Amy Winehouse

by Chas Newkey-Burden

  ‘I step back, look at life and think, “Well, they’ve put him away.” I can see life taking care of the situation. I was more worried when they were together. I think, while they’re apart, she’ll wake up and think, “What have I done?” Again, it’s a sense of fate. Thank God he’s gone inside, because it’s also a case of now he’s going to learn.’

  And so to Scotland, for the second date of her UK tour. As a spokesman for the Glasgow Barrowlands venue was expressing concern over whether Amy would show up for the concert – ‘There is a worry that she will not front with everything that’s going on,’ he said; ‘it would be a tremendous shame if she didn’t play’ – Amy was boarding a flight to Glasgow. She reportedly nipped into the toilets for a crafty smoke, prompting a bitchy announcement over the intercom from one of the flight crew. ‘Our famous little friend is smoking in the toilet,’ said the air hostess. ‘It’s just that the smoke alarm hasn’t gone off yet.’ A fellow passenger said Amy seemed to be under the influence of something. ‘She was lolling in her seat and looked totally out of it. She kept locking herself in the toilet. Other passengers were having to troop to the other end of the plane and were getting annoyed.’ After disembarking at Glasgow Airport, Amy became annoyed with her security guard. ‘What the fuck is this airport all about?’ she screamed at him.

  There were screams, too, as she took to the stage at Glasgow Barrowlands later that night. The audience gave her a deafeningly warm welcome and the relief on not just her face but those of her band was clear. Wearing a stunning silk dress, she told the crowd, ‘This is the second night of the tour but it feels like the first. I love you, Glasgow.’ Once more, she dedicated ‘Wake Up Alone’ to Blake and said, ‘This song is for those people who are lucky enough to wake up every morning with the person they are in love with. This one’s for my husband. I love you. I love you, too, Glasgow.’

  As she introduced the closing number, ‘Valerie’, she said, ‘I might not be able to be with my Blake in a minute. But let me tell you something: my husband is the best man in the world.’ As she took her much-deserved bows, she paid tribute to the crowd, saying, ‘Thank you so much for having us. I mean it, and I’m sorry I was late.’

  The following night’s performance at the Barrowlands was also well received, with one fan describing it as ‘flawless and fantastic’.

  Could this performance herald a calming in the media coverage of her? No chance, especially as a video was uploaded to YouTube which, it was claimed, showed her snorting drugs during a concert performance. The footage shows her retrieving something from her beehive and holding it near her nose. It was taken during her performance at Zurich in October. The conclusion that she must have been taking drugs onstage was reached too quickly. She could just as easily have been wiping her nose with a tissue; the footage is inconclusive. At least the Sun managed to get a clever pun out the episode, asking: IS AMY MIS-BEEHIVING? The same newspaper also claimed that, as the tour bus left Glasgow, some clingfilm wrapped in burnt foil was thrown out of the window.

  Then news broke that a sixth man, Michael Brown, had been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in connection with Blake’s case. However, with Blake incarcerated, some of those close to her were keen to try to move her away from him.

  ‘Her friends are trying to pull her the other way now she’s no longer under his influence,’ said one. ‘A number of them are over the moon he’s been locked away as it gives them a chance to work on her – but she seems determined to stick by him. Her father Mitch is keeping an eye on her as she’s so vulnerable at the moment and is known for self-harming, so there are concerns for her wellbeing. Her friends and family are worried she might do herself some harm.’

  Amy’s uncle, Brian Linton, went as far as sending an email to the Sunday Mirror saying, ‘We are still worried sick about Amy but now there may be a chance to break the Svengali-like hold Blake has over her.’

  Blake, meanwhile, was also trying to keep an eye on her, albeit from the confines of prison. During a telephone conversation with Amy he said, ‘For the first time in months I’ve been eating three square meals a day. I feel so much better. But you’re taking drugs, not eating and now you’re fainting. You’ve got to eat properly and stop sticking your finger down your throat. Bulimia’s taking a terrible toll on you.’ There were signs that Amy was ready to take more care of herself when she signed up for a six-month course with a yoga guru. ‘She loves the yoga, which is practised to music,’ said a friend. ‘The idea is it gives you a natural high and takes away the desire to do drugs.’

