www.PODNAPISI.net
These are the only three people left.
This is Mr. Alex Steele, Mrs. Juliette Ashby,
- Mrs. Amy Winehouse. - Ah, my booby.
In other words, Mrs. Amy Winehouse.
And everyone else is gone.
D'you want a lick of the lollipop?
Come on, have a lick.
- No, I don't. - Have a lick. Come here.
Come and have a lick.
No one wants to lick your slobbery lollipop.
- Lauren, just lick it. - Here's me.
It's my 14th... (GIGGLING)
...birthday evening and party.
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
♪ Happy birthday dear Lauren ♪
♪ Happy birthday... ♪
♪ To... you ♪♪
Oh, wow. (JAZZY MUSIC)
♪ Moon River wider than a mile ♪
♪ I'm crossing you in style... ♪
AMY: I was singing with a little jazz unit,
the National Youth Jazz Orchestra,
must've been about 16,
and I just loved jazz.
Dinah Washington...
Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett.
I learned to sing from listening to stuff like Monk,
and a lot of soloists as well,
rather than just listening to singers.
I learned from everything, really.
♪...same rainbow's end ♪
♪ Waiting round the bend ♪
♪ My Huckleberry friend ♪
♪ Moon River ♪
♪ And me ♪
So singing has always been important to me,
but I never thought, "I love singing, I'll be a singer."
I just thought, "I'm lucky
there is something I can always do, if I want to.
I'm so lucky like that."
But I didn't think it would be a career choice.
♪ And me ♪
♪ Moon River and me ♪♪
What's the date?
- Today? - 24th.
- Is it? - Yeah.
- The what? - 24th.
- Of what? - January.
And, um, what day is it?
- Saturday. - And what year is it?
Lunchtime.
MAN: I was a 19-year-old office junior
for a promotions company
owned by Simon Fuller.
I just started to try and kind of blag it myself
as a talent scout.
I was definitely out of my depth.
AMY: My friend Tyler is a singer.
He was with Nicky Shymansky and Tyler said,
"My friend Amy sings jazz and she's great."
Nicky said to me, "Want some studio time?"
I said, "For what?" And he was like,
"Well, if you'd write songs,
we'd make a record, get a record deal."
I was, like, "What do you get out of it?"
Hello. (MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS TUNING UP)
I look ugly.
Yeah, look at you. You look lovely.
I don't. My chin's massive. (LAUGHING)
- Worried about your chin? - That's there forever.
♪ There is no greater thrill ♪
♪ Than what you bring to me ♪
♪ No sweeter song ♪
♪ Than what you sing ♪
♪ Sing to me ♪♪
- Decide to record it? - Yeah.
Hello.
I'm just here... smoking a fag.
I just like to... Oh, I look so grim.
I look like a floating head. You know, I've got no hair.
I'm just on a black screen.
There's my hand. What's going on?
NICK: We'd recorded quite a few demo recordings,
and I started to talk about
whether she'd ever consider writing.
She said she's not sure about writing songs,
but she's written a lot of poems.
♪ And he's my life ♪♪
She knew full well she'd been writing songs,
but they were very personal songs.
(FUNKY JAZZY MUSIC)
(AMY SINGING)
AMY: I wouldn't write anything
unless it was directly personal to me,
just 'cause I wouldn't be able to tell the story right
because I wouldn't have done it.
Even though some of it is personal in a sad way,
I'd never let it just be that.
I'll always put a punchline in the song.
Just try and be different with my lyrics.
Someone gave me a CD, two songs,
and they weren't necessarily what you'd call hit songs,
but they conveyed an emotion that just touched me.
When you have that as an artist,
you usually have a story to tell behind it.
But it's a big leap of faith.
I think my boss even questioned the deal,
because we were really committing to giving
an unsigned artist close to 250,000 pounds.
(UPBEAT JAZZY MUSIC)
(AMY)
We both knew we wanted to live with each other,
we both knew we wanted to move out.
She had family issues and I had lots of things
going on with my family, and we looked after each other.
It was amazing. We were young kids
and we were best friends, in a flat on our own.
(JAZZY MUSIC)
She loved it.
Juliette would sing, Amy would sing...
And we just used to see each other all the time.
We used to go to so many gigs with Amy.
And when she first started doing her music,
we were all so excited and proud of it.
Where are we, Amy?
- We're in Brighton. - Yeah, but what are we in now?
Um, we're in, uh... What's-it Square,
Regency Square, in a black cab.
In a white cab. A beautiful cab.
- And Lauren's with us. - Ah!
D'you know what my favourite thing about Nicky is?
His legs. (LAUGHTER AND TAPPING)
NICK: Aw.
Know what my other favourite thing is?
- What? - Not your hair.
She could make you feel so important...
and then, all of a sudden,
very unimportant.
And then make you feel so important again.
That was what she did. She liked to get people
into a comfortable position and then shock them.
If I got my hair right, then what would that mean?
That would mean you were ready to marry me.
(AMY)
NICK: Her first relationship
was with an older guy called Chris.
She really got the hots for him. Madly in love with him.
She wrote a few songs about having the hots for him.
And then, eventually, she lost interest and...
She always used to talk about it and started writing about that.
(AMY SINGING)
I think when I was growing up,
the music that was in the pop charts or, you know,
the music that was...
that people were releasing at the time,
I just thought, "This isn't music,
this is watered down, or this is, you know, just crap,
someone else has written it for you
and you have to sing it."
It's very much the case with some music today.
I really started writing music just as... to challenge myself,
to see what I could write or, you know,
just because there was nothing else there
that I could listen to at the time.
And having listened to jazz and, you know, great songwriters
like James Taylor and Carole King,
it was very... I felt like I had nothing new
that was coming out at the time
that really represented me or the way I felt.
So I just started writing, really, my own stuff
and from personal experience.
This is, um, I Heard Love is Blind.
(LAUGHTER) I'll just clip, clip my hair
out of the way, 'cause it's gonna get on my nerves.
I remember thinking, when she walked in,
she was this complete force of nature.
I thought, "Wow, there's something about you."
And I remember thinking, "Please be good."
I wrote this in Miami with a guy called Salaam and, um...
and I'm really proud of it. NICK: She was 18
and she was a very classic North London Jewish girl.
A lot of attitude.
Quite shy, but something emanated from her.
She had a charisma.
When you looked at her lyrical capability
and her melodic capability,
she was a very old soul in a very young body.
And we did the deal very, very quickly.
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Amy's album came out yesterday and how many has it sold so far?
A pretty staggering 800, actually.
That is at least...
I've emptied my bank account buying 600 of them.
That is, at least half my friends have bought the album.
Bastards. I'd better call the other half up today.
Snug in a rug.
She's going to get annoyed.
(PHONE RINGING) Amy?
Explain what your little hub is all about.
IAN: Hello. Oh, you're coming. AMY: Sleeping!
NICK: Just give us a smile, then we can turn the camera off.
Come on, just give us a quick one. A one-second flash.
(LAUGHING)
(SLOW JAZZY MUSIC)
How big do you think you're going to be?
I don't, at all, because, you know,
my music is not on that scale. The music is not on that scale.
Sometimes I wish it was,
but I don't think I'm gonna be at all famous.
I don't think I could handle it.
I'd probably go mad.
