Amy Winehouse: The human tragedy perpetuated in music
THURSDAY FILM "EMI" HAS RENTED OUT in the framework of the festival of documentary films "Center". Amy Winehouse's documentary was shot by titled Asif Kapadia, who directed Senna among other things. "Amy" gathered a lot of enthusiastic reviews, much like a movie, declaring a simple but important thought: the soul legend was first of all a man who had been too much, and then later a tabloid news object or a singer whose album "Back to Black" For a long time was the best-selling among British records in the XXI century. Today, Amy Winehouse would be thirty-two years old - trying to understand the phenomenon of the singer and woman who could not cope with life alone.
May 2007: Amy Winehouse gives an interview to MTV. A singer with a huge chewing gum in her mouth mutters to herself that she is not interested in the public at all, that she writes music for herself. I don't care about her success, if only she was given to do her job. For the entire conversation, depressed Amy almost never looks directly into the camera or in the eyes of the lead. But it is worth mentioning to him that Prince would like to perform with her on the same stage, the singer's eyes light up, and she enthusiastically talks about other musical idols with whom she would also like to work. After some four years, she will not be, and the public will first of all remember her with lines about rehab and addiction, out of control, and not the rest of the music, which was more important to her than life.
Full of tearing despair and one of the most memorable lines of soul of all time from a song about a woman who believes that she does not need to be treated for drug addiction, over the years she has acquired vulgar puns - every first person started her own text about Amy Winehouse from her. This is a particular tragedy, because "Rehab", which became the singer's business card, was part of the real struggle history, which ended in the summer of 2011. The girl, who did not want to go to the clinic, did not wake up after severe alcohol poisoning, with which her body, depleted by bulimia and the fight against drugs, could not cope. She always honestly said that she wrote about her own feelings, and wanted people to be interested only in her music, but all the tabloids of the world first of all turned their vigilant eyes on the scandalous twists and turns of her life, turning even her tragic death into one of them.
Four years have passed since that dreary July morning: on the one hand, the singer had many tributes played, and producer Mark Ronson who worked with her dedicated the album "Uptown Special" to her. On the other hand, the memoirs of both her parents, a book and more than one film about the "real Amy" were published. Most biographies tell the same heartbreakingly banal story of the death of the singer. All of them, except for the mention of an amazing rare talent of the main character, are more like a crime bulletin of any city where it is easy to get heroin. A young girl from a dysfunctional family got into a bad company, began to use drugs, almost died, replaced drugs with alcohol. But no matter how much journalists would like to rank the singer as “Club 27,” this was not how her life was.
Her work and image - a mix of girlfriend gangs from the 50s and 60s (the famous cocoon and giant arrows, Winehouse borrowed from the Ronettes soloist Ronnie Spector) and tattoos from the suburbs, became a breakthrough. The stars of her level usually looked like goddesses, who descended from Olympus to get a sip of ambrosia to the audience. Amy can rather be compared with Edith Piaf, who ascended to this Olympus during performances, but in a life outside the scene she remained an ordinary, sometimes insecure woman — not “magnificent enough” for a diva and easily trapped in her own passions.
The face of a heavy drug addict, a body bulged out of bulimia, a disheveled cocoon, gray skin and grotesque-adding makeup - such Amy was remembered by even the most devoted fans. Indeed, it is difficult to remember that once it was a pink-cheeked, healthy, cheerful, seemingly confident girl. The impression of self-sufficiency that it radiates in 2004, as it turned out, was false, but the cheerfulness and vitality seem undeniable at least then.
Amy was born in North London on September 14, 1983. In her family were Polish and Russian immigrants, parents - not hard-working hard workers: Father Mitch - a taxi driver, mother Janice - a pharmacist. Nevertheless, there were musicians in the Winehouse family, and dad sang little Amy Sinatra instead of lullabies. At the insistence of her grandmother, she first got into one, then to another music school, but Amy herself liked to sing and play first; with her childhood friend Juliet, she even organized the Sweet and Sour group.
The stars of her level usually looked like goddesses who descended from Olympus - Amy ascended to Olympus during performances
From the age of sixteen Amy began to earn money - singing as well. While she was a soloist with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, her best friend sent her demo to a friend in the company A & R. Suddenly, she had a manager, and she began to regularly perform with the classical jazz repertoire at the club. Then it was like a classic musical tale: her voice was accidentally heard by the representative of A & R - and it started. Amy Winehouse records her debut album "Frank", which will bring the unknown young singer unexpected fame and unanimous praise from critics.
In a 2004 interview, Amy does a joke, laughs and agrees when the interviewer calls her "the simple girl." "I was given lessons in eloquence, but something like this: flew into one ear, flew into the other." Next could be followed by the story of the girl’s ascent from the working class to long and deserved glory, which would remember that she was “Jenny from the block”, would receive huge fees and live a long life, performing a grand concert under the milestones of her career to old age. Everything would be so - if its history from the very beginning would not have been fundamentally different.
