FEATURE:
In My Bed
a new book came out: My Amy: The Life We Shared, written by Amy Winehouse’s best friend, Tyler James. It is one that everyone should own, as I feel it clears up some misconceptions about a musical icon. On 23rd July, it will be ten years since the world lost Amy Winehouse. She was just twenty-seven. Her second studio album, Back to Black, will be fifteen later this year. It is one of the greatest albums of the first decade of this century. There was so much hope and promise. Rather than mourn and be too angry at losing such a remarkable talent so young, I wanted to bring in Tyler James’ book and his recent interview with The Times. I am going to write a couple more articles about Winehouse in the lead-up to the tenth anniversary of her death. One of the things that galls me most is how misperceived Winehouse was. Whilst one cannot blame the press entirely (and their hounding and vilification) for her drug and alcohol abuse, one can definitely hold them accountable. There is this idea that Winehouse was a heavy drug-taker on the day of her death. Many get the idea of someone who was addicted and showing no signs of rehabilitation. That is not true. I think it is important that this untrue idea if laid to rest. One of the tragic things about reading The Times’ interview is hearing her best friend talk about how close Winehouse was to getting clean and starting over.
With more personal space and less press intrusion, who knows what could have been. We’d like to think that she would still be here and, in 2021, Winehouse would be putting out stunning music and having her personality and voice felt across social media. I want to bring in a few parts of the extensive and hugely fascinating interview with Tyler James. It is an emotional interview where we learn how Amy Winehouse was turning her life around and was not dependant on heroin:
“Winehouse had been clean of heroin and crack for three years by the time she died, “But she never gets credit for that,” says James, now 39 years old.
The paparazzi, permanently camped outside the Camden Square house and the flats that had preceded it, all of which she shared with James, had recorded everything up to the point of her death: her skeletal frame from bulimia; her heroin highs; her wounds from self-harm; her destructive and often violent relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil, the man she married and then divorced, who inspired her lyrics for the phenomenal 2006 Back to Black album; her trademark pink ballet slippers splattered with blood; her stumbles in and out of cars with her teetering beehive and winged eyeliner.
“She was always thought of as this fantastic jazz singer, not commercial. I don’t think anybody thought that would happen.” There was a halcyon period where they both had money, and drove around Miami in an open-top car, but it didn’t last long. James was dropped by his label, Island, after a faltering start, which marked the beginning of his own addiction to drink and drugs (later dealt with in rehab, which Winehouse paid for). When Winehouse followed her first album, Frank, released when she just 20, with Back to Black, she quickly began to struggle with the pressure of global fame and her own addictions.
IMAGE CREDIT: Pan Macmillan
“I want people to please, please recognise how hard she had worked to come off drugs and just how close she was to [giving up drink] for good, how close she was to being healthy. She was so, so close to being exactly where I am. I can picture her, where she would be right now in life and it wouldn’t have anything to do with being f***ing famous.
“Amy was a girl in her twenties suffering from addiction, and everybody was a part of it. Everybody was watching it. When you go to rehab, you have to be the strongest you’ve ever been in your life, when you are the weakest you’ve ever been in your life. And she had to go through that in front of people. And I want people to understand how hard that was for her. I want people to know what it was, to stop seeing her as this doomed person.”
I meet Tyler James today because, finally, approaching the tenth anniversary of Winehouse’s death, he has written a heartbreaking book about his life with his best friend. It is called My Amy: The Life We Shared and tells the story from when, aged 13 and brought up in a council house in Canning Town, east London, he met her at theatre school after winning a scholarship, right up to the end when he wrote her a love letter and laid it with her ashes at Edgwarebury Cemetery, Edgware.
“To this day,” he says, “someone will come up to me in the street and say, ‘Ah, you’re Amy Winehouse’s best friend.’ They might not even know my name. But it doesn’t bother me at all. Because I’m proud of that. I feel, ‘Yeah! I was lucky to get to know that girl.’ I don’t regret that everything else went on hold. I don’t regret it at all. She would have done it for me. When you love someone, that’s what you do. You don’t bale out”.
Of course, Amy Winehouse’s legacy is not defined by her troubles and demons. Naturally, one cannot talk about her passing without wondering whether her addiction problems and the press pressure on her shoulders could have been avoided. Rather than think of Winehouse in these terms, there does need to be reappropriation and reappraisal. She seemed like someone who was looking ahead. So many fans can only wonder how her voice would have progressed and what musical direction she would have taken after Back to Black. I know that there will be a mix of celebration and remembrance in July as we mark ten years since Winehouse left us. There has been nobody like her since she died. I feel she is one of these artists who will never be forgotten. A true icon and someone who has inspired so many artists, we shall always remember this gigantic and prodigious talent. A unique voice and a women who, despite having endured some problems, was shy, humble, passionate and compelling. I would recommend that people spend some time listening to Winehouse’s music and watching some of her live performances. They are so amazing, moving and memorable! I am glad that we have a book from Tyler James. It is a chance for people to learn more about the true Amy Winehouse. It is a book that sets the record straight from someone…
WHO knew her so well.