On Saturday afternoon, I was watching a True Life marathon on MTV, trying to relax after getting back from the gym. The episode that was playing was "I Hate My Roomate" which I had seen a couple of times before. I started flipping through the channels to see if anything else was on. After going through all of the movies channels, I ended up on E!. Suddenly, I saw a ticker at the bottom of the screen that said that Amy Winehouse had been found dead in her London flat.
"OH MY GOD!" I yelled. My cousin asked me what was wrong and I said that Amy Winehouse had died. "WHAT?!" she said. I ran downstairs to get my laptop, flipped it open and typed cnn.com into my browser. There it was on the main page, highlighted with a "Breaking News" banner. Amy Winehouse was dead. Immediately I felt sad and ill.
One thing that seems to be the same with everyone's reaction when they heard of her passing was that no one was surprised. I wasn't surprised. We all know her history with drugs and alcohol and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who wondered how she managed to survive for so long in the first place.
I hadn't kept up much with what Amy had been doing lately but every once in a while, I'd see a photo of her on a gossip blog, walking around her neighborhood or hanging out with her boyfriend or something. She looked good. Certainly much better than those days she was running around town barefoot, with deshevled hair and smeared makeup. And I thought that she was finally getting her shit together.
A few weeks ago when video started to circulate of her horrendous performance in Serbia, I was so pissed off at her. I wanted to reach through the video and shake some sense into her and scream, "What the fuck is wrong with you?! Do you know how fucking talented you are? You're just pissing it all away and you don't even seem to care." When her camp released a statement saying that she was canceling the rest of her tour dates, I thought that was a sensible thing to do and hoped that the next time she came back, it would be in a good way.
But now she's dead. And any hope that any of us had for a healthier and better Amy is gone.
Towards the end of 2006, "Rehab" was floating around all of the music blogs that I frequented and the second I heard it, I was hooked. I didn't know who this Amy Winehouse person was but thought, "DAMN! This black girl can sing!" And then I saw what she looked like.
It's always a surprise when you're looking at someone and the voice that comes out of them isn't what you expected. But it's even crazier when you hear a voice first, and then see the person who it belongs to and the two don't match up in the slightest. Amy wasn't like anything that I pictured in my head. Here was this skinny, white, petite, English chick with the biggest bee hive hair since Priscilla Presley just demanding my fucking attention with a voice that you just didn't hear in modern day music. "Rehab" was catchy, super cheeky, dark, sad, funny, and just a plain damn good song. I searched the music blogs for as many of her other songs as I could find. Back to Black was out in the UK already (it was actually released in the UK on my birthday October, 4th) but wasn't released in the U.S. until March of 2007. I ordered it, along with some other albums from Amazon and waited eagerly for it to arrive.
I quickly fell in love with this record. I loved Amy's voice, her throw-back style, her fantastic sense of humor and the honesty with which she sang about her experiences. While I listened to every song over and over again, the one that really grabbed a hold of me was "He Can Only Hold Her." It's not a very long song, ending almost as soon as it begins, but those horns get me every time and the chorus is perfect.
When I found out that Amy would play a show at Highline Ballroom, I was so excited and made sure to stay on top of the ticket situation so that I'd be sure to get some. She had already played a show in New York so I wasn't going to miss another one. Luckily, tickets were cheap (something between $10-$12 I think which is nothing compared to what her tickets would go for now) and super hassle-free to purchase.
My cousin Nerrissa also loved Amy's record so I took her with me to the show. We went to Burgers and Cupcakes beforehand and then headed over to the venue. Some people who had been there earlier in the day said that Amy had come out to talk to fans and sign stuff and take photos and I thought that was super awesome of her. We got a good spot for the show. Patrick Wolf opened and he played a great set as Amy looked on from the VIP section smooching on and drinking with her then boyfriend/fiance Blake. When she finally took to the stage, the crowd was so excited. At this point, she had already had some much talked about bad performances and so there was definitely a sense of uncertainty in the air. But Amy didn't dissapoint and she played a great show.
Afterwards, we tried to meet her outside the venue, but once she left the building, she hoped into an SUV. A swarm of paparazzi came out of nowhere and started taking pictures like mad! I had only been in New York for a year and some change at that point but had never seen paparazzi in real life so that was totally crazy to me. I wondered if that happened to her everywhere she went and thought how awful it must be if it did.
Amy only got more popular after I saw her live and her legend seemed to grow and grow every day. How drunk was she going to be at her next show? How awful would she look the next time photographers snapped a photo of her? When she won all of those Grammy Awards for Back to Black (awards she couldn't even accept in person due to not getting her visa in time) I saw a woman who, despite her many faults and issues, had the platform to really turn her shit around and really live up to that same Amy that we fell in love with on record.
Every time I saw something unfavorable about Amy in the press, it just made me so sad because it always overshadowed and cheapened her talent. And while many legendary musicians have also struggled with additions, most of them didn't live in an age like ours where every little thing you do is inspected and torn apart and criticized. I can only imagine the pressure she felt with so many judging eyes on her while she wrestled with her demons.
I had always hoped Amy would surprise us one day and come out stronger and better having gone through her troubles. And if I am to believe some things I've read about her final days and weeks, she had sworn off the hard stuff and was seriously committed to getting back on track. It seems that her autopsy was inconclusive and so we may not know for a while what caused her death. But that doesn't even matter because knowing won't make her any less dead.
When I was a teenager the grunge/alternative scene was all the rage and I loved bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Soundgarden, Nirvana and The Smashing Pumpkins. However, there was a period where it seemed that musicians were dying left and right from drug overdoses: Kristin Pfaff, Bradley Nowell, Shannon Hoon, Jonathan Melvoin. Their deaths had a huge impact on me, seeing all of these really talented people with bright futures and so much going on for them, being gone in an instant because of an addiction. I had always heard that the easiest way to quit smoking was to never start and it seemed to me that the same could be said for drugs.
Amy left us with a great legacy of wonderful music. But hopefully her death will also serve as a warning to people and show that addiction is a very real, very deadly thing that will do its best to swallow you whole. I only wish Amy was still around to show us that she could've beaten it. I honestly feel like she really did want to and would have some day.
When I remember Amy going forward, I hope to mostly think about the music she's left us with. I hope to remember smart, deeply personal and heart-achingly powerful lyrics and flawless performances like this one. I hope that we never forget that when she was on her game, the girl could really belt it out. And she could look damn good doing it.
Amy Winehouse
(September 14, 1983 – July 23, 2011)
