Ten years after her death, an artist like Amy Winehouse embodied her with all her talents and weaknesses is unthinkable. She was perhaps the last to venture out from the cover of a perfect staging and marketing machine. No star fell from the sky. But one that burned up before we saw it in its full glory. One that basks in a generation of neo-soul singers, from Valerie June to Curtis Harding to Lianne LaHavas.
Born on September 14, 1983 in north London, Winehouse – like her male counterpart Pete Doherty – was a hit with the tabloids from the start of her career. The gossip columns of the noughties would have lacked a dazzling figure without her. But the Billie Holiday-like broken, the drunk and smoky, the crashes and deranged performances, the lascivious drugged, the diva equipped with sailor tattoos and opulent Beehive hairstyle – all this only blocks the view of the people and the music behind them, the memory of the great voice.
With music against despair
Perhaps the decisive turning point in Amy Winehouse’s life is the separation of her parents. As a teenager in the 90s, she withdraws on the one hand and at the same time dreams more and more into the world of her role models. These aren’t Aretha Franklin and Diana Rossthere are Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington. This is how she creates a breathtaking repertoire of jazz classics; against the inner emptiness she gets antidepressants.
In his touching memoir “My Amy”, Taylor James suspects that this is where the cause of Winehouse’s later addiction problems lies. After stints at the Sylvia Young Theater School and the renowned BRIT School, she seems to have made the leap into the pop business effortlessly. A few demos are enough for a deal with Island Records.
In 2003 her debut album was released, “Frank”which is still committed to the R&B sound of the nineties, but with “Stronger Than Me” and “Take The Box” contains two tracks that demonstrate Winehouse’s irrefutable vocal art devoid of any vocal acrobatics.
Her style, which oscillates between swagger and lament, confession and self-assertion, finally blossomed on 2006’s “Back To Black”. The record dominated the charts worldwide with strokes of genius like “Rehab” and “You Know I’m No Good”. And suddenly analog sound is cool again. The producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi tailor these songs to Winehouse. But the success is mainly due to this voice, which is saturated with jazz and rhythm & blues. Because she tells something about the abysses of love that most people like to wash down.
The cry for help lost in the crowd
At some point, whiskey and vodka no longer helped Amy Winehouse to numb the pain. The fact that she joined Club 27 on July 23, 2011 is one of the great tragedies in pop history and feeds the myth “Only the good die young”. But it also raises questions: where does a rebellious rock’n’roll lifestyle end? Where does the nightmare begin? That cry for help that gets lost in the crowd – it’s deep in Amy Winehouse’s music.