I remember the day I first heard Amy Winehouse. It was 2006. I was flipping through TV channels with my remote and stopped on VH1. The video for “Rehab” was starting and her name showed on the screen. That’s when I heard that voice, that anguished, beautiful, smoky voice. “They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no.” Along with the chorus, the lyrics were biting and darkly funny. And that was that—there was no question a very powerful presence had made its way across the ocean and into my living room. I loved her immediately.
Born and raised in London, Amy Winehouse released her first album Frank just after she turned twenty years old to critical praise in England in 2003. Video footage from that time shows a healthy-looking, rosy-cheeked girlish young woman with none of the dissipation she revealed as years passed. Her personal life seemed to collapse in inverse proportion to her professional success. Yes, she waged massive battles against drug and alcohol addiction (and did actually go to rehab four times). Her stormy relationship with then-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, frequently made unflattering headlines. She was also a brilliant singer and songwriter who smashed through the turbulent ceiling of her life, destroying problems to win 5 Grammy Awards for her album “Back To Black”, a stunning retro jazz, soul, and blues triumph. “Rehab” was followed by “Back To Black,” “You Know I’m No Good,” “Tears Dry On Their Own,” “Love Is A Losing Game” and beyond. She waned even as she waxed.
As I came to know more of her music my admiration and respect for her as a gifted singer and writer only grew. She brought quality, ability, passion and soul back to the present tense mainstream and blazed the trail for a wave of new female soul performers like Duffy and Adele to follow. A lover of 60’s girl groups, she cultivated an offbeat retro appearance with a perennial beehive hairdo and girlie dresses.
As often happens when someone famous with substance abuse problems dies, the axes of judgment have been chopping down hard. All the people who flock to the message boards to snipe “She was a drug addict—that’s what happens,” or “She has no one to blame but herself,” should ask themselves if they’d have the stomach to make those comments in front of Janis and Mitch Winehouse, who just attended their child’s funeral this Tuesday. Or how they would feel if it was their child who was dead. In the now-painfully prescient video for “Back To Black,” Amy Winehouse tosses a flower and drizzles a handful of dirt onto her own grave while attending her own funeral for her broken heart.
No one with half an eye open paying even scant attention could have missed that Winehouse’s life was in danger from addiction, and it’s been reported it came as no surprise to most of those who knew her and didn’t. So what? No matter how cynically you may anticipate or fear someone’s death, its arrival has the power to stun in a way that breaches and effectively vaporizes any defense you imagined you had against it. Sadly her father spoke at her funeral of how she had been clean of drugs for years, had been off alcohol for three weeks and had been taking much better care of herself. He also said right before her dead that she was the happiest she’d been in years and newly in love. Why she wasn’t able to be one of the lucky ones who defied the damage done to her body by drugs and live more happily going forward is a question no one can answer.
I was looking forward to the release of her new CD which had been delayed to allow her to get through a recent rehab stint. I was greatly cheered to see a YouTube clip where she slam-dunked a surprise performance in London. Self-inflicted or not, it was disheartening to hear that she’d been so intoxicated during a European tour date in Belgrade that she was booed offstage after several songs and had agreed to cancel the tour. Amy in top form was an exceptional, compelling, and original performer who put all of herself into shows. A voracious bottomless appetite was hers when it came to drugs and alcohol, an all-encompassing terrible need. Her need to escape life or blunt its edges ultimately cut it short. Yet when you press play, a part of her lives on. She is remembered by family friends and fans for her musical gifts, her writing, and her loving nature which the press saw less fit for the exhaustive coverage they gave her during her toughest times. Amy, thank you for what you created—gorgeous, original, timeless music.
