The burnt- out brilliance of Amy Winehouse

“Too fragile, too beautiful, too big a talent for this world.” That was how a fan described Amy Winehouse in a handwritten note left outside her house after the British singer’s death last weekend. In many ways, the description is apt. Amy was petit, she was fragile and made even more fragile by her long […]

“Too fragile, too beautiful, too big a talent for this world.” That was how a fan described Amy Winehouse in a handwritten note left outside her house after the British singer’s death last weekend.

In many ways, the description is apt. Amy was petit, she was fragile and made even more fragile by her long history of substance abuse and violent lifestyle.

Interestingly, her death coincided with the Norway massacre, where a possibly crazy Anders Behring Breivik caused the death of about a hundred people. And somehow, some media houses chose to give Amy’s death priority over the gruesome death of Norway’s hundred. That is just to demonstrate how popular Amy was.

But was her death a surprise? Certainly not as surprising as the sudden death of film star Heath Ledger or our own Christie Essien Igbokwe. Amy has for long been on a self-destruct mission with a drug and alcohol abuse problem almost as huge as her fame.

Though the cause of her death has not been determined yet since she was found dead in her London home on Saturday July 23, many believe her death will not be unconnected to some of the things she had done with hard harddrugs and alcohol.

Her father Mitch Winehouse was reported to have had said at her funeral that her death was as a result of “alcohol withdrawal” after doctors had asked her to abstain completely from drinks.

While the final report of the coroner is being awaited, music buffs will recall that the singer been in and out of rehab several times.

Her last attempt at rehabilitation was in May this year. She went into rehab to prepare for a European summer tour. On her way to the Priory Clinic, she bought herself a bottle of vodka and downed it that early morning, much to the chargrin of onlookers and stopped by a beauty parlour to “puke all over their bathroom” as she herself had said. It seemed the attempt was doomed before it began and the end result was a disastrous tour some two week before her death.

She turned up an hour late for her performance in Serbia on July 18, without her trademark looks. She staggered about stage, slurred her words, mixed up her lyrics before she was finally booed off the stage. A crude curtain fall on glittering but checkered short-lived career.

Rise to fame

Amy rose to fame with her 2003 debut album, Frank. It was a critical success in the UK and paved the way for her runaway sophomore album, Back to Black, which won her six Grammy awards [and several other awards], made her a global celebrity and propped up her reputation as the new queen of soul.

Her trade mark beehive hairstyle, her beauty spot and her burnished voice became famous the world over, projecting her tiny frame into global limelight.

Back to Black showed depth and character. The lyrics are emotive and stemmed from Amy’s heart, conveying the pains of being a woman in a challenging world. It earned her an entry into the Guinness World Records for most Grammy Awards won by a British Female Act.

Descent to anarchy

Her downfall and  success walked hand in hand. Her drug abuse and violent conduct became public knowledge as far back as 2006 following the death of her grandmother, who had been a major influence in Amy’s life since her parents divorce when she was just nine.

Amy was admitted into rehab for various addictions and the singer herself had said, “I really thought that it was over for me then.”

However, she emerged from that crisis to write the lyrics to Back to Black, drawing from her emotional crisis.

And then things seemed to spiral out of control as Amy was constantly in the news for the wrong reasons; attacking a fan who criticised her choice of a husband and kneeing her husband in the crotch for trying to calm her down, spitting at British socialite Pippa Middleton (sister to Kate Middleton), headbutting a photographer, spending a night in jail for slapping a man, being arrested in Norway alongside her husband for posseision of hard drugs and assaulting a theatre manager for asking her to move from her seat. Her escapades are numerous and resulted in her husband then, Blake Fielder-Civil being imprisoned.

Her self-destructive lifestyle has been fingered by her father as the cause of a dangerous respiratory condition she was suffering from which prompted her doctor to order her to stay off drugs and chain smoking or risk death.

So far, search of her home where she died has not turned up any hard drugs. This would seem to confirm her father’s claims that she was really determined to fight her addiction problem.

The role model

Because of her lifestyle, Amy could hardly pass as an ideal role model but her popularity had made her loved and loathed simultaneously. Some might have fancied her as a role model, especially her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield, with whom Amy was seen in the last video footage of her in a public place hours before her death. Bromfield is also seeking to launch a career in music.

But as her fans continue to mourn and the United Kingdom grieves the loss of yet another troubled star cut down in her prime, the soul searching music of Amy Winehouse will continue to echo in the halls of time.