Amy Winehouse

by Chas Newkey-Burden

  ‘When I was eighteen, I wasn’t banging their door down. I didn’t go out looking to be famous,’ she says. ‘I’m just a musician.’ Her designated manager at 19 admitted at the time, ‘She can be very frustrating. But I don’t have an issue with her frankness,’ he says. ‘She’s a real artist who’s going to make records for years to come, someone passionate who speaks their mind and isn’t interested in money.’ In 2006, she and Fuller parted company and she took up Raye Cosbert as her new manager.

  Before long, Amy had signed her first record deal with Universal/Island Records. Darcus Beese was the label’s A&R man who signed her and he says his rivals were ‘gutted’ to miss out on Amy. Beese was of course jubilant and arranged to show off his new acquisition to the great and the good of his company. Amy played an acoustic set in the boardroom of Universal/Island. As she sat down in the posh leather seats, she nervously clipped her hair back, politely declining an offer of a glass of water. Then her nerves dispersed as she launched into a smooth, acoustic offering of ‘There Is No Greater Love’. At the end of the song, she received a rapturous round of applause from the music executives, who were delighted to have such a potentially profitable artist on their books. They could see the pound signs in front of their very eyes.

  The artist known as John the White Rapper remembers meeting Amy around this time and being blown away by both her personality and voice. ‘Once there, I didn’t really say much to be honest, but Amy was singing and I remember being shocked – I’d never heard anybody sing so beautifully so close to me; all I could talk about when we walked home was getting her into the studio.’ Their friendship was swiftly declared. ‘After that we started to hang out. I was a bit of a nice guy, really. I’d go round and there’d be mess like you would not believe – piles of washing-up everywhere – and I hate mess so I used to wash up. I think that’s what made her love me.’

  Again, though, Amy wasn’t seeing things quite the same way. Her father Mitch says that, to the laid-back Amy, signing up with Universal/Island was ‘just her way of getting her music out’. Amy confirms this: ‘I honestly never thought I would make any money from music – I figured I’d get a job in an office or as a waitress. I never had a great plan or promoted myself, but in a way I’ve been working for this for years.’ She recalls her sense of puzzlement when it first all took off for her. ‘He [Nicky Shamansky] said to me, “Do you want some studio time?” and I was so green around the gills I was just, like, “For what?” He said, “Well, if you write songs with your guitar and make a record, you’ll get a record deal.” I was like, “Really? What do you get out of it?” I guess I’m a very lucky girl.’

  How typical of Amy – to think she was the lucky one in the equation. To the outsider, the lucky people in this equation were the record company who captured the talent of this extraordinary young woman. Lucky, too, were the listeners who would get to hear her wonderful songs. However, Amy has always put music ahead of not just fame but also ego. In any case, with her signature secured on the contract, the next step for her record label was to get her to put out a record. And what a wonderful yet controversial record it was to prove to be!

  Chapter Four

  TO BE FRANK

  As Mitchell Winehouse drove his taxi around London in the autumn of 2003, he saw posters with his daughter’s face on them. The posters were promoting her new album, Frank. Released on 23 October 2003, Frank is an album of relentless contradictions. Not only did its musical styles and lyrical themes often contrast with each other, so did much of the wider story of the album, which was spoken of more highly by many reviewers than it was by Amy herself.

  It was produced mainly by the renowned hip-hop producer Salaam Remi, who was a fantastic man to have at the controls. Best known for his work with the American rapper Nas, Remi has produced such commercial tunes as Ini Kamoze’s ‘Here Comes the Hotstepper’ and the Fugees’s multi-platinum album The Score. He has also worked with Ms Dynamite, Toni Braxton and Lauryn Hill.

  Hill’s debut album has been cited by Amy as having had a huge influence on her as a youngster. She is also a huge fan of Nas, telling one interviewer, ‘I am Nas’s biggest fan. He’s my favourite. I’ve been in the club when he’s walked in and I’ve had a panic attack and had to walk out. It’s like Michael Jackson, Bad-era hysteria.’ For Frank, Remi was at the controls for the majority of the tunes and also played bass on some of the tracks.