You know what I mean? I would go mad.
- Where are we going? - We're going to Birmingham!
Why are we going to Birmingham?
We're going to Birmingham to sing songs.
- Yeah? - And make merry.
Oh, that was sick! That was sick!
- Get me, get me. - Nicky, that was beautiful.
What are your thoughts on how beautiful that was?
My turn, my turn!
Wait, let me get a really good shot.
Oh, what a shot.
Oh!
She don't even care.
Watch it... watch it go in there.
Got no light in here.
Don't get my spots in.
What spots? (LAUGHTER)
- I love you. - Do you know I'm zooming in?
You're zooming in on all my spots!
You're a fucking cunt.
Does my hair look okay like this?
Yeah, very good. It's lovely.
- Do you promise? - I promise.
What song d'you think I should do first tonight?
Right, I think you should start off with...
Ah, I love your little cap! It's so cute!
Um, I think you should start off with a song called...
Oh, on camera. Okay. Okay.
- Go, sister. Go get done. - Stop!
(SCATTING)
♪ In my bed ♪
♪ Yeah yeah... ♪♪
MAN: Could you please introduce yourself?
Yes. Hello. I'm Amy Winehouse.
I'm 20. I'm a jazz singer.
I've heard your record and it sounds very, uh, mature.
Is it all live? Also, not only the singing,
but also the instruments?
Yeah, all the instrumentation is completely live.
I wouldn't have any fake horns on my record.
I think they put fake strings on Take the Box,
but I wasn't a part of that.
I would never, ever have put strings on my record. Ever.
And this guy doing the mix of this song, he just...
didn't even think about it.
Okay, um...
just a couple of questions. Um...
- Upset? - Yeah.
Oh, okay. Okay, okay.
Okay. Um...
There wasn't a girl that had been gobby in the media
for a long time.
And she could be very cutting.
Especially if she got bored or felt misunderstood.
WOMAN: I dunno, it seems to me, though,
that every woman who writes about, you know,
kind of puts it down on a record
doesn't do them any harm.
Look at Dido. I mean, she...
she used that album to clean out her emotional closet.
- Did she? - Yeah, it's all about
the break-up of her relationship and, you know,
kind of like surviving. - Mm...
And, uh, and not, not going... I mean, like the whole thing
about not going down with the ship.
- Yeah... - I mean, Dido's Dido,
but, you know, I mean, uh... (AMY SIGHING)
I think she's one of the most exciting
and brilliantly talented vocalists
to emerge in this country in many, many years.
It is Amy Winehouse.
(APPLAUSE)
Fantastic.
You're managed by the company who looks after S Club 7,
used to look after the Spice Girls, Simon Fuller.
Have they tried to mould you in any way?
Asked you to do things,
to change the way you look or speak or behave?
Um, yeah, one of them tried to mould me
into a big triangle shape and I went, "No!"
(LAUGHTER) No, I've got my own style.
I've got my own style and I wrote my own songs
and, you know, if someone has so much of something already,
there's very little you can... add.
Yeah. You know what I like about you, as well?
The way you sound so common.
(LAUGHTER) Because I am common
and it's like, you know, it's so refreshing
to hear someone who isn't speaking
like they've taken elocution lessons.
Yeah. They gave me elocution lessons, but they kind of...
Psht!
- They didn't stick. - Off my back, yeah.
I realized early on,
when Amy made her mind up, she made her mind up.
And I found it difficult to stand up to her.
She would say, "Oh, Mum, you're so soft with me.
"I can get away with murder.
You should be tougher, Mum."
Well, I just accepted it.
I wasn't strong enough to say to her, "Stop."
(AMY)
I met another woman when Amy was about 18 months old.
We worked together. We were having an affair.
But another eight or nine years were to pass before I left home.
I was a coward.
But I felt that Amy was over it pretty quick.
(AMY)
When Amy was a teenager, 13 or 14,
she was being taken to the doctor's
and she was on antidepressants.
(SLOW MUSIC)
♪ What is it about men ♪♪
Amy used to always say to me that that was her dream, really,
to do those sorts of shows,
to play in jazz clubs to small audiences.
She had one of the most pure relationships to music,
such an emotional relationship to music.
Like she needed music as if it was a person,
and that she would die for it.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
Let me read this.
Oh, my God.
Uh, and the winner...
and the song is Stronger Than Me
by Amy Winehouse and Salaam Remi.
Let's give it up!
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
This is me, isn't it? Right here.
Wow!
I don't believe this. Um, thank you, Salaam.
There's no picture of him,
but Salaam is the most inspirational producer
I've ever worked with.
And he has that unique skill of not just having
the most appropriate beat, but also, um,
drawing the artistry out.
And I guess that's the story of this song.
- And I wanna thank... - What I allowed her to do
was to really just put her wit into her songs.
When I heard her sing in front of me,
I could tell she was really like a jazz singer.
She had the stylings of a 65-year-old jazz singer
who knew the ropes up and down.
It was, like, "Okay, if this is what you are when you're 18,
then what are gonna be when you're 25?"
(FUNKY ROCK MUSIC)
We're now joined by Mos Def in the backstage area.
Thanks for coming and taking time out and chatting to us.
I heard they was doing something, so I came down.
(LAUGHTER)
I became aware of Amy in 2004.
I was out in England.
I'm a big jazz fan and I really liked what she was doing.
I thought it was unique, it was edgy and sincere.
And that's the thing I liked most about Amy,
is that she didn't have any airs. She was real.
(AMY SINGING)
I had a chance to meet her while I was here,
and we hit it off. We became fast friends.
She was just a charming, sweet lady.
I had a bit of a crush on her, to be honest.
She was raw, she was fast with a blue joke,
could drink anybody under the table,
wasn't afraid to roll a smoke, had a big giant laugh,
and was just a sweetheart, you know?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
You don't seem that bothered about everything.
D'you know what I mean? You have some artists
that step in here and go,
"Right, I want that number-one spot.
I want my album to go number one,
I wanna chase up with a second album."
But what's up with you?
I'm determined on the next thing.
I'm not interested in... Success, to me, is not success
to... the record company or whoever.
Success, to me, is having the freedom
to work with whoever I wanna work with,
to always be able to just fuck everything off
and go to the studio when I have to go to the studio, or...
But you can't do that,
'cause you have other responsibilities now.
You're becoming an artist in the public eye.
So, all of a sudden, you're gonna be...
I'm not saying you're gonna be hounded by the press,
but you're gonna have certain responsibilities
that are gonna come onto your doorstep
that you may not particularly welcome.
Okay, that's cool, but I think
the more people see of me, the more they'll realize
that all I'm good for is making tunes.
So leave me alone and I'll do it.
I will do the music.
I just need time to do the music. Know what I mean?
(AMY)
When she went to Camden, it was very exciting,
'cause it was her first property that she'd bought,
and we were all really happy.
She loved Camden. She loved it up there.
But when she went to Camden, things started changing.
We were the indie kids.
Gazelles, The Rakes, Babyshambles.
Everyone was a Camden band. Like, it was cool again.
In them days, it was very much, like, basically,
if you were in a signed band...
you were a cunt, because... the best-looking
and the best-dressed and the coolest people
were the ones who were born to lose, really.
AMY: The Libertines, yeah. I slept on them.
