http://news.yahoo.com/singer-amy-winehouse-found-dead-164948160.html
Holy shit, man.
. . . . . . . our generation's Janis Joplin?
http://news.yahoo.com/singer-amy-winehouse-found-dead-164948160.html
Holy shit, man.
. . . . . . . our generation's Janis Joplin?
I don't even know how to start. A lot of people hated her tbh, but its a shame regardless. So much talent wasted on drugs and alcohol…
She could have been amazing.
Well kinda her own fault , but still rip seeing she was a great singer
I never was a big fan of her music and of course not a fan of her drug abusing.
Of course it's sad but I always hope that a death like that will be seen as a warning to other addicts. Hopeless hope, I guess.
Well, Rest in Peace either way.
Wow. This surprised me though I know it shouldn't with her lifestyle… It's a real pity. She was still so young.. May she rest in peace.
I was never a fan of hers really, but it's still sad to see.
But really, 27? The magic number strikes again…
RIP Amy
Not a huge fan, but sad nonetheless.
Sad to hear that, I liked her music.
I remember people placing bets on when she would actually die.
Not a fan of her music, but it was obvious she had talent. It's sad to see that happen.
She was better then many of her peers. Unfortunate but unsurprising news.
That's a sad news. She was a really talented artist.
RIP
I absolutely loved her voice, maybe not her as an artist, but her voice was majestic.
And this was… to be expected, it actually took longer than I thought it would take, none-the-less RIP.
Wow … I just went to sleep for a bit and I wake up and see all these 'RIPs' ... at first I thought it was some Facebook group, but then I see more and more ... RIP Amy. I've enjoyed some of your music.
Amy Winehouse. Talent wasted on addiction. As nami stated, a strong message can be probably the only positive thing from such a young death.
Tragic as the news may be…
It was bound to happen.
As sad as this is to say, my sentiments mirror Tonfa and everyone saying the same.
A few weeks back when she half-assed that concert because she was too drunk/drugged out and got booed off stage, I knew this was just a matter of time.
It doesn't make it any less sad, loss of life is always sad, but just… wow, poor woman. Addiction is a hell of a thing...
I have to say, I saw this coming.
But I'm still sadden by her death. A lot of good singers have been killed by drugs.
Always sucks when somebody young dies, regardless of who they are or what they do.
RIP Amy, i dont like her music style and way she lived. But dieing so young is never good.
@Russell:
When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they’ve had enough, that they’re ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it’s too late, she’s gone.
Frustratingly it’s not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.
I’ve known Amy Winehouse for years. When I first met her around Camden she was just some twit in a pink satin jacket shuffling round bars with mutual friends, most of whom were in cool Indie bands or peripheral Camden figures Withnail-ing their way through life on impotent charisma. Carl Barrat told me that “Winehouse” (which I usually called her and got a kick out of cos it’s kind of funny to call a girl by her surname) was a jazz singer, which struck me as a bizarrely anomalous in that crowd. To me with my limited musical knowledge this information placed Amy beyond an invisible boundary of relevance; “Jazz singer? She must be some kind of eccentric” I thought. I chatted to her anyway though, she was after all, a girl, and she was sweet and peculiar but most of all vulnerable.
I was myself at that time barely out of rehab and was thirstily seeking less complicated women so I barely reflected on the now glaringly obvious fact that Winehouse and I shared an affliction, the disease of addiction. All addicts, regardless of the substance or their social status share a consistent and obvious symptom; they’re not quite present when you talk to them. They communicate to you through a barely discernible but un-ignorable veil. Whether a homeless smack head troubling you for 50p for a cup of tea or a coked-up, pinstriped exec foaming off about his “speedboat” there is a toxic aura that prevents connection. They have about them the air of elsewhere, that they’re looking through you to somewhere else they’d rather be. And of course they are. The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of the day with some purchased relief.
From time to time I’d bump into Amy she had good banter so we could chat a bit and have a laugh, she was “a character” but that world was riddled with half cut, doped up chancers, I was one of them, even in early recovery I was kept afloat only by clinging to the bodies of strangers so Winehouse, but for her gentle quirks didn’t especially register.
Then she became massively famous and I was pleased to see her acknowledged but mostly baffled because I’d not experienced her work and this not being the 1950’s I wondered how a “jazz singer” had achieved such cultural prominence. I wasn’t curious enough to do anything so extreme as listen to her music or go to one of her gigs, I was becoming famous myself at the time and that was an all consuming experience. It was only by chance that I attended a Paul Weller gig at the Roundhouse that I ever saw her live.
I arrived late and as I made my way to the audience through the plastic smiles and plastic cups I heard the rolling, wondrous resonance of a female vocal. Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse! That twerp, all eyeliner and lager dithering up Chalk Farm Road under a back-combed barnet, the lips that I’d only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound. So now I knew. She wasn’t just some hapless wannabe, yet another pissed up nit who was never gonna make it, nor was she even a ten-a-penny-chanteuse enjoying her fifteen minutes. She was a fucking genius.
Shallow fool that I am I now regarded her in a different light, the light that blazed down from heaven when she sang. That lit her up now and a new phase in our friendship began. She came on a few of my TV and radio shows, I still saw her about but now attended to her with a little more interest. Publicly though, Amy increasingly became defined by her addiction. Our media though is more interested in tragedy than talent, so the ink began to defect from praising her gift to chronicling her downfall. The destructive personal relationships, the blood soaked ballet slippers, the aborted shows, that youtube madness with the baby mice. In the public perception this ephemeral tittle-tattle replaced her timeless talent. This and her manner in our occasional meetings brought home to me the severity of her condition. Addiction is a serious disease; it will end with jail, mental institutions or death. I was 27 years old when through the friendship and help of Chip Somers of the treatment centre, Focus12 I found recovery, through Focus I was introduced to support fellowships for alcoholics and drug addicts which are very easy to find and open to anybody with a desire to stop drinking and without which I would not be alive.
Now Amy Winehouse is dead, like many others whose unnecessary deaths have been retrospectively romanticised, at 27 years old. Whether this tragedy was preventable or not is now irrelevant. It is not preventable today. We have lost a beautiful and talented woman to this disease. Not all addicts have Amy’s incredible talent. Or Kurt’s or Jimi’s or Janis’s, some people just get the affliction. All we can do is adapt the way we view this condition, not as a crime or a romantic affectation but as a disease that will kill. We need to review the way society treats addicts, not as criminals but as sick people in need of care. We need to look at the way our government funds rehabilitation. It is cheaper to rehabilitate an addict than to send them to prison, so criminalisation doesn’t even make economic sense. Not all of us know someone with the incredible talent that Amy had but we all know drunks and junkies and they all need help and the help is out there. All they have to do is pick up the phone and make the call. Or not. Either way, there will be a phone call.
He's so eloquent.
Russell's been on both sides of the addiction fence and was one of Amy's closest friends in the business; there may be very few who can give insight to the mind of Amy Winehouse like he can, and just how much has been lost.
I've wondered for a while now just when the world would get 'the phone call' about her. Not if; when. It's sad to say that…
She gave her best to get into the Club27.
It's sad because nobody was surprised. Always loved this version of Unholy War seems appropriate.
I've been meaning to post here for some time.
I like Amy. I loved her voice. I loved her songs. I absolutely adore "You Know I'm No Good", simply because it's a song that practically screams my emotions at times.
It's a shame that such talent has been destroyed, entirely by something that could have been avoided. A thousand pardons to her family, friends and fans.
^I listened to this about five times in a row in her honor. In my opinion, it was her best song.