  It was a week for people to come out of the woodwork and criticise Amy, using her troubles for their own ends and pinning their own issues onto her. Even Antonio Maria Costa, head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, managed to put the boot in, blaming her for poverty in Africa. ‘Rock stars like Amy Winehouse become popular by singing “I ain’t going to rehab” even though she badly needed, and eventually sought, treatment… A sniff here and a sniff there in Europe are causing another disaster in Africa, to add to its poverty, its mass unemployment and its pandemics,’ he said.

  While being held responsible for poverty in Africa, Amy was simultaneously the inspiration for a photoshoot arranged with controversial Big Brother contestant Jade Goody. So impressed is Goody by Amy that she and boyfriend Jack Tweed dressed up as Amy and Blake for the photos. Goody donned a beehive and had fake tattoos over her arm while Tweed donned a trilby hat, Blake-style.

  However, what was ridiculous was the tabloid tale that held Amy responsible for the killing of a hamster, allowing the Daily Mirror to paraphrase one of tabloid journalism’s most famous headlines, screaming: AMY WINEHOUSE KILLED MY HAMSTER! (This was a nod to a celebrated Sun front-page headline of March 1986 that read, FREDDIE STARR ATE MY HAMSTER, a claim later denied by both Starr and Max Clifford, the publicist behind the story.) The story concerns Peter Pepper, a former session musician for Amy.

  One birthday, he received a hamster as a pet. He named it Georgie Porgie. As Pepper and Amy sank drink after drink one night, he got Georgie out to show her. Eventually, Pepper went to bed, leaving Amy still drinking. After a while, he got back up and found Amy had drunk the drinks cabinet dry. Pepper, now a member of the band Palladium, who opened for Amy at her Somerset House concert, goes on: ‘The next thing I know, Georgie bites me, runs off and Amy says she’ll catch it. I was a bit suspicious when she said she was good with hamsters. Just hours later, the hamster was stone cold and hard. I don’t know what she did to it!’

  He describes the whole experience as ‘particularly traumatic’, explaining, ‘Not only did I have to deal with a dead hamster, but for some reason Amy had also managed to unplug the freezer and flooded the whole kitchen and utility room.’

  Sounds like a great night!

  Another great night was her next stop on the tour. In Newcastle she appeared on stage forty-five minutes late, apologised ‘from the depths of my heart’ for her lateness and gave a triumphant performance, which was received rapturously by the audience. Crucially, ‘she seems to be reconnecting with the simple highs of performing before an audience who love her’, wrote reviewer Dave Simpson in the Guardian. Having noticed a young girl in the audience with a ‘fantastic’ beehive haircut, she passed her a present. She also implored her audience to send a present of their own to Blake. ‘I’m going to send him a bouquet of flowers. And I want everyone here to send Blake a red rose.’ She then gave out his address at London’s Pentonville Prison, where he was on remand. After a few drinks with her band, Amy went to stay with an aunt and uncle. They watched Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead.

  It wasn’t only family who were lifting her spirits. Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty was also in regular contact with Amy during this troubling period. ‘I speak to Amy almost every day,’ he said. ‘She just wants her man back for Christmas. They’re desperately in love. One good thing is that Blake’s got clean since he’s been in prison. It’s been quite an awakening. Am
y stopped doing everything since he went in. She realises how much they have to lose. They’re going to lose each other if it carries on. Love, music and melody is the way forward.’

  However, Amy had less than glowing words to say about Doherty during Blake’s continued incarceration in 2007. ‘Why have they given Pete so many chances? It’s not fair that my Blake is locked away,’ she said. ‘I thought they would give him bail, just like they do with Pete.’