I came to the Libertines, like, a year later than everyone else.
But I'm not being funny.
They made people proud to be British.
That was London for a real spell, you know?
I run a club called Trash with my friend Errol.
Did the door there.
Blake would give out flyers for Trash.
We wouldn't have met each other,
and a lot of people here wouldn't have known each other
had it not been for Trash. That's fair enough, innit?
It's the first place I learned how to pull a bird.
SPIKY: He just loved girls, you know?
He loved partying and he loved... shagging.
Always in and out of bed.
We met in a pub, in the Good Mixer in Camden.
I was at the bar and she came in.
We just sort of started playing pool,
then we went to another pub.
And then we went back to Amy's house.
She was seeing somebody else and I was seeing somebody else.
But I didn't think of it as infidelity.
I just thought she was, like, a young girl
and she was a bit naughty. And I was the same.
(AMY)
WOMAN: Are you alright? How you doing? You okay?
What's going on with you at the moment?
'Cause obviously, Frank was last year, um,
and we haven't really heard much from you since then.
So when are we gonna hear from you next?
What's the next single?
Uh, I can't think of the next single.
I'm just gonna write the next album at the minute.
- Uh... - You having that kind
of writer's block thing or... - Yeah, man.
It's hard to write, because, uh,
you can write a million things a day,
but it's hard to write something that you're proud of.
So I'm just trying, you know, I'm just trying.
I asked to see her.
She was late and she came in with Nicky.
She was a character.
She always called me Uncle Lucian.
And I really liked her. And I had enough
of a relationship with her. So there's no flattery,
it was, like, blunt. And I said, "Enough, I need another album.
"Now go and write one. This is horseshit.
"Frank was then, this is now.
They're all gonna forget you."
She didn't like it.
AMY: Nick Shymansky. - Yes.
Sit up a bit.
- Yes. - How are you today, darling?
Very good, actually. Thanks.
- How about you? - Really good.
In between all this, she decided that she wanted me
to leave 19 with Simon Fuller to go manage her.
She didn't like being connected
with Pop Idol and the Spice Girls,
but I thought it would be incredibly disloyal,
at this point, to walk away.
And Blake was very quickly becoming
a bigger and bigger character in all this.
She was with him the whole time and didn't want
to go to places without him.
We spent the summer together.
She used to say we're like twins.
And that was our relationship. I'd like to sabotage myself
and I think Amy liked to sabotage herself.
Maybe that was our nature.
I used to ask her why was she promiscuous
and why she was more like a man with sex.
It's indicative of somebody that's had a traumatic event,
maybe sexually, themselves.
Sort of made sense to me from the way she was.
She'd just say, "It's nothing.
"I weren't abused when I was a kid.
Nothing like that."
Then she said her dad leaving her mum
was what caused this,
and her not really seeing her dad.
I understood.
I cut my wrists when I was nine years old.
I don't know if I wanted to necessarily die,
I just wanted my mum to leave my stepdad.
Me and Amy were quite similar.
AMY: I fell in love with someone who I would've died for.
We were in love and we were together.
And that's like a real drug, isn't it?
(SOFT MUSIC)
♪ If my man was fighting ♪
♪ Some unholy war ♪
♪ I would be behind him ♪
♪ Straight shook up beside him ♪
♪ With strength he didn't know ♪
♪ It's you I'm fighting for ♪
♪ He can't lose ♪
♪ With me in tow ♪
♪ I refuse ♪
♪ To let him go ♪
♪ At his side ♪
♪ And drunk on pride ♪
♪ We wait ♪
♪ For the blow ♪
♪ Ooh... ♪♪
(KNOCKING)
LAUREN: Oh, let's see who's gonna be
behind the green door!
- Hi! - Master of the house
is not in right now.
She is gone somewhere for a minute to be somewhere.
And somewhere she having dinner, so I'm having a cheeky cigarette
while she gone. Don't tell her. Shh.
Cheeky, cheeky. Eh!
Mi scusi. Tell me about this place.
Alright, while she's away, I'll give you a tour
of the house. Okay, ready? Okay.
First I lead you into the main room.
This is usually reserved for entertaining guests,
but you can be my guest, darling,
because no one's here today.
Okay, I lead you out to the grand patio.
Please, please follow. Don't mind me in my...
- Ah, where you go? - Okay, darling,
this is the grand patio. This is Cecil.
- Cecil live here. - Cecil!
Then we have the bedroom. It's very nice.
There are some cupboards.
- Ooh. - See up here,
this is where I sleep when the master come home.
- The toilet! - Sometimes when I'm alone,
I have a shower in all my clothes.
I find this is the only true way to relax.
Also here, this is the hook I hang from when I'm in trouble.
It's not very often. I'm a good boy. I'm a good boy.
Okay, well, this is it. Welcome to my humble abode.
LAUREN: Amy! (SINGING ALONG TO MUSIC)
We are sitting... in a little bar,
drinking cocktails. There's my cocktail.
There's Amy's little cocktail.
I think it's got Rohypnol in it.
All of a sudden she went to me,
"Lauren, listen to this message. This is a message from Blake."
I just said to her that I didn't wanna leave my girlfriend
and we'd probably be better as friends.
LAUREN: She was obsessing over these text messages.
He wanted nothing to do with her and she was obsessing over it.
All she wanted was for him to wanna see her.
It got messy.
He went back to his girlfriend, then she got her own back.
She slept with his friend.
(AMY)
The person that lived opposite in the little court
had Juliette's number and had called Juliette up to say,
"Amy's fallen over and she's hurt her head,
so we've gone round there."
It looked like people had been squatting in her house.
It stank, it was dirty.
And she was lying on the bed
and she had this golf ball coming out of her head.
So we worked till, like, 3 in the morning
and we cleaned the whole house up.
And I called her dad and we called Nick.
(AMY)
We all met there and it was, like,
this is getting out of control. We need to get her some help.
I've tried speaking to the parents
and they really wanna kinda take it on.
And so, technically, I sort of kidnapped her.
I picked her up and I thought, "I'm driving you
"to the middle of nowhere and we're gonna sit there
until you acknowledge what's going on."
I drove her to Black Park in Iver.
And it started off with her sort of laughing,
"You're such an idiot."
And then it turned into, "Don't be a prick."
And she kicked my car.
And then she just broke down, eventually.
Opened up about everything.
She said she thinks she's got a problem,
she was lost and out of her depth.
Horrible.
She agreed to go rehab.
I took her to see the rehab guy.
She was, like, "I don't wanna talk about it.
I'll go if my dad thinks I should go."
We'd spoken to Mitch. We'd set it all up
and she turned into a seven-year-old child.
Sat on her father's lap and put her arm around him.
I said to the managers,
"She doesn't need to go to rehab. She's fine."
AMY: My dad did actually go, "You're alright, no need to go."
I said, "Alright, Dad, I'll go and meet him
and we'll back out." Which I did.
MITCH: She didn't need to go to rehab.
NICK: I think that was the moment
we lost a very key opportunity.
I'm not saying it would've worked.
Very often, you have to go two or three times.
But she wasn't a star. She wasn't swarmed by paparazzi.
We could've just fucked Back to Black off,
and Back To Black might have never happened,
but she'd have had a chance
to have been dealt with by professionals
before the world wanted a piece of her.