Amy's parents did not spend too much time with her daughter. Father left the family and went to another woman. Mother, in her own words, did not know how to control Amy, and, apparently, did not notice much about what was happening to her. Since childhood, Winehouse was unhappy with her figure and a teenager came up with an excellent diet: eat what you want, and then just throw out everything you eat. Mother admits that she did not attach any importance to this, like her father - both of them decided that this would pass. From the age of fourteen, Amy took antidepressants until she discovered the older brother's guitar Alex and, in her own words, found the perfect way to cope with life with the help of music. Her debut album "Frank" was not just a collection of love songs - they were dedicated to ex-boyfriend Amy, about which she spoke absolutely not flattering.
Simple girl Amy recorded a difficult jazz album with producer Salaam Remi. The extraordinary ease with which Amy performs difficult parts, amazing warm vocals, playful intonation, witty poems - all of this makes Winehouse a star in Britain overnight, and her life is changing dramatically. The twenty-year-old girl is not at all ready for fame and for some time she disconnects from the music: she lives alone, goes to pubs, listens to The Libertines and smokes marijuana.
In one of the pubs she meets the love of her life and her future husband, Blake Fielder-Civil. Their sadomasochistic relationships will be food for the tabloids, he will introduce her to crack and heroin. They will hurt each other - both physical and moral. At the same time, almost all the songs from the second and last lifetime album "Back to Black", for which Amy was nominated for six Grammy, and received worldwide fame, about him.
For several years of relations with Blake, Amy turns into the same stereotype of a drug addict and an urban madman that only lazy did not spit. She loses friends, the ability to stay on stage and just an interest in life. Blake became the focus of meaning, which even music could not return, although in recent years Amy worked on materials for the new album. He was released posthumously, entitled "Lioness: Hidden Treasures". The couple then parted, then converged: they tried to jointly treat for drug addiction, then they broke off together, Blake went to prison, then filed for divorce. However, if it were not for him, there would be no song "Back to Black", the words and melody of which, according to Mark Ronson, Amy wrote in three hours.
From the "simple girl" Amy turned into a trouble girl. "You know what I'm not good", one of the best songs from the second album, talks about the pain and some fatalistic drive of self-destruction Winehouse is much better than a few documentaries. "I cheated myself, I knew I would" - could have been written on her headstone.
In a long interview for the "sensational" film "Amy Winehouse: The Untold Story", Blake says that the singer had difficulty expressing her emotions, which is why she revealed them in music. This may be so, although it is difficult to believe a man who shamelessly declares: "Sometimes I brought home only drugs, because I earned less than Amy." How difficult it is to fully believe the repentance and grief of Mitch Winehouse, knowing that he really thought at first that his daughter did not need to be treated for drug addiction ("and if my daddy thinks I'm fine" is not a singer's invention either).
Father, for example, decided to come to her with the crew of the film “My daughter Amy” at the most inopportune moment when Amy once again tried to cope with the addiction. It is hard to believe that the singer betrayed herself alone, without the help of people who supplied her with drugs, but, most importantly, without people who had looked at her self-destruction for many years and thought that it would somehow resolve itself. Luckily, her friends didn’t treat them, but their efforts were not enough. Her childhood friends, music companions (among them Mos Def, Russell Brand, Mark Ronson himself) and even the bodyguards who worked for her recall her as a loving and responsive girl they tried to save by all means.
People for many years looked at its self-destruction and thought that it would somehow resolve itself
Responsiveness is a feature that is not so often remembered in connection with the name Winehouse, but in vain. The singer spent huge amounts of money on charity projects - from the International Fund for the Prevention of Slavery (Anti-slavery International) or WaterAid to UNICEF and other funds that provide assistance to children. She participated in charity events, as well as targeted assistance to people. Many representatives of the charity spoke about the singer simply: "Just ask Amy - she will do everything."
Over time, Amy became far less responsive to her own public. As Mitch Winehouse recalls, at the beginning of her career, she specifically took notes, which she worked on to listen in the car and understand exactly how her people heard: she was worried about their opinions. But still in the same MTV interview in May 2007, without taking the bubble gum out of her mouth, the singer speaks without enthusiasm about the opinions of others. She wants to be left alone and given to record music, - all she ever asked for.
Amy spends four more years of her life in such torments that do not allow her to truly feel the love of her friends, her success and the love of that very public, which she perceives as a big brother looking at her through the prisms of paparazzi cameras and from the covers of tabloids. All this closes the black depression and hatred for themselves and their bodies. Brother singer Alex first openly stated that he considered bulimia, perhaps the main reason why Amy did not cope with alcohol poisoning. Heart disease, pulmonary emphysema, and other illnesses were caused by her not only because of drugs.
Strange, funny, at times frightening, tragically and tritely lost at 27, Amy will be remembered forever for her grotesque way, but, most importantly, truly felt texts. All the books and films about the singer keep saying in different ways about what kind of phenomenon Amy Winehouse was, but so far no one has been able to clearly explain why. Great jazzman Tony Bennett considers her one of the best jazz singers of all time, and not only because of her amazing voice. To understand who Amy is, you just need to listen to her very small discography at least once, forgetting for a minute about the train of scandals surrounding her. Perhaps the best biography of Amy Winehouse she wrote herself in those songs that are already nice to sing and quote without thinking, but which is behind a whole life.
PHOTO: On the Corner / Documentary Film Center