When Amy Winehouse first met with producer Mark Ronson, their candid conversation would become a musical legend. That fateful meeting led to a career-defining song, a critically acclaimed album, and a creative vision that would cement her place in the pop pantheon. It gave her confidence to wage a war against the people who were hurting her the most – and win. But that momentum would prove no match for the steady stream of challenges, from old habits to hurricanes, that refused to disappear.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
Please check the show notes for more information. The Club
is the production of I Heart Radio and Double Elvis.
Amy Winehouse died at the age of seven, and she
lived a life that was never not out of control.
(00:21):
I can give you twenty seven reasons why that statement
is true. Three would be the number of times she
said no in quick succession when talking to producer Mark
Ronson about rehab, a response that would quickly become musical legend.
Another three will be the number of weeks it would
take for Amy and Mark to craft half of an album,
(00:42):
during which time Amy would frequently disappear to the studio
bathroom to indulge in old habits. One more for the
number of landmark legal cases she waged against the paparazzi
after photographers invaded her privacy one too many times. Nine
would be the hour in the morning when Amy would
set up tequila shots during her supposed eight month long detox.
(01:07):
Another three would be the number of months that elapsed
between the announcement of a comeback tour and Amy once
again crashing and burning, this time as the headliner of
a jazz festival. Six would be the number of songs
she was able to stumble through during that show before
Mother Nature literally pulled the pluck into will be the
(01:27):
number of years she'd have left to live when that
show ended, all totally on this episode indulging in the
bathroom a landmark legal case Mother Nature in Amy Winehouse,
I'm Jake Brennan and this is the club, m Mercer Street,
(02:28):
New York City, March two six. There she was. It
was hard to miss, her jet black beehive piled on
top of a whispy body, just as she would look
in the tabloids when she became a daily fixture. But
in New York City in two thousand and six, her debut,
Frank hadn't even cracked the top fifty in the States,
(02:49):
so nobody knew who this strange looking creature was. He approached,
she didn't recognize him. She was expecting someone a little
more seasons. As she herself would later put in, she
was expecting an older man with a beard, some hip
hop geezer. Mark Ronson was no geezer. Mark Ronson was
(03:11):
a thirty year old producer with a bit of good
buzz following him when he landed the opportunity to work
on half of the tracks for what would become Amy
Winehouse's monster second album, Back to Black, but he was
still fighting for producer credits, so it was no surprise
she didn't recognize him. In fact, Amy wasn't all too
(03:32):
thrilled to even meet the guy. Amy knew Mark was
just another DJ who happened to get noticed at some
exclusive club, and now he was using that cultural currency
to break into record making all flash, probably just trying
to ride the coattails of the nearest popeye idol he
could find. Amy wasn't out to be a popeye idol,
(03:53):
and that was well established and well documented. She just
wanted to make good music, so excuse her if the
Abercrombie looking other fucker in front of her didn't necessarily
scream authenticity. But what the hell. He was here and
she was here and might as well give him a chance.
Amy and Mark went for a walk through New York
(04:14):
Soho shopping district. Amy discovered that, like her, Mark was
born in London, but that's where the similarities ended. Mark
was crafting pop and hip hop tracks with the likes
of Nicka Costa, while Amy had been busy recording two
thousand threes, jazz heavy Frank, and they were from different universes.
(04:35):
Mark's mission was to prove Amy wrong while also proving
himself to her. He knew he was the perfect guy
for the job, so he looked for common ground. They
were both children of divorce, both of them Jewish, both
led lives that were nowhere near conventional. Mark grew up
in both London and New York and had a hybrid
accent to match that experience. Also, like Amy, music had
(04:59):
always been central to Mark's life. He spent a lot
of his childhood in the house of his stepfather, Mick Jones.