(PHONE RINGING)
(BEEP!)
(AMY SINGING) (GUITAR MUSIC)
♪ I never wanted you ♪
♪ To be my man ♪
♪ I just wanted to see what you can do ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
No.
♪ Yo yo yeah ♪
The label were considering letting her go.
She ends up coming back to Miami.
Guy Moot calls me up, "Hey, sure you wanna do this?"
I was, like, "Listen, even if you dropped her,
"I would pay her to come to my house and sing
'cause this shit fucking moves me."
♪ Many times when I tried to set you right ♪
♪ It's just too hard ♪
♪ I never wanted you ♪
♪ To be my man ♪♪
And she totally didn't drink the whole time she was here.
And she sat out in my back garden
for, I don't know, four days.
She'd just take her little notebook and just keep writing.
(AMY HUMMING)
AMY: A. (GUITAR NOTE)
♪ All I can ever be to you ♪
♪ Is the darkness that we know ♪
♪ And this regret I got accustomed to ♪
♪ Once it was so right when we were at our height ♪
♪ Waiting for you in the hotel at night ♪
♪ I knew I hadn't met my match ♪
♪ With every moment we could snatch ♪
♪ I don't know why I got so attached ♪♪
Took me a while to get my head around a lot of things.
The actual turning point, when I was alright with it,
was when I started writing the album.
I write songs because I'm fucked up in the head
and I need to put it on paper and then write a song to it
and to feel better about it.
Have something good out of something bad.
♪ He walks away ♪
♪ The sun goes down ♪
♪ He takes the day but I'm grown ♪
♪ And in your way ♪
♪ My deep shade ♪
♪ My tears dry ♪♪
The ideas were there. Four or five songs were there.
You can feel something creatively starting to happen.
But I was still very worried about her health.
She's really vulnerable and not in a good place.
And then she said, "So, listen,
are you leaving 19 to manage me?"
And I said, "D'you know what?
"Unless you let me help you sort yourself out,
"I'm not doing this shit for you.
I can't watch you do yourself in like this."
I remember she came to see me
to talk about wanting to change management.
I said, "Look, that's entirely your decision.
We will support you whatever you wanna do."
Then she said she wanted to be managed by Raye Cosbert.
All I thought is, "Why on earth are you gonna be managed
by your promoter?" I remember at the time thinking,
"We're now gonna deal with a promoter
whose main interest will be to get her out on the road."
And we knew she was very vulnerable on the road.
When I first met Amy, I was her concert promoter.
We got talking and she said that her contract was up with 19
and she wanted to explore other possibilities.
She said, "Would you like to do it?"
And I was, like, "Well, yeah, let's talk about it."
We got on quite well, you know. I'd be the guy that'd turn up
after the gig and say, "Well done,
have a glass of bubbly." And I thought,
"Well, sometimes someone just wants a change
because they feel it's right for them to change."
It's like switching bank accounts.
(SOFT MUSIC)
NICK: I was way too close to Amy.
I shouldn't have ever been that close.
It should've been business.
But when you're 19, you meet a 16-year-old
and you go through that, you don't understand that.
(SOFT MUSIC)
We'd spent all these years together.
And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I wasn't there.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
AMY: When I started writing the first song about Blake,
the other songs just wrote themselves.
I was really was on a roll. Because I had these feelings,
had these words floating around in me.
When you write a song, you have to remember how you felt,
what the weather was like, what his neck smelt like.
You have to remember all of it.
(MUSIC TO BACK TO BLACK)
She would tell me stories about Blake
and this tempestuous, extreme relationship.
That first day, she wrote Back to Black,
all the lyrics and the melody, in two or three hours.
♪ Black ♪
♪ Black ♪♪
Oh, it's a bit upsetting at the end, isn't it?
Rrrr... Boom, boom, boom.
MARK: I love that. Yes, Amy.
Yeah!
(WHISTLING)
MARK: It was just one of those serendipitous things.
Like, I just caught her at that magic moment, you know,
and she was just ready to get it going.
That's why I couldn't understand what everyone else was saying
about this procrastinating, troubled artist.
I went out to New York to kinda hear what they were doing.
And the day I was flying out, I got a call from management
saying that Amy's nan had fallen ill
and she wanted to get straight back to her nan.
(SOFT MUSIC)
(AMY)
Cynthia used to look after Amy.
She was like the mother that I didn't have.
My own mother was not really motherly to me.
So Amy and Cynthia were very, very close.
MITCH: My mum died May 5th, 2006.
She had lung cancer.
Cynthia was a very strong person in her life
and used to tell her how it is. So it was horrible for her.
That killed her inside.
Well, hang on, I'm not playing this track now.
Not playing this track now.
I'm not playing this track now.
I spoke to them and they said it's just unnecessary.
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
We were making the back end of the record
and we were at Metropolis Studios
and Amy had bits of vocal to finish.
Have I got any drink? Did they bring up that drink?
- It's quite fun, really. - An acoustic session?
Never been filmed like this. I've never done it before.
She was having a couple of whiskey-and-Cokes.
We had broke for lunch.
Amy had ordered this massive plate of food
and she had a big dessert as well.
She finished the whole thing off and she disappeared for a while,
and 45 minutes later came back a bit kind of dazed.
And the studio manager pulled me out of the session and said,
"Look, I need you to come and see something."
She took me to the women's toilets
and Amy had thrown everything up
and literally redecorated the toilets.
She'd obviously been wiping her face,
and all the mascara had been rubbed off on the towels.
And that's when I kinda realized
that something serious was wrong.
I had a toffee fudge... but I ate it.
Yummy.
When she was probably 15, she one day said,
"I've got this really great diet, Mum.
I eat what I want and then, I just bring it all up."
I know, I'm a pig.
I know I'm a pig, I just... can't help it.
JANIS: I obviously did not think that deeply of it.
My feeling was, it would pass.
And then she told Mitchell about it.
He also sort of pushed it aside, not taking it seriously.
That basically is bulimia.
And it doesn't pass.
MAN: Hello. AMY: Hello. You alright?
Welcome to the show. Now, you've been away
for a little while. What have you been up to?
I've done an album. It's called Back To Black.
Mm-hmm. How would you describe it?
It's a lot more... more...
I don't wanna say more raw,
but it's not got all the clever, like, jazz chords.
It's not really like that now. I've been listening
to a lot of girl groups, a lot of garage bands.
It's kinda what it's like. It's a lot more guitar.
I'm a guitarist, I've been listening
to a lot more guitar bands. In Camden,
you can't really get away from it, so...
- You can't. - It rubbed off on me.
Would you go as far as to say
it's a bit more accessible than your debut?
I'd say it was more accessible.
It's not necessarily more poppy, but, you know,
jazz is quite an exclusive. Not exclu...
It's quite an elitist music, you know,
and this album's a lot less like that.
♪ I'd rather be at home with Ray ♪
So let's talk about your music, then.
And Rehab has gone down so well.
Are you kind of surprised by the reaction to it?
Uh... I am, actually.
I never even thought it'd be a single, really.
The record company were like,
"We want it to be a single." And I was, like,
"Okay, I love all of it," know what I mean?
I'm really proud of it.
Now, the Q Awards, which you were at yesterday.