  Despite having such a star-studded CV, he does not have a huge celebrity presence of his own – quite deliberately. He explains, ‘I didn’t want to be seen as a public figure. An industry person, cool – most people in the industry over five or six years, I have crossed paths with them, because I have been around that long, so all the presidents and senior VPs I have crossed paths with them by now, but I am not really or want to be a public figure. I like to be known by industry peers and people I work with, but I like the fact that I can walk around.’

  Nor does the broad range of genres he works in ever cause him any confusion as he moves from artist to artist. Indeed, he believes it enhances his work. ‘I think the fact that I listen to and work on different types of music keeps me fresh whenever I get back to whatever it is,’ he says. ‘A lot of the times, I create based on the project and the artist. It’s not like I’m just making it just for making it’s sake; sometimes I do that, but I’ll get into Amy Winehouse, and I won’t be thinking about what I did for Shabba Ranks. It’s different, but, say, on the Amy Source album, there’s a cover of “Moody’s Mood for Love”, which is a jazz song by James Moody and King Pleasure, and we made that into a Reggae song. So [with] me having different influences, I can mix it. But I also keep them separate just by working around the artist’s project at hand, whatever’s needed.’

  Expanding on his methodology, Remi said, ‘I am concerned with songs that are going to stick and that takes a vehicle, great lyrics that are going to stick, that is when you’re going to get a classic album overall. I really get in and work with people and work on a lot of music if I have my choice and, even if someone only wants to do one song, I’m, like, “Let’s do four and you can pick the best one off it.”’

  One of the songwriters Amy had worked with on the album was Felix Howard. He told music critic Garry Mulholland that the beginning of their songwriting partnership was amusing. ‘He told me that, the first time she turned up at his studio to write with him, she picked up her battered old acoustic guitar and started playing this song that just lasted for ever and ever and ever,’ reveals Mulholland. ‘Felix had to say, “Stop! Maybe you could sing “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” [a hellishly indulgent Bob Dylan track] in five years’ time when you have an audience!” He said she was just on her own planet. She’d no interest in what the market was looking for. Her instincts have to be reined in by the producers and songwriters she works with. She’d probably be writing fifteen- or twenty-minute-long folk odysseys with no chorus.’

  Frank was recorded in Miami, where Remi has quite a setup. ‘My main studio is in Miami in my home,’ he says. ‘Every room in my house has something musical. I have ridiculous amounts of equipment. I call my house Instrument Zoo.’ Among the musicians to work with Amy on the album were guitarists Binky Griptite and Thomas Brenneck, drummers Troy Auxilly-Wilson and Homer Steinweiss, saxophonists Andy Mackintosh, Chris Davies, Jamie Talbot, Mike Smith and Neal Sugarman and pianist John Adams. Handclaps were provided by Vaughan Merrick, Mark Ronson and Victor Axelrod. The sound effects were generated by American producer, rapper and actor RZA. Aside from two cover versions, Amy co-wrote or, in the case of ‘I Heard Love is Blind’, wrote every track on the album.

  So what did the album actually sound like? With its smoky, jazzy sound, opener ‘Stronger Than Me’ is a lament of the new man. Amy addresses a man who is seven years older than she is but refuses to play a masculine, leading role in a relationship. Instead, he wants to talk things through with her and put her in control. He wants her to meet his mother but she just wants to have sex with
him and asks since when did that become a crime? As a result of all this, Amy has forgotten the joy that love can bring. She’s tired of comforting him and wants him to comfort her. At one point, she even asks if he is gay. In the Observer Music Monthly, the excellent Garry Mulholland was outraged and delighted in equal measure. He wrote how ‘liberal, reconstructed, ex-student males’ had for so long been adored by the female singer-songwriter, ‘and then this Jewish teenager from Camden comes along and tells us we’re just a bunch of poofs.’

