Billboard Magazine

WorldMags.net “Rehab” has been streamed more than 35 million times on Spotify — Winehouse herself is only dimly understood. “She never spent enough time [in the ONE DAY IN United States] for people to get a sense of her outside of being drunk and sloppy,” says Republic Records chairman/CEO Monte Lipman. David Joseph, chairman/ CEO of Universal Music U.K. and an NOVEMBER 2005, executive producer on Amy, says, “Some asked, ‘Are you making a film about a drug addict?’ People didn’t even realize she wrote her own lyrics.” The film is a riveting collage of audio interviews and mostly unseen footage. It AMY WINEHOUSE took the filmmakers two years to win the sat in a car with her friend and co-manager the screen they’ll feel embarrassed.” trust of Winehouse’s friends, many of whom Nick Shymansky, winding through the Like Britney Spears, another singer hadn’t spoken publicly since her death. “At English countryside toward a rehab center. classified as a “train wreck” at that time, the beginning nobody wanted to talk to me,” The singer’s drinking had been getting out Winehouse felt the lashes of 24-7 gossip says Kapadia. “Then everybody did.” Only of control, Shymansky remembers, and he coverage as it converged with her celebrity. Mitch Winehouse has since criticized the felt she needed help. When they arrived, And that wasn’t all Winehouse contended project, calling it “unbalanced.” Gay- Winehouse said she would check in on one with: The pressure to be thin worsened her Rees says that the initial three-hour cut condition: that her father, Mitch, agreed. existing eating disorders, and the eventual was “too painful to watch.” Even the final So they drove 50 miles to Mitch’s house, onset of stage fright only seemed to increase 128-minute version is overwhelmingly where Winehouse perched on her father’s her dependence on alcohol — problems that sad. Says Shymansky: “You see this lap and asked, “Do you think I need to go plagued her until the end of her life, even happy, witty spark of an artist and then to rehab?” Mitch’s reply? “Absolutely not.” after she had broken free from hard drugs. this desperately high, lost, overexposed, Four months later, Winehouse was “The film was an eye-opener,” says Beese. overharassed wreck of a person.” recording with producer Mark Ronson in “I didn’t realize we were signing a girl who New York. Ronson found her account of was broken.” ACROSS THE STREET FROM the incident so funny that he suggested The documentary, which opens July 3 30 Camden Square, where Winehouse she turn it into a song. Three hours later, in the United States, looks to do what died, a tree serves as an informal shrine, she had written her breakout hit, “Rehab.” Winehouse could not in her brief career: garlanded with wilting bouquets and “If I’d known all the stuff that was going secure her legacy. She had no gift for self- heartfelt messages. Nearby fans can also on, I don’t know if I would have thought promotion. Her extra ordinary talent resided find the apartment where she wroteBack to it was so amusing,” Ronson tells Billboard entirely in her voice and songs. “We have Black; the pub where she met her husband, today. “But she said it in such a light way.” this stereotype of young Mozart,” says Blake Fielder-Civil; and a lifesize bronze Says Shymansky: “My dream for Amy was Ronson. “Lightning strikes his head and statue unveiled in 2014. The north London that she could be the best and biggest art- then he furiously scribbles for two hours and neighborhood of Camden Town is where ist in the world. The irony is the song that has a concerto. She’s the only person I saw Winehouse became a superstar, an addict, got her there was a cry for help.” who was actually like that.” a tabloid obsession and a fatality. “The Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning By infusing a retro sound with a question was, how did this happen?” says on July 23, 2011 at the age of 27. Her short, bracingly modern sensibility, Winehouse Kapadia. “This didn’t happen in the ’60s. It tumultuous life is the subject of a riveting opened the door for singers like Adele happened right here, in front of our eyes.” new documentary, Amy, by director Asif and Sam Smith. In kickstarting Ronson’s In Amy’s first section, the young AUREN GILBERT. AP 5: IMAGES. 6: MAISANT LUDOVIC/HEMIS/CORBIS. ALAMY. 7: 8: SEAN DEMPSEY/PA WIRE/AP IMAGES Kapadia and producer James Gay-Rees, career, she also helped make “Uptown Winehouse comes across as a force of the team behind 2010’s award-winning Funk!” — Ronson’s hit with Bruno Mars, nature, opinionated and hilarious. Beneath Senna. When Amy premiered at the the longest-leading Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 the surface, however, there were already Cannes Film Festival in May, The Guardian of this decade — possible. “Her song ‘You fault lines. In the film, Winehouse traces hailed it as a “tragic masterpiece.” Sent Me Flying’ is the reason why I sing,” her teenage struggles, marked by bulimia, In Winehouse’s story, many of the Smith tells Billboard. “At 11 years old I was antidepressants and daily weed smoking, to perils of 21st-century fame collide. She belting out ‘F— Me Pumps’ and soaking in her parents’ divorce when she was 9. was hounded not only by paparazzi — all the language and honesty.” But as traumatic as the divorce may the famously aggressive British tabloids Yet Winehouse’s stature remains have been — and as tempting as it is to painstakingly tracked her movements uncertain: She’s neither an icon like Kurt lay blame with a father who downplayed around her London home — but by talk- Cobain nor a cult figure like Jeff Buckley. her addictions — Winehouse’s fatal flaw ing heads insensitive to addiction and Her 2006 album Back to Black has sold may have been attempting the leap from mental-health issues. One disturbing 2.9 million copies in the United States, a normal, if turbulent, adolescence to sequence in the film shows Winehouse as according to Nielsen Music; won five inhabiting the role of a fearless, risk- a punchline for talk-show hosts. “She was Grammys; and made her a global star. anything artist. “She wanted attention ill. You had people who had praised her But she played only a few dozen live and recognition, but it didn’t really fit and now they were murdering her,” says shows and never chronicled her subse- her,” says Shymansky. “She was mak- Darcus Beese, president of Island Records quent struggles in song. While her music ing herself into a cartoon,” writer Caitlin and Winehouse’s former A&R man. remains popular — she sold more than Moran suggests. “She wanted to look “Hopefully, when they see their faces on 400,000 song downloads in 2014, and like her music. As a feminist, I hated L 4: FAMILY. WINEHOUSE THE OF COURTESY 3: PRESS/REDUX. OKOH/CAMERA MARK 2: USA. REX ROCHOLL/RETNA. 1: JENNIFER SPREAD: PREVIOUS 38 BILLBOARD | JULY 4, 2015 WorldMags.net.

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