cause of her coming undone. She was more interested in being with the man she loved than she could've ever been with fame. I have a soft spot for underdogs, and Amy was an underdog with a capital "U." I, like so many others, had faith that given time, she would pull out of her tailspin and find the love and contentment she so desperately sought in life. I looked forward to the next album that was always coming, but never arrived. And now, another extraordinary talent has been laid to waste.