Did you have a good time?
I had too good a time, to be honest.
If that's possible.
Alcohol is bad, kids.
♪...in a shot glass ♪
♪ They tried to make me go to rehab ♪
♪ I said no no no ♪♪
(INDISTINCT CHATTER) - Can you tie that any tighter?
What are you doing? You have to be able to sing.
How can you breathe when you're singing? That's tight.
Breathe? Sing? What? (LAUGHTER)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
There was already this atmosphere of celebrity...
all tied into Rehab.
Rehab was the pivotal song.
It was the song that gets her into a particular place,
her becoming a commercial star.
The winner of the Best British Female this year,
way more rock'n'roll than Liam Gallagher,
it's the one, the only... Amy Winehouse!
(CHEERING)
(MAN)
(AMY)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Okay, let's just go. Get the... get the... Go.
(KNOCKING) Ali, just go, man.
(MUSIC TO WE'RE STILL FRIENDS)
♪ We're... we're still friends ♪
♪ We're still friends ♪
♪ We're still friends ♪♪
Ooh. Rach, this is Blake. He's my fiancé.
Hello.
RADIO: Turn the volume up!
We're kickin' off the 107 days of summer,
on 107.5, WBLS!
♪ No no no ♪
♪ The man said Why do you think you're here ♪
♪ I said I got no... ♪
♪ I'm gonna ♪
♪ I'm gonna lose my baby ♪
♪ So I always keep ♪
♪ A bottle near ♪
♪ He said I just think you're depressed ♪
♪ This me ♪
♪ Yeah baby ♪
♪ And the rest ♪
I love, not like, Amy Winehouse,
because her voice is the most original voice
that I've heard in the last, I dunno, 10 years.
My daughter turned on to it, everybody got turned on to it.
And I've turned all my friends on to it.
Her CD is entitled Back to Black.
Please welcome Amy Winehouse.
♪ I just ♪
♪ Oh I just need a friend ♪
♪ See I'm not gonna spare ten weeks ♪
♪ Have everyone think ♪
♪ I'm on the mend ♪
♪ And it's not just my pride ♪
♪ It's just till these tears ♪
♪ Have dried ♪
♪ They tried to make me go to rehab ♪
Amy called me. Then I saw her in New York.
She wasn't puffed up about herself at all.
She was almost embarrassed
by the fact that she was doing so well.
She expressed a lot of concern and fear
about where things were gonna go and how she was gonna handle it.
She was just, like,
"What am I supposed to do in this space, you know?"
♪ I won't go go go ♪♪
(APPLAUSE AND CHEERING)
Amy Winehouse! Nice job! Thank you very, very much!
(CROWD CLAMOURING)
Everybody just wanted to spend time with Amy.
In our business,
there's nothing that can prepare you
for that level of success.
There's no textbook. You can warn an artist,
you can try and prepare them for it,
but at the end of the day, until you go through it,
it's unlike anything you've ever encountered.
(CROWD SHOUTING)
MAN: By yourself! By yourself! By yourself!
BLAKE: How do you think the shoot's going, baby?
- Really well, baby! - Yeah? Enjoying yourself?
What's it like to be shot by Terry Richardson?
What's he like at shooting?
It's a lifelong dream come true.
What do you think about the broken glass?
Um, I wrote "I love Blake" on my tummy.
Did you? Did you outline it?
I wrote "I love Blake" on my tummy.
I can't see any scars.
(BLAKE LAUGHING)
It's just chicken scratch. (BLAKE LAUGHING)
(BACKGROUND CHATTER)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
So what's been your highlight of the day?
Um... it'll be in about five minutes.
When?
We go in the toilet and I fucking...
(LAUGHTER)
- Blake, sit here. - Yes, Terry, sir.
Amy, sit there.
Amy.
That's good, that's lovely.
(TERRY LAUGHING)
You've been famous in the UK for a little while longer.
Does it seem like it's different how you're treated here,
in a way too, compared to...
The way people write about you, it's almost like a 23-year-old's
never wanted go out and have fun before.
It's kind of hypocritical, in a way, too.
AMY: Uh... I wouldn't know, I really wouldn't know.
(BLAKE)
Um... you guys have known each other for a long time.
You've known each other... You grew up together?
BLAKE: Almost. - Almost?
(AMY)
You were fighting to get her back?
(BLAKE)
(BACKGROUND CHATTER)
(LAUGHTER) SPIKY: And what happened?
(LAUGHTER)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
The day we got married,
we went out on a boat around Miami,
smoked a cigar and... it was like a real achievement,
an amazing thing that me and her had actually done.
We'd actually gotten married.
And we did it exactly how we wanted to.
SPIKY: You lazy people!
(LAUGHING)
Hurray! Wave!
Her whole thing was she wanted to feel how he felt.
And she was, "I just wanna feel what he's feeling.
"I wanna be on the same level.
Otherwise he's there and I'm here."
That's what she wanted, that was the goal.
(MUSIC TO YOU KNOW I'M NO GOOD) (INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(GROWLING, THEN SHOUTING)
Welcome back to 45th at Night.
Please give a warm, warm round of applause
for Amy Winehouse.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
♪ Yeah I cheated myself ♪
♪ Like I knew I knew I would ♪
♪ I told you ♪
♪ I was trouble ♪
♪ You know that I'm no good ♪♪
(MUSIC) Thank you very much.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Oh, have they? Bollocks. Have they? Fuck.
I heard about that as well.
Amy, can you talk in the kitchen?
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
After we came back from America, married,
that was the first time Amy tried crack cocaine and heroin.
I'd used by then and enjoyed it.
It completely eradicates any sort of negative feelings.
And then Amy tried it with me.
And it just got a grip of both of us really quickly from then.
Amy.
- Yeah? - Come in here.
- Coming! - Oh, change the record.
Just come on.
Pass me a little, uh...
(NO DIALOGUE)
(CROWD CHEERING)
(MUSIC TO WAKE UP ALONE)
Come on! (INDISTINCT CHATTER)
WOMAN: Are you alright keeping the rollers in?
- Yeah. - Yeah?
MAN: Do you ever have time to stand back and think,
"This is alright. Quite good, this."
Yeah. Uh...
Uh, I dunno. Yeah, I suppose so.
I suppose if my husband's happy, I'm happy. Um...
But, yeah, I've done well, I've done really well.
But, um...
I just want to be able to go and do a next... an album again,
and... keep doing...
just keep doing music really well,
rather than... I love doing gigs, though.
I just want to go and do another album now, so...
Yeah.
I got a phone call in the middle of the night,
and Blake said to me,
"Something's happened.
"She doesn't know who I am and she keeps saying your name.
Can you come round?" So obviously I got up,
and I got in the car and I started driving.
I got a phone call from Blake, freaking out, off his nut,
saying she's overdosed.
And I said, "Right.
Go to the closest hospital now and I'll be there."
JULIETTE: She was petrified. He was petrified.
She looked like a child.
She scared herself, basically.
NICK: And the doctor called us into a room and said,
"With the amount of cocaine, heroin,
"alcohol and crack cocaine in her blood system,
"we're amazed she's not in a coma.
"You've got away with it this time,
"but she's a petite, young girl;
her body can't keep up with this."
JULIETTE: She was asleep and it was very calm.