So the nineteen eighties stadium rock powerhouse Foreigner Foreigner's monster
hit I Want to Know What Love Is was written
by Mick Jones about Mark's mother. Davious artists were in
and out of Mark's home. Robin Williams once tucked him
(05:20):
into bed. Daryl Hall played at early morning chess with
Mick Jones while Mark headed off to school. In the morning,
Mark would frequently wake up to the sounds of late
night jam sessions and parties that he routinely found himself
wandering downstairs in the middle of the night, unnoticed by
the adults, where he gravitate towards the stereo a magnet
to steal and press his body up against the speaker
(05:43):
to absorb the vibrations. Music had been his life since
as long as he could remember. His education was by
audio osmosis. He had a deep understanding of the relationship
between Jewish American songwriters and black music. Soul, hip hop,
and Amy's first love, jazz. Amy threw a curveball. She
(06:04):
didn't want to make jazz anymore. In her eyes, jazz
had been hijacked by snobs. She didn't want to make
snob music. She was now obsessed with the girl groups
of the nineteen sixties, the Shangri Las, the Crystals, the
Ronett's Big Beehive Music. Mark had little experience with the
sixties girl group sound, but he was intrigued. His shy,
(06:27):
saw spoken demeanor in non confrontational way of discussing music
in life allowed Amy to open up. She started to
talk about more than just music. She even told Mark
about the on again, off again relationship she had with
Blake Fielder. Civil Mark knew that being a producer wasn't
just about making music. Sometimes you had to play therapist,
(06:49):
as well a prester on Blake. It had been a
whirlwind romance, she said. Blake had gone back to his
ex girlfriend six months later. Amy was with another right now,
but god damned to Blake do a bloody number on her.
After they split, Amy got it bad, real bad, rock
bottom bad, drinking all the time bad, and everyone was
(07:10):
worried about her. She laughed just thinking about it. She
explained to Mark how she had been in and out
of the hospital and wound up living at her dad's
house so he could keep an eye on her. Mark
took it in stride. He wasn't in the business of
judging the people he worked with. Even if Amy was
painting herself as a major league hop mess, he was
there to help her pull that pain out and put
(07:32):
it down on wax. You know what else, say, he confessed.
Tried to make me go to Rhea. Oh yeah, Mark
was curious, what did you tell them? I told him No, no, no, wait,
Mark stopped deadness tracks, the attitude, the cynicism, the irony,
it was all there herew around the words in his head. No, no, no,
(07:55):
that was that was it. It was gimmicky hooky. It
was a song and the two decamped to mark stu dio.
Thirty minutes later, Amy emerged with Rehab fully formed, but
it was a slow, chugging blues tune. Mark wanted to
make it more pop, make it dance. Pop didn't sound
like a dirty word when it came from Mark's mouth.
He wasn't Simon Fuller. Mark was actually trying to understand
(08:18):
where Amy was coming from, how she heard the tune,
how she felt it, just like he had felt the
vibrations of the music come out of a speaker at
an after hours party when he was a kid. Mark
sat down at the drums, banged out of rhythm, and
Amy started strumming in time. Holy sh it. She couldn't
believe how quickly the song came. It was like it
(08:38):
was there in the room and she and Mark just
reached out and grabbed it. And the other songs came
just as quickly. When Amy returned to the studio the
next day, Market built out tracks for the song that
will become Back to Black. It was exactly what she
wanted the entire album to sound like. For three weeks,
the duo punched the clock at the studio, along with
(09:00):
the punchy support of the dap Kings, Brooklyn's Keepers of
the Old School, Soul, Flame, live horns, raw tunes, real music.
Amy sift rum and coke in between vocal takes. Mark
had succeeded improving Amy wrong first impressions be damned. Mark's
first impression of Amy, however, didn't include any red flags
(09:21):
that she was struggling. Her work ethic was much stronger
than her reputation. The two got on like a house
on fire. Songs like rehab played more like tongue in cheek,
declarations of independence and desperate cries for help. In the studio,
Amy kept her darkest secrets to herself. It wasn't just
rum and cokes. Between takes, she gorged herself with food,
(09:45):
like she was medicating anxieties with calories. And then she
disappeared into the bathroom minutes and back to the vocal booth.