  Mulholland identifies how, to Amy, a man ‘showing his sensitive side is about as sexy as setting light to his farts’. However, he adores ‘the subtle, soulful music and a voice so assured, joyful and deeply committed in its anger it’s hard to believe it comes from one so young’. He concludes rousingly, that ‘My worldview is threatened by it. Which means it is doing what pop ought to do – putting its head above the parapet: “This is what I really feel, so fuck you.”’ Some wondered if Amy was homophobic, thanks to lines about a ‘ladyboy’ and her asking whether her lover is gay. Given her enthusiastic interviews with the gay press and appearances at gay venues, it seems unlikely. Moreover, her target with these lines is wimpy straight boys, rather than gay men. Also worth noting is that, when Kelly Osbourne once asked Amy if she considered herself a pin-up, Amy quipped, ‘Only to gays.’

  Talking of the song herself, Amy said, ‘Some of the songs, like “Stronger Than Me” [which castigates an oversensitive paramour] were written at a time in my life when I was too [messed] up to do anything apart from write songs – when I felt I would have gone crazy and smashed my room up.’ A fan, Jo-Ann Hodgson, wrote on a fan site:

  She stands out as having real songwriting talent and a strong soulful voice in a music scene being overtaken by impostors. This song takes the unusual angle of a woman asking her boyfriend to toughen up.

  Amy says:,

  The gay thing was me just wanting some affection. It’s not like I need to be the centre of attention all the time. But if my man comes round and turns on the TV, unless it’s football I’m like, ‘Are you even attracted to me?’ They’re very personal and very intense, in a way. But I think there’s a lot of humour in there as well. I’ve always wanted to present a point with a twist. You know, like ‘I’m really angry about this, you’re a bastard and you can’t even get a boner!’ I just want to say things I would find funny if I heard them.

  ‘You Sent Me Flying’ is a beautiful piano ballad detailing a rejection that sent Amy flying. Full of familiar Amy imagery about stolen cigarettes, battered jeans and Beastie Boys T-shirts, it blends the theme of heartbreak with a rousing defiance. Towards the song’s end, Amy explains that she isn’t actually as into the man as she might appear to be and the music goes uptempo to reflect this comforting and defiant reflection. She also comforts herself that he delivered the news in a kind way and, well, at least he was attracted to her.

  Tagged on the end of ‘You Sent…’ is ‘Cherry’, a short and fun guitar song in which Amy talks about how her friend Cherry understands her better than her man does. Cherry, though, is her new guitar, whose every sound Amy loves. Perhaps, she reflects, if her man were made of wood and strings then the two could have as good a relationship as she enjoys with Cherry. It’s a fun, light-hearted song and picks up the mood of the album.

  ‘Know You Now’ is a light and easy tune set to jazzy guitar with background flute and bird song. Amy does some fantastic ad-libs towards the song’s close and her vocal performance on this track is reminiscent of Mary J Blige.

  Then comes another of the album’s standout tracks ‘Fuck Me Pumps’. Co-written with Salaam Remi and conceived by him, this is a simple but catchy tune and a strong live favourite. The lyric concerns the wannabe footballers’ wives who are prevalent in much of twenty-first-century nightlife. At times Amy is scathing of them, saying they all look the same, and then mocks them for losing their charm as they approach thirty. She also identifies their hypocrisy in that they claim not to be chasing footballers but clearly are. However, as the song progresses, Amy has kinder words for them. Without such people, she declares, there would be no fun nightlife to be had. This is very much a twenty-first-century song, not just for the trend it identifies but also for its contemporary references to boob jobs and text messages. It’s jazz for the Heat magazine generation. ‘I have, like, pairs of them,’ she said about her penchant for high heels. ‘I’m a hypocrite in a way, because I’m poking fun in the song, but that’s all I wear.’

  When it was released as a single, the title was changed to the more radio-friendly ‘F Me Pumps’. She says, ‘Well, the single’s actually “Fuck Me Pumps” with “Help Yourself” on the other side of it. In the video I mouth the words “Fuck me”, but they took the audio out in the edit! The first time I saw it I was, like, “Fuck! Where’s my ‘fuck’? I say ‘fuck’ there!” I’d love them to run it on CD:UK with the “fuck” in. But they won’t.’

  One line in the song uses the word ‘sket’ and Amy was once asked what this word means. ‘A sket is like a dirty, pikey girl. Say you’re with your little brother who’s thirteen and you see a ratty little girl who you know. He’ll go “I really like that girl,” and you’ll go “Please don’t go anywhere near her, she’s a right sket.” She’s a girl who’s manky. Manky inside.’