Nicky was one side of the bed, I was the other side of the bed,
and we said, "What are we gonna do now?
How do we deal with this?"
And then it all just started up.
The whole circus started up again.
NICK: And that's when Raye and Mitch decided
to do an intervention.
(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING) Within... hours,
there were Sun, The Mirror, News Of The World journalists
booked up in every room.
Every single conversation that happened
was in the Sun and The Mirror.
Fuck knows if they were hacking the phones or whatever.
And there's pictures of all of us there, sat outside.
JULIETTE: Amy was awake by then and she was eating,
but she wasn't well and she wasn't right.
The doctor that they got in looked me dead in the eye
and he said to me,
"If she has another seizure, she'll die."
And then I was told that she was going to America to perform.
I was, like, "No, she's not."
(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)
We had Mitchell in a hotel room with us,
begging him, "Please do something."
"What am I gonna do? She's gotta go on tour."
"Take her passport away from her,
do something so she can't go on tour. She needs help."
"Can't do that, she's got a tour booked."
JULIETTE: So I went into her room and I stole her passport.
And then I got told, "What you done that for?
She's gotta go to America. Why have you done that?"
NICK: The doctor's just been round
to check her blood and check everything.
Blake's managed to get to Hook, get into her bedroom,
and the next checkup,
the doctors found out she's got heroin in her blood again.
LAUREN: When I found out, with the girls,
that she was taking heroin,
and we went to this hotel room that she was staying in,
and Amy just sat there and didn't really say anything.
Her manager then said something like,
"Girls, there are lots of professionals,
"lawyers and doctors, all sorts of people,
that function on this stuff."
In helping promote the album, and get the shows on the road,
I kind of done what I was supposed to do.
And I felt that it's now the family's responsibility.
I'm here, but there's only so much I can do about this.
NEWSWOMAN: Amy Winehouse has pulled out
of a string of concerts in the U.S. and Canada next month
because of health issues. The 23-year-old...
Now she's one of Britain's brightest talents,
but the singer Amy Winehouse has cancelled yet more gigs,
this time in Norway, after she was admitted
to a hospital in London yesterday.
Her record company said it was just down to severe exhaustion,
but with her reputation for hard drinking and drugs...
The Amy link came about through Russell Brand,
who was trying to get Amy to come into rehab.
And then, also, Mitch had gotten involved.
And I first met Amy when she came with Blake
to be assessed for treatment.
It was very much being led by Blake,
although I did think
she was probably more willing to go to rehab than he was.
She was a very vulnerable woman.
And I felt very clearly that it was a common case
of one person having a situation
that was very beneficial to their using,
not wanting the other person to get better
for fear of losing the gravy train.
They were insistent on doing rehab together,
which, of course, we would've considered to be disastrous.
I would personally find it almost unethical
to take the couple into treatment at the same time.
But her management, and Mitch,
managed to find somewhere where they could go together.
(HELICOPTER BLADES WHIRRING)
BLAKE: Oh, it's recording shit.
It won't stop.
- Hey, uh... say hello. - Hello!
Amy, got anything to say?
Only if you sing your favourite hit, Rehab.
♪ They tried to make me go I said no ♪♪
(LAUGHTER) - Where are we right now? Amy?
Alex, can you say? Where are we?
Known to some as...
(LAUGHTER)
So can we have the new updated version of Rehab, please, Amy?
First time? Amy?
I want the new version of Rehab.
Please, baby, for our personal private movie.
(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)
They came back from Osea Island,
and had a suite at the hotel, and they binged.
It was ugly.
They weren't happy souls when they were high.
I kicked off...
I broke a bottle and I cut my arm.
And then she grabbed the bottle off me and she nicked her arm,
and she said, "I'll do anything you do."
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
RAYE: She said,
"Love is, in some ways, killing me, Raye Raye."
She felt torn between those two things:
the guy that she really loved,
but having to keep up with the consumption of substances
that they both were trying to do at the same time.
It was just a horrible pendulum swinging one way to the other,
one extreme to the other, all the time.
(SOFT GUITAR MUSIC)
Thank you. (CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
Ladies and gentlemen, Amy Winehouse!
And I've worked with a lot of people.
I'm telling you, she has one of the best voices
of anybody of all time. Amy Winehouse!
More trouble for Amy Winehouse.
The singer's Camden home was raided by police last night,
who used a battering ram to smash down her front door.
This was the moment
police arrested and handcuffed Blake Fielder-Civil
on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice.
A spokesman for the star saying
she was in no way connected with the arrest.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
MAN: Shut the door.
When he went to jail,
she spiralled...
downward very quickly.
(CAMERA SHUTTERS CLICKING)
PAPARAZZI: Amy! Amy! Amy!
MAN: Get out of the way!
(HONKING)
(SHOUTING)
For Album of the Year:
Amy Winehouse for Back to Black.
For Best Female Pop Vocal Performance:
Amy Winehouse for Rehab.
(CHEERING)
Can somebody wake her up this afternoon around 6:00
and tell her?
(LAUGHTER) Drunk ass.
For Best New Artist, the nominees are...
We did everything within our power to help Amy.
But you can't force treatment on somebody.
And I felt that that's Amy's responsibility
to get herself well.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
I'm sorry...
Okay, fellas, make some room, please.
- This way, this way. - Can't see the steps.
By then, she was incredibly famous, very wealthy,
and she had a complete infrastructure around her
where everybody was doing everything for her.
And that's not real life.
We had the Grammys coming up. I said, "You need to be clean.
If you're not clean, you're not doing anything."
So I had a contract drawn up and it said,
"You, Amy Winehouse,
"have agreed to go to a facility now.
"You're never gonna make another record again,
"you're never going to perform ever again
unless you get clean."
And God bless her, she did.
(HONKING, INDISTINCT CHATTER)
(CROWD SHOUTING)
(MUSIC)
MAN: Live,
it's music's biggest night of the year
as the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences
presents the annual Grammy Awards.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
This is going live tonight
thanks to the Grammys in the States, okay?
Now, the lady behind me is up for six awards!
(CHEERING AND WHISTLING)
She's already won two.
(CHEERING, MUSIC)
(DRUM ROLL) - Grazie!
Thank you!
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome
two Grammy favourites: Natalie Cole
and Tony Bennett.
(MUSIC AND CHEERING)
NATALIE: Good evening.
Grammy history has never sounded or looked any better
than this man right here.
That's right! (CHEERING AND LAUGHTER)
Dad, Dad, Tony Bennett.
(SIGHING)
These are this year's nominees for Record of the Year.
(CHEERING)
Irreplaceable: Beyoncé.
(WHISTLING AND APPLAUSE)
The Pretender:
Foo Fighters.
Umbrella: Rihanna,
featuring Jay-Z.
What Goes Around Comes Around: Justin Timberlake.
His album's called What Goes Around Comes Around?
And Rehab: Amy Winehouse. (CHEERING)
And the Grammy goes to...
Amy Winehouse!
(WILD LAUGHTER AND WHISTLING)
Amy!
Uh...
thank you to everyone at Island Records.
(CHEERING)
Everyone at EMI Music Publishing.
To Raye Raye,
to Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi.
To my mum and dad.
For my Blake,
my Blake incarcerated.