Her makeup smeared in her appearance pale. Later, Studio Style
First would comment on how Amy would redecorate bathrooms every
time she disappeared into one. In her mind, she was
(10:07):
holding it together. She had it all under control, and
no one was the wiser. The people would get wise
and she would lose control. She couldn't hold it all
together on her own, and it would put her life
in mortal danger. Amy Winehouse sat on a beach in St.
(10:51):
Lucia and felt the warm salt air blow against her hair,
four thousand miles away from London and its prying eyes,
so many eyes in London. London was more than big brother.
London was big sister and big cousin, and big aunt
and uncle too. It was two thousand and eight and St.
Lucia was planned as a reset of sorts. After her
(11:14):
no show at the Rock on Senne in Paris, her
disastrous appearance at Best of All in the Isle of Wight,
and that dust up at the Prince's Trust Charity ball.
Amy was in desperate need of a reset for mind,
body and soul. She was determined to get clean. She
was rebuilding herself physically and mentally. She was seeing things
(11:34):
clearly now. She wanted out of this dog and pony act,
and she knew exactly what to do about it. She
hit the paparazzi where it hurt, hit them horror fuckers
from see it coming as it stood right now, She
could see them coming a mile away, all the way
in St. Lucia, she could still see them, and they
(11:55):
were right where she left them back in London. They
were always where she left them. She went to bed,
and when she woke up, and there was that time
when she was just trying to pick up a prescription
like a normal human being, and they didn't care. As
soon as the taxi pulled up to the curve, they
were on her flashes painted the back seat of the cab.
She stumbled out the door and towards her apartment, flanked
(12:16):
by a bodyguard, and one of the paparazzi noticed the
prescription slipping in his hand. The temptation was too strong.
It was right there, the extra strength medications Old Wino
was taking. He could not take the shot private medical information.
Are you fucking kidding me? Amy stormed after the scum,
halfway between distress and disorientation, nearly falling down in the process.
(12:40):
Her bodyguard pulled her back towards the door of her apartment.
And they had no common sense, none of them, As
if common sense would make any difference, as if after
years of hounding her, her assails would finally give up
the chase. And they didn't be on slot of clicks,
the onslot of flashes. They continued point blank, merciless, and
they haptured everything. The disheveled hair, the cracked lips, dry skin,
(13:05):
vacant eyes, the mass scare that streaked down her face
after an emotional afternoon, her Rah reaction when blake Field,
her civil was released from prison and wanted to be
sent straight to rehab. The man she loved and then
the man who broke her heart, and also the man
who introduced her to Class A drugs, the very same
man who inspired the album that ensured she'd never have
(13:25):
another private moment in her life, the man she reconciled
with and then married, only losing to prison six months later.
Amy was really just a few short years ago. She
was making the best music she'd ever made with Mark
ronson I'm Back to Black. The music they made together
liberated her from the heartache that had run her down
(13:46):
like a freight train. Now she couldn't even show her
face in public. She needed bodyguards everywhere she went. She
was a global superstar, and every time she left her
home to go to fucking McDonald's there were thousands of
pictures to document it. A little ship Back to Black
wasn't just a blessing it was a curse. She felt
(14:07):
the strong hand of her bodyguard grabb her by the
shoulder and guide her to the door. She fumbled with
her key. The endless stream of flashes and clicks continued,
and the cameras snapped and snapped, and then Amy snapped.
She rushed the closest creeting with a camera she could
find and grabbed his lens. He pulled it away inside
stepped Amy. She staggered into the street, and then the
(14:29):
taunts started. The paparazzi, Why oh, why no, why no.
They continued to mock her, trying to provoke another explosion,
another priceless photo, another story to sell to the Daily Mail.
