Billboard Cover: Sam Smith, Mark Ronson and More on
Amy Winehouse's Lasting Legacy, Tragic End and Eye-Opening New Documentary
One day in November 2005, Amy Winehouse sat in a car with her co-manager Nick Shymansky, winding through the English countryside toward a rehab center.
The singer’s drinking had been getting out of control, Shymansky remembers, and he felt she needed help. When they arrived, Winehouse said she would check in on one condition: that her father, Mitch, agreed. So they drove 50 miles, where Winehouse perched on her father’s lap and asked,
“
Do you think I need to go to rehab?” Mitch’s reply? “Absolutely not.”
In Winehouse’s story, many of the perils of 21st-century fame collide. She was hounded not only by paparazzi -- the famously aggressive British tabloids painstakingly tracked her movements around her London home -- but by talking heads insensitive to addiction and mental-health issues. One disturbing sequence in the film shows Winehouse as a punchline for talk-show hosts. “She was ill. You had people who had praised her and now they were murdering her,” says Darcus Beese, president of Island Records and Winehouse’s former A&R. “When they see their faces on the screen, they’ll feel embarrassed.”
As different as she was from Britney Spears, another singer classified as a “train wreck” at that time, Amy Winehouse felt the first lashes of 24-7 gossip coverage as it converged with her celebrity. And that wasn’t all Winehouse contended with:
The pressure to be thin worsened her eating disorders, and the eventual onset of stage fright only seemed to increase her dependence on alcohol -- problems that plagued her until the end of her life, even after she had broken free from hard drugs.
“The film was an eye-opener,” says Beese. “I didn’t realize we were signing a broken girl.”
The documentary, which opens July 3 in the U.S., looks to do what Winehouse could not in her brief career: secure her legacy. She had no gift for self-promotion. Her extraordinary talent resided entirely in her voice and songs. “
We have this stereotype of young Mozart,” says Ronson. “Lightning strikes and he scribbles for two hours and has a concerto. She’s the only person I saw who was like that.”
By infusing a retro sound with a bracingly modern sensibility,
Winehouse opened the door for singers like Adele and Sam Smith. In kickstarting Ronson’s career, she also helped make “Uptown Funk!” -- Ronson’s hit with Bruno Mars, the longest-leading Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 of this decade -- possible. “‘You Sent Me Flying’ is the reason why I sing,” Smith tells Billboard. “At 11 years old I was belting out ‘F--- Me Pumps’ and soaking in the honesty.”
Back to Black was an artistic and commercial triumph, but could have been even bigger if Winehouse hadn’t blown off countless opportunities, including two offers from Saturday Night Live.
She craved only Blake and oblivion: When the couple married in May 2007, they were taking heroin and crack. In April 2008, she strained her relationship with Ronson when she failed, after five days of work with him, to complete a theme song for Quantum of Solace, wasting another prestigious opportunity. Remi managed to coax the doo-wop-influenced “Between the Cheats” from her -- the last new song she would ever complete. “She had more of a brother-sister relationship with [Ronson],” says Remi. “She’d fight with him over whatever. I said, ‘She can’t record? Yes, she can. He doesn’t know how to record her.’ ”
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