And for London! This is for London!
(CHEERING)
It was a beautiful evening.
You get those awards like that...
it just made all the work seem worthwhile.
(SOFT MUSIC)
Amy's completely clean and looking amazing.
It's just overwhelming.
I was just hysterically crying.
I was so overwhelmed, I was so proud of her.
And I was just flashing our whole life, our childhood.
And then she saw me crying.
Juliette, come up.
She grabbed me,
pulled me up onstage and took me off the stage.
And I was having a bit of a panic attack.
I was, like, "I can't believe this is happening.
This is amazing. I'm so proud of you."
And I'm looking at her,
trying to get some form of reaction, and she went,
"Jules, this is so boring without drugs."
And I felt really, really, really sad for her.
MAN: Amy? Amy?
Amy, how do you feel after winning a Grammy?
- Congratulations. - Did you enjoy it?
- Whoops. Sorry. - I'm going to see my husband.
I was staying at the K-West Hotel.
Very late in the night, she knocks on the door,
and I'm alone.
She comes in,
and she just sits on the couch.
I remember feeling like really happy for her,
and also concerned,
'cause she really didn't know how to be that thing
that she had been pushed to become from her own success.
Then she pulled out this aluminum foil.
She said, "Does this bother you?"
And I said, "Amy, I love you.
"I don't mind that you get high,
but I mind that you get high."
She did what she did and I was, like,
"This is someone who is trying to disappear."
(MAN)
(AMY)
Gents, get away from the door, please.
Fuck off, please. Sorry, mate.
I was called out to do security for her.
The security that she had,
it just could not handle the whole paparazzi situation.
- See ya. - Night-night, Amy.
(SHOUTING)
I could feel that she was a humble person,
but she was just caught up in a bad situation.
(CLAMOURING)
She was not well at all: physically, mentally not well.
All she ever wanted was people to tell her,
"Pack it in, stop it."
And me and Lauren would not tolerate any of it.
(GLASS BREAKING)
It was Nick that said, "The only thing you girls can do
"is show her you don't want to be a part of it,
and when she needs help, you're there for her."
Tough love.
And I just said to her,
"If you want me to help you, I'll help you.
"I love you, but I don't like who you've become,
and I don't want to be around you."
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
Where a lot of money
and a lot of expectation is at stake,
people's ideas become a bit skewed.
They want to try and get it sorted out
in a way that doesn't upset
this financial trajectory that's going on.
From the 6th of September,
we're not gonna be doing any more work
for the foreseeable future.
Amy's going to be concentrating on writing her new album.
Uh... there's five gigs, which, contractually,
we are obliged to do.
There's a couple this weekend.
(UPBEAT MUSIC)
It was all over the media
that Amy was getting $1 million for some shows.
Huge money. But by that point,
it was much more likely to not be a good show
than to be a good show.
She just wanted to get better. She knew that things were wrong,
and she was just very exhausted
and tired of the whole situation.
(SINGING REHAB)
(CHEERING)
NICK: She couldn't escape her life
in this horrible goldfish bowl.
She'd began to unravel in public
and the media treatment pushed her
further and further over the edge.
D'you see Amy Winehouse in the paper this week?
My God!
She looks like a campaign poster for neglected horses.
(LAUGHTER)
(CLAMOURING)
MAN: Easy, lad.
It was like a feeding frenzy.
Suddenly, it was cool to crack jokes
about a bulimic's appearance or her drug addictions.
According to contactmusic.com, Amy Winehouse's next album
features songs about cooking, about cooking.
That's what they say. Cooking crystal meth,
black-tar heroin. (LAUGHTER)
(CLAMOURING)
MAN: Amy, cheer up.
NICK: She couldn't escape it.
No one would leave her alone.
It was just disgusting.
The mainstream media was just all over her.
Amy Winehouse,
she's like a... a mad person.
(LAUGHTER)
ANDREW: St. Lucia was our place.
We were supposed to be there for a week,
we ended up there for, like, six months.
She decided that St. Lucia
was a place that she really liked,
and she invited me to go.
You know, as soon as she went to St. Lucia,
there was no more crack cocaine. That was done.
And that's when the heroin stopped.
But give her a free bar, of course she's gonna drink.
It was kind of obvious
that she was just supplementing alcohol for drugs.
I haven't seen Amy for six weeks.
We've got a lot to talk about,
a lot of exciting things happening.
We're talking about the forthcoming album,
some other business matters.
So I think it's... it's gonna be an exciting time.
Ah-ah! Naughty!
Amy, Amy!
She was, like,
"Why is he bringing another camera crew to St. Lucia?
"Dad, you want money? I'll give you money.
"Why are you doing your life story,
which is really my life story?"
She just felt like,
"My dad's doing a lot of stuff for money or the limelight."
- Want me to go with you? - Yeah.
You can follow down, if you want.
I'll ask her.
Amy? How do you do it?
Just push and hold the button. I'm really sorry.
Is that alright? All the way from...
LAUGHING: Okay!
- Is that okay? - Thank you.
- Pleasure. - Thank you.
Why have you got to make a comment like that?
Why... why... why you got to do that?
A mug of? They asked to take a picture of you.
Richard...
No, that's got nothing to do with it. I'm talking to you
about those two people who wanted a lousy photograph,
and you got to make them feel bad about it.
She just wanted her dad,
and he didn't just come by himself,
he came with cameras, audio guys...
But she worshipped the ground he walked on.
I was in jail with 500 fellas reading the papers
and there's a picture of my wife on a page with a fella.
It's not easy to go through things like that.
To put it bluntly, I didn't have a very high opinion of myself
after the treatment I've had
for the past two years with my wife.
I kind of just had the wind knocked out of my sails.
So I just thought, "Fuck this. You know. I'm a big man.
"I'm a handsome fucking guy. I ain't on heroin.
"I'm going to the gym a lot, I dress well.
So what the fuck am I doing wasting my time with her?"
(SOFT MUSIC)
(BEEPING)
(AMY)
And then the chorus come in. And, um, the last verse is:
(ANDREW)
(PHONE RINGING)
(SOFT MUSIC)
My son came up with the idea
of getting the most contemporary artists,
and I kept saying to myself,
"Who sings the right way, the real jazz singing?"
And when I heard Amy Winehouse,
I immediately said, "This one's got it."
Everybody just said,
"Oh, I don't know how you're gonna handle her."
- Where do you want to be? - I'll be here.
Okay. This is weird.
I've never done anything like this.
In which way?
To sing with one of my idols...
- Oh, no... - ...and have it filmed.
But it's good, it's good, 'cause then,
I can make my dad jealous, after, when I show him,
when he sees it. (TONY LAUGHING)
(JAZZ)
♪ I can't believe it ♪
♪ It's hard to conceive it ♪
♪ That you would turn away romance ♪
♪ Whoa oh oh oh oh oh ♪
♪ Are you pretending ♪
♪ It looks like the ending ♪ - Yeah.
♪ Unless I could have one more chance ♪
♪ To prove dear ♪
♪ My... ♪♪ - Sorry, sorry, that was me.
- I was terrible. I was terrible. - No, no...
I don't want to waste your time.
It's getting better each time. Don't... Really.
I just don't wanna waste your time.
Ahem.
We'll keep doing it till we got one.
