Ellie Featherston
THE QUEEN OF CAMDEN
Pictured with her trademark eyeliner and beehive, Amy Winehouse’s now famous interview with MTV in 2007 showed her at her most vulnerable and honest.
“I think I’ve come to the realisation that life is short, you gotta live in the moment, seize the day,” Amy said tearfully.
Unfortunately, Amy’s words were every part true. This month it will be seven years since her tragic death at age 27. The singer/songwriter battled substance abuse for most of her life, but it wasn’t until a relapse after a period of abstinence that it killed her. Amy was found dead at her home in Camden, London on the 23rd of July, 2011.
Amy Jade Winehouse was born and raised in London to Jewish parents, Mitch and Janis. She and her older brother Alex had a working class upbringing, which featured music from a very young age. Some of Amy’s uncles were professional jazz musicians, injecting a love for the genre into her blood right from the start.
Amy signed her first recording contract with Island Records when she was 20 years old, and released her debut album Frank shortly after. Her follow up album Back to Black catapulted her into stardom, bringing more fame and attention than she had ever had. The pinnacle of her career was also the beginning of the end for Amy. Unable to deal with the pressure of the spotlight, Amy buried herself in unhealthy patterns of drug and alcohol use, and became bulimic.
Last year it was a decade since the release of the Grammy award winning Back to Black album. The record established Amy as a powerhouse in the music industry, and has become her most recognisable work in the years since her death. Her music remains her legacy, and is the truest representation of who she was when she lived.
Producer Mark Ronson was a friend and frequent collaborator of Amy’s. Speaking to magazine Esquire after her death, Ronson mentioned the butterfly effect her passing will have on her music’s legacy.
“It’s the same thing as Cobain, Lennon, Tupac and those rock’n’roll legends: (Winehouse’s legacy) will get bigger,” he said.
“It’d be great if she hadn’t had to die. People would still love the music, because people loved it when she was around.”
When she died, Amy became another tragic diva, a talented life cut short by the perils of fame. As is often the case, fans fall in love with celebrities even more when they have died in tragic circumstances, and at the height of their careers. Her death also garnered Amy a spot in the posthumous group the ‘27 club’: an eerie phenomenon of famous artists and actors dying in their 27th year. Other members include Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. Like many of the club members, Amy’s death was tragic but not entirely unexpected. Her drug and alcohol abuse became a part of her rock & roll image, another pillar in her unique collage of style.
Music critic Neil McCormick once wrote that Amy was "the girl with everything- except stage presence.” Her musical abilities didn’t always extend to her presence on or off the stage, further suggesting that the stage was never where Amy wanted to be.
'27 Club' tribute in Tel Aviv, Isarel (Credit: Psychology Forever/Wikipedia)
Amy’s death broke the hearts of her family and her fans. #RIPAMY started trending on Twitter shortly after the news of her passing broke, and a shrine of flowers and messages began to pile out front of her home in Camden.
At her private funeral, father Mitch paid tribute to his daughter, “Goodnight my angel, sleep tight, mummy and daddy love you ever so much.”
Four years after her death, director Asif Kapadia (director of Senna), released a documentary on the singer’s life entitled, Amy. The documentary tells a narrative of a troubled artist, whose music was both her refuge and her kryptonite. The film was met with critical acclaim, however her father Mitch condemned the film, claiming it painted him as one of the reasons for her inevitable downfall.
Tributes for Amy remain around the world, particularly in her home town of Camden where the presence of the singer is palpable. Her 5ft3in frame has been immortalised as a statute in the middle of Camden market, and her face is still sprayed over walls and sides of buildings.
The greatest tribute to her, however, is the lasting popularity of her music. On the streaming service Spotify, Amy’s channel has 7,082,234 monthly listeners, and the song Back to Black has been streamed over 200 million times. Her official YouTube account has had over one billion views.
Photographer and close friend of Amy’s, Blake Wood (not to be confused with her ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil), will release a new book featuring 85 unseen images of the singer. The release date will coincide with the anniversary of her passing. The book will show Amy “the way she saw herself”.
In an interview with Dazed magazine, Blake explained the reason for releasing his private collection of photos.
“With these photos I want to change the conversation around Amy. I think even when I was with her at that time, among all that press, among all the questions and all the judgement, I always tried to instil in people who she was at her core, and not any of these other things that they (the paparazzi) were trying to create.”
One of the images of Amy in Blake's upcoming book (Credit: Blake Wood)
Amy Winehouse’s death is another unfortunate example of an artist burdened by their talent. Although her life was somewhat tarnished with substance abuse and reckless behaviour, Amy should be remembered for her unparalleled talent, and the joy her music brings.