Amy turned around and surveyed the crowd of cameramen separating
her from the front door of her apartment, and he
was hopeless. Her bodyguard ushered her into the nearest calve
(14:53):
that he could, and they sped off. They didn't even
have the decency to let her enter her own guy
damn home without mobbing her, and that home was now
ground zero for the press. Each morning and each evening,
there would be a platoon of paparazzi waiting outside her door,
hoping to catch a glimpse of the beehive ballistic missile. Eventually,
(15:17):
people could tell if Amy was in town or not
simply by the presence outside her apartment. Months later, when
Amy headed to St. Lucia and the paparazzi were forced
to trail smaller games celebrities, thieves would break into her
house and steal a number of personal possessions and guitars,
recording equipment, thousands of pounds, all because they knew there
(15:39):
was no way Amy was in town if the front
of her home wasn't flooded at all hours. Fuck the
one century, you were always in the wrong place and
it was always the wrong time. The dawn of the
digital age, the golden age of reality TV celebrity in
two thousand and eight was not your father's celebrity. Jimmy
(16:01):
Hendricks and Janice Joplin didn't have to deal with this ship.
The lines between reality and public perception were blurred. People
didn't want to see celebrities living her life that was
so high it was out of reach. They wanted the
glamorous stripped away. They wanted real people, flaws and all,
but especially flaws, and in the case of Amy, Wino's
people got to see it all. If she had a
(16:23):
bad concert, if she was drunk during the night out
on the town, if she showed up with Blake on
the street in front of her apartment, bloody and bruised,
if she chased down paparazzi, wild eyed and half conscious,
is she puffed from a crack pipe. People couldn't get enough.
They were printing money off of this bullshit, and nearly
everyone around heim Me cashed in. Many in her circle
(16:45):
included ensuring the paparazzi would only become more of a nuisance.
It would never really go away. She just wanted to
make music. All this other ship had him in part
of the deal. It wasn't her vision. She felt unsafe
going about her daily life, so she decided that it
was long past time to reclaim her safety, her comfort,
(17:05):
her life. She wasn't going to take it anymore, so
she left. She stayed in St. Lucia for eight months,
and on May one, two thousand nine, she relaxed under
a hot sun on a beach while a High court
back in London ruled in her favor to grant an
anti harassment injunction against Big Pictures. The leading paparazzi agency
(17:28):
in the country. It was a landmark victory. The paparazzi
were no longer allowed within a hundreds of Amy winehouse.
They weren't allowed to take photos of her in front
of her home, and they weren't allowed to photograph her
friends and family members without consent for Amy. It wasn't
just a victory, but it was a little fuck you
to the industry that had taken advantage of her for years.
(17:50):
She was in control now, and not just over who
could and couldn't take her picture. She was in control
of her health, her career, her love life. She was
over blazed. She was making plans to move out of
Campden to the more serene hadley Wood area of Enfield,
north of the city. Her new house, her new life,
would be waiting for her when she returned home. But
(18:11):
there was something else waiting for her to and if
she looked hard enough, she could see it coming. We'll
be right back after this word word word. On the
(18:33):
first day of the two thousand nine St. Lucia Jazz Festival,
the rain was relentless. A tropical storm ripped through the island.
The eye of the storm aimed directly at the sight
of the concert, hard driving rain, not just tropical, biblical,
and the weather was so intense that the first day
of the music festival was canceled and by the second
(18:55):
day the rain had finally let up that there was
another hurricane preparing to bear down on the main stage.
This hurricane wasn't a tropical weather system, but rather the
headliner of the festival, the main draw. The crowd waited
eagerly under a bright, eerie full moon, and the hurricane
picked up speed backstage. It was Amy Winehouse's first show
(19:18):
since the the Bocle at the festival eight months prior.
The show where she showed up late and left early,
the same one where she ordered two cases of Jack
Daniels and did her best to consume every last drop
of it and under an hour the show book ended
a tumultuous two thousand and eight. That year started off
well enough five Grammy wins, but it was all downhill
(19:41):
from there or uphill, depending on your point of view.
Amy's beloved Blake was sentenced twenty seven months in prison.
Two bleak videos of Amy and the Libertines Pete Daherty
were posted online, and they were high as hell and
playing with baby mice like a couple of dirty fingered
little kids, though their fingers were dirty with presumably from
a crack pipe. This behavior just added fuel to her
(20:05):
ongoing public relations fire. Amy was arrested three times. She
had lost complete control. It was now careening towards the
predicted oblivion, unfurling in a wild fit. She was quickly
becoming the next tragic chapter in the history of young
talent who burned out before their time. Time to put
(20:26):
two thousand and eight in the rear view. It was
two thousand nine, and things were going to be different.
