23.07.2018
Amy Winehouse in numbers
- She died 7 years ago.
- She was only 27 years old.
- She, therefore, earned a little place in the pantheon of the 27 Club.
- She won the 2007 Brit Award for Best British Female Artist.
- She won, inter alia, 5 Grammy Awards in 2008.
- Her album Back to Black became, after her death and for a time, the UK's best-selling album of the 21st century as it sold 3.26 million copies!
The 27 Club
Amy Winehouse in words
This unique, charismatic and formerly shy girl was born in 1983 in north London. Her ancestors were Russian and Polish Jewish immigrants. Even if she immersed herself into the Jewish culture, she expressed pride in being Jewish but admitted not being religious, even if she frequently performed with a large Star of David medallion.
According to Wikipedia, “she was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul (sometimes labeled as blue-eyed soul and neo-soul), rhythm & blues and jazz“. The connection?
“Many of Winehouse's maternal uncles were professional jazz musicians. Amy's paternal grandmother, Cynthia, was a singer and dated the English jazz saxophonist Ronnie Scott. She and Amy's parents influenced Amy's interest in jazz. Her father, Mitch, often sang Frank Sinatra songs to her” [ibid.]
Mitch “infected” her daughter with his love for Sinatra, something that reflects in the name of her first album in 2003 called “Frank”.
She attended the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School and the Sylvia Young Theatre School, from where she allegedly expelled at 14 for "not applying herself" and piercing her nose.
Amy Winehouse - live in Sylvia young 1998
Turning her sorrow into music
Amy Winehouse turned her sorrow into music and wrote her own history.
Even if she suffered from drugs and alcohol problems, she refused to enter a rehabilitation facility and wrote the song with the known lyrics:
They tried to make me go to rehab
I said, no, no, no
Yes, I’ ve been black
But when I come back, you'll know, know, know
I ain't got the time
And if my daddy thinks I'm fine
He' s tried to make me go to rehab
I won't go, go, go
When her life spilled out of control, as the man she passionately loved, Blake Fielder-Civil, turned back to his previous girlfriend, she wrote the song Back to Black with the known lyrics:
We only said goodbye with words
I died a hundred times
You go back to her
And I go back to black...
The Legend Lives On
Mad about the girl
“This is not the doom-and-gloom false narrative portrayed in the media. She was a brilliant loving soul who made amazing personal triumphs and these images capture that.”
— Blake Wood
2018, 7 years after she passed away...
Photographer Blake Wood met Amy Winehouse at the peak of her career, and for two years they became inseparable. In 85 color and black-and-white photographs, the collection "Amy Winehouse by Blake Wood" records their time together, spanning private moments in London, Paris, and St. Lucia. These previously unseen photographs capture a rare and lighter side of this much-missed icon, and are an intimate homage to Winehouse as she wanted to see herself. (Taschen)
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