It's right in there, okay?
You're not in any hurry, are you?
- No! Of course I'm not. - I'm not either. We have time.
Just gotta get it right, I've got to get it right.
- I'm not getting it right. - Oh, you are, you are.
It's getting better each time and you sound wonderful.
Just a minute, I'm getting some water.
The most famous artists I ever met
are the most nervous before they hit that stage.
No matter how much you feel it, you want to feel it even more,
so that it becomes an honest recording.
And that's what Amy had. She had that gift.
She was a natural, true jazz singer.
And a jazz artist doesn't like 50,000 people in front of him.
(JAZZ)
♪ My life a wreck ♪
♪ You're making ♪
♪ You know I'm yours ♪
♪ Just for the taking ♪
♪ I'd gladly surrender ♪
♪ Myself to you ♪
♪ Body and soul ♪♪
(APPLAUSE) Thank you!
- I think we got it. - Yeah.
- Okay. - I'm like you, you know?
- Each time, it's different. - Yeah. No, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
It's never the same thing twice, right? Yeah.
No, I'm like you. Not you're like me.
(TONY LAUGHING) I get it from...
my idols, like you.
That's the right way to do it.
(JAZZ)
She skyped me. She was happy.
The Tony Bennett thing, I mean, she was, you know, a fan.
It was about her saying, "I'm not a singer,
I'm a jazz singer." Then she said,
"Let's do this jazz project with Questlove..."
She's such a jazz snob.
She'd always be on her computer sending me MP3s.
"Listen to this, listen to this, listen to this."
I thought I had my doctorate in jazz,
but no, she taught me a lot.
She was, like, "Alright, we're gonna start a super group:
you, me, Mos and Raphael Saadiq."
I was, like, "Okay." And she assigned homework.
"Alright, study this record, study this record..."
Amy had a good period.
She could go for four weeks at a time with no alcohol.
And she very much felt
that she was the best that she has ever been.
But she went to the Priory, in May, to be checked,
and there was some very... serious things
that were being spotted.
It was the cumulative effect of drinking and bulimia.
She could feel perfectly fine
and have heart irregularities.
Her heart can stop if she started drinking again.
I said, "Look, is this what you want?
Do you want to die?"
And she said, "No, I don't want to die."
All the signs were positive. I thought, "Right, okay,
we've got a little chink of light."
The Tony Bennett thing was a good catalyst,
and it shows that she still had it.
We had the offers to do these shows,
and I said to her, "You don't have to do them.
There's no pressure. We got no record to promote."
But she wanted to do it.
She skyped me.
She wanted to do all these other projects
with Questlove and Mos Def.
She was, like, "I don't need this."
She just didn't wanna go.
The material felt so tired
and didn't feel relevant to her anymore.
But because she was such a huge star
and there was all of these different pressures,
she had to keep performing Back to Black.
She didn't want to do that.
As soon as she knew that tour was looming,
she got wasted,
wasted so that she wouldn't be able to go.
Amy was passed out, asleep, on her sofa.
She gets put in the back of a car, asleep,
and she wakes up at the airport and gets put on a private jet.
(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKING)
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
AUDIENCE: Amy! Amy! Amy!...
(MUSIC STARTING)
Belgrade!
Introducing Amy Winehouse!
(WILD CHEERING)
Whoo!
(SCREAMING AND CHEERING)
(CHEERING)
(BOOING)
I wasn't sure what was going on.
She just wouldn't sing.
It was the first time ever that had happened.
(DRUM BEAT)
(BOOING)
SAM: It felt like the end.
It was someone who just really didn't care anymore.
To the extent where she was willing
to sabotage not just her career,
but her friendships and her musical relationships.
But it's amazing to me. Why keep putting her onstage?
Because surely her managers know she has a problem.
This was supposed to be a major comeback, guys,
and she totally blew it.
Go!
(SALAAM)
"Yay!"
NICK: The 24th of July was my wedding day,
and Amy was due to be at the wedding,
and we'd spoken and I felt like she was really excited
about my wedding, actually.
And she said she hadn't been drinking
and she can't wait to see the family, and Salaam,
and some people that had been on the journey
were gonna be there.
(PHONE RINGING)
She rang me up and I thought,
"Oh, my God, what's happened now?"
'Cause that's the first thing that goes in my head.
And she just went, "Jules..."
And it was my Amy, completely normal.
And she kept saying she'd never done this before.
She just kept saying sorry. It was like complete clarity
over the whole situation of the nightmare
of the past however many years that we'd just gone through.
"Jules, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..."
Like when you're a kid and you panic
that you've done something wrong
and you wanna just fix it there and then,
that's how it was.
I just wanted to grab her, bring her back to me,
wrap her in my house, not let her out.
And she called me the next day,
and it was just so weird hearing her talk normally,
because for so long, we'd just been pining for her...
Like, I missed my best friend, Lauren missed her best friend.
We just wanted to have a normal conversation.
She just kept going, "Can I see you?
Will Lauren speak to me? Can we start again?"
I was, like, "Of course, we can, we're always here.
We've been waiting for you to talk to us."
She said, "I'm gonna call you tomorrow."
I was, like, "Okay, I love you." "I love you too."
She just looked like she was sleeping.
She was on top of the bed, just... sleeping.
But she was gone.
(SOFT MUSIC)
- No! - Oh, my God.
Rest in peace, Amy!
Amy's blood alcohol level was four to five times higher
than the driving limit.
Maybe a combination of her eating disorders
and the alcohol just made her heart stop.
(SOFT MUSIC)
She was one of the truest jazz singers I ever heard.
To me, she should be treated like Ella Fitzgerald,
like Billie Holiday.
She had the complete gift.
If she had lived, I would've said,
"Slow down, you're too important."
Life teaches you really how to live it
if you can live long enough.
(SOFT MUSIC)
♪ Well sometimes I go out by myself ♪
♪ And I look across the water ♪
♪ And I think of all the things what you're doing ♪
♪ And in my head I paint a picture ♪
♪ Since I've come on home ♪
♪ Well my body's been a mess ♪
♪ And I've missed your ginger hair ♪
♪ And the way you like to dress ♪
♪ Won't you come on over ♪
♪ Stop making a fool out of me ♪
♪ Why don't you come on over Valerie ♪
♪ Valerie ♪
♪ Did you have to go to jail ♪
♪ Put your house on up for sale ♪
♪ Did you get a good lawyer ♪
♪ I hope you didn't catch a tan ♪
♪ I hope you find the right man who'll fix it for ya ♪
♪ And are you shopping anywhere ♪
♪ Changed the colour of your hair ♪
♪ And are you busy ♪
♪ And did you have to pay that fine ♪
♪ That you were dodging all the time ♪
♪ Are you still dizzy ♪
♪ Since I've come on home well my body's been a mess ♪
♪ And I've missed your ginger hair ♪
♪ And the way you like to dress ♪
♪ Won't you come on over ♪
♪ Stop making a fool out of me ♪
♪ Why don't you come on over Valerie ♪
♪ Valerie ♪
♪ Whoa Valerie ♪
♪ Oh Valerie ♪
♪ Valerie yeah ♪
♪ Valerie ♪
♪ Why don't you come on over ♪
♪ Valerie ♪♪
Subtitling: CNST, Montreal
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