Amy Winehouse was the perfect pop object: her musical talent was combined with acts of an amazing degree of madness.
Amy Winehouse died on 23 July at her home in London. She was 27 years old (as well as Jennis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain), of which the singer spent the last five years, selflessly engaged in her own destruction. In this sense, Winehouse was the ideal pop object: her musical talent combined with acts of an amazing degree of madness. Simply put, the singer always gave reasons for scandals and rarely allowed her to be bored in her presence.
Amy has slowed down a bit over the past two years. It seemed that she had reached the extreme stage of decay, stopped and is now slowly getting out into the light. After a year's lull, the artist began to give concerts (among them - a performance in Moscow), began work on a new disc, which at the very least turned from separate sketches into something quite real. We started talking about a full tour. It doesn't matter that the deadlines were constantly pushed back: the public and the promoters understood who they were dealing with.
Another crisis happened a month ago, when Winehouse, without any explanation, canceled a planned tour of Europe (Athens and Istanbul were affected). The singer made this decision after her performance in Belgrade. The show was a flop in every sense, and it was only natural. Amy started the concert an hour late, could not sing, as she could hardly move her tongue, and eventually left the stage, turning the arrows on her musicians, who were left to play without their leader.
A spokeswoman for the singer said then that Winehouse apologizes to his fans, and disrupting the performance is the best thing that could be "done under the circumstances." A month before, the artist once again went to the Priory Clinic in London. Amy's father insisted on this, and the reason for the treatment was progressive alcoholism.
However, drunkenness is only one of the fatal, as it turned out, shortcomings - or troubles - Amy. There were, of course, drugs as well as serious psychological problems. The British media wrote that Winehouse suffers from manic-depressive psychosis, but does not want to be treated. Plus difficulty with appetite - either bulimia or anorexia. Plus, as the singer herself said, she felt “more a man than a woman, but not a lesbian” (although this can hardly be considered a problem in the modern world) and was distinguished by a tough character, quarreling with managers and the record label.
Fortunately, behind all these difficulties, the music was not lost, otherwise no one just bought her discs and gave a Grammy - and Amy has five of them. A fantastic voice, a talent for composing beautiful songs quickly enough made Winehouse a star, first on a British scale, and then on a world scale, creating a fashion (not for the first and not for the last, apparently, time) for neosoul. Amy is largely responsible for the success of Duffy and Adele, the White Woman Who Sings Black Artists.
“I would agree to live in a dirty hole if they promised me that I would meet with Ray Charles,” Amy said in 2003 after the release of her first album, “Frank”. And she added that by the age of thirty she would certainly give up everything, give birth to seven children and serve the family. The latter was hard to believe - judging by the way the young star played tricks.
Amy with ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil. Her addiction to drugs had a bad effect on her performance: Amy broke all the deadlines, but in the end she got down to business and wrote a lot of new songs, and the main one was "Rehab", in which the artist described everything as it is with frightening frankness. Released in October 2006, the single immediately made it to the UK Top 10. The follow-up new album "Back to Black" by the beginning of 2007 topped the national charts. It was a victory over circumstances - and the peak of Winehouse's career. Resting on her laurels, the singer began to destroy herself again.
In May 2007, Amy married Blake Fielder-Civil, who put her on hard drugs. In August, the singer canceled concerts in Britain and the USA, after which she and her husband went to a rehabilitation clinic, where she lasted five days. In September, the press relished an episode of a couple fighting on the street. The reason for the fight was that Blake found his wife, who uses drugs, in the company of a prostitute. Then Amy's father for the first time said that he was afraid that the matter would end in tragedy.
Actually, such a life - balancing on the edge - Winehouse has led over the past three years. In June 2008, Amy ended up in the hospital where she was diagnosed with emphysema. This did not affect the general behavior in any way, until, finally, at the end of last year, the artist seemed to take up her mind. The media reported that Amy was working in the studio and preparing for concerts. Everything, however, turned out the way, apparently, and should have ended.
“I would agree to live in a dirty hole if they promised me that I would meet with Ray Charles,” Amy said in 2003. Now they will definitely meet.