Amy was healthy, She gained weight and was no longer
looking dangerously thin. She had started a yoga regiment, was
riding horses, and was bonding with the locals in St. Lucia.
She had physically moved herself far away from her old haunts,
in her old habits. But old habits, you know what
(20:49):
they say, They die hard. Her demons lingered in the
air in her head, and they followed her like a
dog follows its master. She was off jump it. She
was frequently photographed sipping red wine and smoking what one
Guardian article described as a strange cigarette. Come on. Amy
(21:10):
was writing a fine line of control one moment, having
it in the next moment not so much. Her father, Mitch,
brought a camera crew to St. Lucia, claiming that he
was making a documentary about his life. Everyone knew the score.
Though if he needed money, he could provide it. She
just didn't want the constant clicking and flashing of cameras
back in her life. And then she received news that Blake,
(21:33):
her Blake, had fathered a child while in rehab. Fuck,
and that one hurt more than she thought it would.
For all the good the island had done her, it
seemed Amy couldn't escape her previous life. She stood backstage
at the St. Lucia Festival, her trademark b I've Hair
to Back in all its glory, hovering elegantly over her
(21:56):
tattooed arms. A few stiff drinks took the edge off
on what of it. She thought she'd been drinking regularly again,
but she figured out how to keep it under control.
She'd been hospitalized in February for dehydration, but she convinced
herself that that had been an adverse reaction to her
medication and had nothing to do with the amount of
(22:16):
alcohol she was drinking. Right. St. Lucia was in England.
Knew Amy Winehouse wasn't Old Amy Winehouse. She wouldn't let
the same old story be told, not again. Right. Her
mind and body were healthier, and she was fixing to
make sure her career was healthy too. And that's what
she told herself as she knocked back another vodka and coke.
Then she heard the announcer come over the p a,
(22:38):
Ladies and gentlemen. St. Lucia Jazz Festival introduces Hurricane. Amy
jumped the gun. She blew onto the stage and blew
her Q in the process. It wouldn't be the only
cue she missed that evening. The drums thutted out a backbeat.
The backup dancers started to groove. Amy followed their lead,
but found herself woefully off beat. As she turned her
(22:59):
back to the crowd and steady herself with a deep breath,
she faced them, but no words came out. She moved
the mic stand to the left and then to the right,
and she called for the bass players to step forward,
and then she shrugged her shoulders and she was completely
fucking lost. Amy swayed back and forth and what the
hell was happening? She had this. She had it under control, right.
(23:21):
A few nonsensical words scattered to the wind, her mind
raced the island, her dad, her blake, rehab rests, the alcohol,
and music funk. That's right. She was supposed to be
performing music, and for a full two minutes she wandered
around as the music played, caught halfway between awkward dancing
and nearly falling over on stage. With each step she
(23:43):
leaned against the microphone stand. Her knuckles went white as
she gripped the mic and summoned every ounce of energy
she had, and finally she found her voice. Right here
we go. She barely made it through the first song,
you know you now, slurring some words and right for
getting smothers sarcastic cheers from the crowd, and maybe she
(24:05):
wasn't in control after all. She spied againness on the floor.
She steadied herself for long enough to pick it up,
and then steadied herself for a few seconds more and
knocked it back. Hurricane Amy was picking up steam, and
so was the weather outside. A steady rain began to
pummel the audience and the stage. Amy stumbled through two
more songs, and the energy and the crowd began to shift.
(24:28):
This wasn't the new Amy wine House they had heard about,
the one who got her shipped together, the one staging
a massive comeback. And now they weren't just seeing a
rerun of the rundown old Amy Winehouse. They were getting
fucking soaked. Amy lifted yet another cup to her lips,
this time a Voga and coke. Her mind wandered, she
could have been anywhere. Her head was heavy. She leaned
(24:50):
against the drum riser. She just needed a moment to rest.