  ‘I Heard Love Is Blind’ is two minutes and ten seconds of Amy soulfully pleading for forgiveness for cheating on her man. Set to a simple tune of acoustic guitar and flute, the song’s lyric details a moment of infidelity Amy committed when left alone by her man. However, she pleads, she wasn’t really cheating on her man because she was thinking of him when she came and the man she slept with looked like her boyfriend in any case. Surely he wouldn’t want her to be lonely – and she didn’t let the man hold her hand. ‘I believe in casual sex,’ Amy said while discussing this song. ‘I know it’s sad that I think cheating on people is fine. But I think it’s like smoking a spliff. Oops, I’ve gobbed on meself!’

  ‘There Is No Greater Love’ is a cover of an Isham Jones number and joins ‘Moody’s Mood for Love’ as a great nod to the artists who have influenced and thrilled Amy. However, the classic sound of both tunes is contrasted sharply by the next song on the album – ‘In My Bed’. With a trip-hop beat and contemporary production, this song is also far longer than many of the others on the album. She is seen singing this song acoustically on the documentary included on the DVD I Told You I Was Trouble. At five minutes and seventeen seconds, it far outlasts the likes of ‘I Heard…’ (two minutes and ten seconds) and ‘Know You Now’ (three minutes and three seconds).

  The song amounts to an ultimatum from Amy to her boyfriend. She wants him to separate sex from emotion but fears he is unable to do this. She feels their relationship has gone stale and there is nothing new for her to learn. She has to look away when they make love because everything is so familiar and to her that’s not a good thing. She concludes that, unless he agrees to see and approach things her way, then her way will be a different way – away from him. She also memorably points out that she holds his hand only to, ahem, help him get the angle right.

  ‘Take the Box’ details the drama of a break-up. A mournful jazz song, it was chosen as a single and charted highest of all the album’s singles. During the song she hands back the presents her man gave her, including a Frank Sinatra album and a Moschino bra. As the break-up becomes more traumatic, even the neighbours get dragged into the drama. Such public laundry washing would become true in the future for Amy, of course. She concludes that someone who up until this day was beautiful has turned ugly in her eyes because of something awful he has said. This was selected as a stand-out track by many reviewers, including that of the Guardian.

  With an infectious funky guitar riff and hip-hop percussion, ‘October Song’ features a surprisingly mature vocal performance, even by Amy’s widely admired standards. Managing to produce an upbeat jazz track out of the death of her pet canary, Amy shows a heartbreakingly sweet side
to her character here. She consoles herself that her pet Ava has flown to paradise.

  A dark, soulful wah-wah guitar line dominates ‘What Is It About Men?’. Amy mourns that she has at times chosen the wrong man in her life. She feels she does this as naturally as she sings. She says her destructive side is growing and asks herself repeatedly: what is it about men? This track has been described by the Observer as ‘a sneery examination of said subject which is quite obviously about her dad and his romantic entanglements’. As for Amy, she confirmed the links with her dad. ‘It’s me trying to work out my dad’s problems with sticking with one woman, trying to make sense of why he did certain things. I completely understand it now. People like to have sex with people. I don’t begrudge my dad just because he has a penis. What’s the point?’

  For his part, Mitchell is philosophical about Amy’s wanton laundering of dirty linen. ‘I think it’s only the first part that’s specifically about me,’ he says. ‘The rest of it is more generally about what rats men are. But the song’s given me pause for thought, because the divorce obviously coloured her view of men.’

  ‘Help Yourself’ can best be seen as a sister track to ‘Stronger Than Me’. Again, Amy is berating her man for not being strong enough. She is tired of carrying him and having to hold his head above water for him. She cannot help him unless he is equally willing to help himself. Although her lover is twenty-five years old, she sees him more as a sixteen-year-old. His degree in philosophy doesn’t impress her one bit because where you are now is far more important than where you have been. Again, Amy is fair and stresses that she has walked in her lover’s shoes and so understands his dilemma. All the same, she’s had enough of the situation as it stands.