  Then, she was seen giving a cigarette to a random drunk guy called ‘Des’, who claimed he had waited for five hours to talk to the singer after he was refused entrance to a club. Amy lent him a smoke, which she signed ‘Amy Civil’ before boarding her tour bus. As the following day’s papers delighted in reporting, Amy appeared to have a white substance around her nose, sparking conclusions that she had been snorting cocaine. WINEHOUSE GOES BACK TO WHITE, said the Sun. Meanwhile, the Daily Mail quipped, IS IT IMPOLITE TO ASK IF YOU’VE BEEN TO POWDER YOUR NOSE, AMY WINEHOUSE? Then came Blackpool, where she told the crowd of Blake, ‘He would have loved to have been here. I spoke to him last night but I can only call either before or after EastEnders.’ Nice detail.

  Two fantastic concerts at Brixton Academy followed. At the start of the first, Amy bounced onto the stage looking full of life. As the opening bars of the set opener, ‘Addicted’, kicked in, she tried to grab her guitar but the strap was tangled in the guitar stand and a desperate struggle ensued in order for her to make it to the microphone in time for her first verse. This was as close as the evening came to disaster.

  However, prior to her third London concert, this time at the Hammersmith Apollo, Amy reportedly locked herself in her hotel room and refused to go to the venue. Her management team spent some time desperately trying to coax her out, with one being overheard saying, ‘I can’t take this any more. She’s a nightmare!’ She eventually turned up on the stage an hour late at 10.15 p.m., by which time boos were echoing across the venue and some fans were already demanding refunds.

  Fans were quoted as describing the performance as a shambles. ‘I paid to see Amy, not some spaced-out girl wandering around,’ said one. Another added, ‘I’ve never seen so many people leave a gig early. Get help, Amy.’ To be fair, the sentiments aired by fans on the forum of her official website were even harsher. One vowed never to buy a ticket to any acts signed to her record label ever again. The Daily Mail slated her appearance, saying her ‘smeared make-up, tattoos and a cigarette clenched between her teeth’ shocked her fans. It’s safe to say that most of her fans would have been aware that Amy smoked and had one or two tattoos on her body, so their shock would presumably have been minimal at best.

  At least Amy could console herself with the news that the leading US magazine Entertainment Weekly had voted her the ‘most buzzed-about star’. Meanwhile, ‘Valerie’ spent its nineteenth week in the Top Forty, retaining its position at Number 5. She also found an unlikely ally in the lead singer of the rockers Queens of the Stone Age. During the closing stages of the band’s concert at Brixton Academy, frontman Joss Home interrupted the song ‘Feelgood Hit of the Summer’ thus: ‘They tried to make me go to rehab, and I said “no, no, no”… because that’s the kind of guy I am, baby. “Rehab”? We could hang out on the Thursday, but I’m so busy. I’m so busy with with… nicotine, Valium, vicodin, marijuana, ecstasy and alcohol. We could hang out on Friday, but then there’s the…’ And then he burst into the song’s refrain, loudly shouting, ‘C-c-c-c-c-cocaine!’

  By now, the press were flocking to Amy’s concerts in the hope of further drama or disaster. The best they could do with her next leg of the tour gave the phrase ‘scraping the bottom of the barrel’ a whole new resonance. They revealed that Amy – shock, horror and hold that front page – caught a taxi home after her concert in Brighton.

  ‘It was really strange,’ said an incredulous eyewitness to the drama. ‘She appeared to be taking a gentle stroll along the seafront with a friend. Then a cabbie pulled up and they both got in.’ But, then, even the most commonplace events in Amy’s life have the potential to make headlines. One story in the Sun concerned her going to a shop and stocking up on food. ‘She was buying bread, cereal, mince, butter, crisps – just the normal things you would stock your kitchen with,’ revealed an eyewitness! Turning back to the Brighton taxi episode, as she was due to perform at nearby Bournemouth the following night, the media spoke of the ‘mystery’ of why she would return to London overnight. Her home is in London and her husband was locked up in prison in London. Not the biggest mystery of the millennium.

  The mystery, such as it was, was solved the following day as news broke that Amy had cancelled all remaining concerts and public appearances for the remainder of 2007, after her doctor advised her to take a complete rest. ‘I can’t give it my all onstage without my Blake. I’m so sorry but I don’t want to do the shows half-heartedly. I love singing. My husband is everything to me and without him it’s just not the same.’

