Amy Winehouse Would Be 40 Today

Amy Winehouse (1983-2011) would have been 40 years old today, had she not joined the 27 Club a dozen years ago.

As I grow older and less engaged with a lot of contemporary pop culture, Winehouse was one of the few artists to catch my eye and command my enthusiasm (and even that’s going back many years now, obviously). The reasons I like her I should hope would be immediately apparent. She was retro from her top to her toes, channeling jazz singers like Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday, but also sixties girl groups like the Ronnettes, from whom (obviously) she copped much of her visual style. Except the tattoos of course, which were also retro, though traditionally those have been worn by men. And there’s the obvious more recent precedent of Madonna, who was beginning to hit around the time Winehouse was born. Both Jewish and Cockney, I also can’t resist projecting other stuff onto her, too, vaudeville divas like Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, and Blossom Seeley…and the countless female holy terrors of the British Music Hall.

It is astounding to realize, in light of her impact, that she only released two studio LPs during her life. The first Frank (2003, named after her musical hero since childhood, of course) was released before she even hit on her iconic look. The second, Back to Black (2006), was followed immediately by the avalanche of substance abuse, self-harm, arrests for violence, cancelled engagements etc that marred the remainder of her short life. I’ve written about hundreds of pretty fucked-up lives — hers was like ALL the fucked-up lives rolled into one. She did ALL the drugs. She smashed ALL the whiskey bottles, and kicked EVERYONE in the crotch, burned ALL the pillows with cigarettes. I have seen photos of her in her last years I wish I could unsee, with missing teeth, a dirty face, and crazed eyes. Very painful to see, but it does make the truth land. Most of us former teenagers have sometimes been guilty of romanticizing the bad behavior of pop stars. Photos of late career Amy Winehouse will dispel any illusions of glamor. It’s sad and sordid and not the slightest bit sexy.

It’s especially painful though when the projected image is the very thing that speaks to you. She reminded me of a lot of my burlesque friends, and female friends who were singers. She seemed like one of “us” (i.e., a retro, show business loving performer) who had made good. But (to unashamedly reach for a facile Girl Group era metaphor, “look out, look out, look out!”) the road was slick, and near the edge of a cliff, and the motorbike had no breaks. She had ostensibly quit drugs by her last months. But her body was weakened from years of eating disorders, and she drank liquor by the quart. Acute alcohol poisoning was the official cause of death.

This has been written about to death, of course, I have no insights (and frankly neither do the other thousand people who have written about her). I just wanted to put my penny on the side of the scale holding those who were among her fans, to celebrate her existence a little. The fact that she was in the world really did make me a little happier.