  The concert promoters Live Nation followed up, saying,

  Amy Winehouse has cancelled all remaining live and promotional appearances for the remainder of the year on the instruction of her doctor. The rigours involved in touring and the intense emotional strain that Amy has been under in recent weeks have taken their toll. In the interests of her health and wellbeing, Amy has been ordered to take complete rest and deal with her health issues. Refunds for the remaining dates will be issued from the point of purchase.

  Some claimed that Amy was told to quit the tour after she had partied hard for three days and three nights without sleep. However, those close to her say that she had spent those evenings not partying but working – recording her third album.

  News of the cancellation also put paid to the more-than-fishy rumour that she had been planning a performance at Pentonville Prison, in front of Blake. Said a friend: ‘Amy has been in pieces ever since Blake was arrested. She can’t stand the thought of him being alone in prison and wants to play a show there. She thinks it would be a fitting tribute to him, it would cheer him up and it would also help her cope with being separated from him.’

  Amy had left the tour suddenly for a meeting in London. She was reportedly delighted by the cancellation of the tour. A source says, ‘She was in a terrible state… She looked awful and had been in floods of tears. She was fragile and weak like an old woman. It was depressing to watch. When the tour was cancelled it was like a weight lifted off her shoulders immediately.’

  Her mother Janis was quick to give her seal of approval to Amy’s brave decision. ‘Amy’s got to take the opportunity of getting herself fitter and stronger. She thinks she’s strong but she isn’t. I hope she uses the chance to fully recover. I hope she’ll take it easy for a while and then get back to writing new material. She’s got to get herself clean. It’s a matter of her personal survival.’

  Fans were quick to send Amy messages of support. One wrote, ‘We’ll miss you for the little while you’re out of the limelight, but we know you’ll be back and wonderful and better than ever.’ Another wrote, ‘Do the right thing by your health. You’ll come back stronger than ever! We’ll all be here for you!’ Writing on Amy’s MySpace profile, a third said,

  I am so glad they finally cancelled it. It is heartbreaking to see her like this. I’ve been lucky enough to see her live twice this tour (once in Belgium and once in England), but I can honestly say that if it got cancelled right before these gigs, I would have been ok with it. Cancelling has been a good thing to do. I hope she will get better soon. I love Amy with all my heart.

  However, in an online debate on the BBC website, one user was less sympathetic, saying,

  I think that she’s killed her career off now. Fair enough if doctors are telling her that she needs to rest or go to rehab or whatever but saying you can’t perform because your husband is in jail is just sheer lunacy. The public don’t have much sympathy for [Blake] anyway so cannot understand why she should be so bothered. As far as most are concerned she’s probably
got a better chance of sorting herself out without him around.

  Blake’s arrest had interrupted a much-needed rest for Amy over the festive break. Before he had been arrested, it was reported, Blake planned to take Amy to India for Christmas. ‘So the beehived singer has agreed to fly to Miami with pals immediately after Hanukkah celebrations with her Jewish parents Mitch and Janis,’ said reports. Her hairdresser Alex Foden confirmed this: ‘Amy told me Blake wants her to go away for Christmas to get away from it all. She’s not on top of the world. But speaking to Blake on the phone helps. She’ll go to Miami if Blake keeps going on about it because she loves him and wants to make him happy.’

  In the meantime, Amy stayed in London and was photographed on the capital’s streets in the early hours of the morning in December. Wearing just her jeans and bra on a freezing London night, Amy appeared confused and worse for wear as she was snapped at 5.30 a.m. wandering the streets of Bow. ‘She came out of the house, walked down the drive and wandered around on the pavement for a bit,’ said a local who witnessed the episode. ‘She looked upset and agitated, but there was no obvious reason for her to have come outside. It was weird.’

  Amy’s camp put out a statement trying to stem the tide of hysteria that was increasingly surrounding this fragile young woman:

  Amy had been asleep and heard a noise. She went outside to investigate. She didn’t realise the time. She was not on an all-night-bender. She heard all these noises, and she went outside to look and there were all these photographers… of course she looked startled. In light of recent reports, it’s easy to make false assumptions, but she’s getting better and she needs the space to do that.