A backup singer pulled Amy off the riser, and she
played it off, jokingly flirting with him as she made
her way back to the mic and the bewildered crowd.
And then immediately after the next song, the lights went out.
Literally the rain had turned from steady to straight up,
(25:11):
the downpour so heavy that it shorted the rigging on stage,
and the torrential rain matched Amy's manic, drunken energy. By
the time the lights came back on, Amy had finished
her vodka and coke and meandered through an uninspired rendition
of tears dry on their own. It would be a
minute before anything at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival was
(25:31):
dry and the entire scene was soaked Hurricane Amy made
a downturn. She walked off the stage in the middle
of the next song. Valerie staggered backstage and retraced her tracks,
and there was no real escape from what her life
had become, not even on St. Lucia. As she sat
on a couch backstage, absolutely wasted, she started to understand
(25:56):
the unsettling truth. If she ever wanted to take back
control role, she'd have to dry out first. Amy Winehouse
(26:26):
sat with a friend at the bar of St. Lucia's
Cotton Bay Village resort. Her massive gold hooped earrings peeked
out from her dark, luscious curls, day old mask, garraw
smeared around her eyes, her clothes hanging from her wiry frame.
She was perched barefoot like some rare bird, the kind
the honeymooners and families on vacation and never seen before.
(26:49):
Amy was once again starting to look like things weren't
going her way. One week removed from her complete meltdown
at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival, she wasn't even supposed
to be here. She was supposed to be home in
England performing at the Star studded Island Records fiftie anniversary
party alongside Bono and the Boys and you too. But
just because she was supposed to be there didn't mean
(27:12):
she wanted to be there. Far from it. Fucking Bono,
she thought, She chuckled to herself as she recalled the
Q Awards back in two thousand six. You two up
on stage receiving some bloody award or another, Bono rambling
on with another pair of his fucking designer sunglasses. She
sat in the audience and suffered. He just went on
(27:33):
and on, droning like the spoiled prick that he was.
She was beyond fed up, and she let Bonno know it.
She didn't hold back in the whole place hurt her.
Shut up. I don't give a funk. She wasn't on
some trip to change the world, and she wasn't about
to rub shoulders at some namous record label birthday party.
(27:54):
If she wasn't getting ready Forget Island Records. She was
going to keep doing her thing on an actual old island.
She ordered a shot at tequila and trained it. If
she was going to make a comeback, it would be
on her terms. She didn't need to be on stage again,
sucking hell. The Beetles stopped performing live and they turned
out all right. Amy could still hear the booze from
(28:15):
the crowd echoing through her mind. She thought of the
years that had passed since she put a record out.
Universal kept rejecting her demos. They said the songs didn't
sound like they would sell eleven million records, like her
previous songs dead. What do they even know about it?
It was the same people who enjoyed listening to Bono
rambo on like he was fucking Gandhi. Amy downed another
(28:39):
shot at tequila. The bartender looked at her anxiously. It
was anyone's guests if she'd walk out of the bar
casually or end up on all fours and making a scene,
and the bartender placed a cup of hot water in
a few tea bags in front of Amy and her friend.
Amy would have been insulted if it wasn't so funny.
She was doing quite well, thank you. Normally she would
(29:01):
have had six shots by now. Today she'd only had two.
It was nine in the morning. Like almost everything the
past few years, Amy's time in St. Lucia didn't go
according to plan. She meant for St. Lucia to be
her escape, her detox, her rehab on her own terms.
(29:21):
Most importantly, it was a time to reconnect with herself,
to get back to the music in a way from
the tabloids and paparazzi. But they followed her everywhere, and
now she was slipping the colt, the pills, the junk
that was all out of the picture. She kicked those
habits with the booze that never really went away. And
(29:43):
as Amy tried to sober herself up hours before noon,
a wave of anxiety crashed through her mind. She couldn't
trust her fans, she couldn't trust her friends, she couldn't
trust her family, her father, her blake, her sweets was gone.
But there was only one thing that truly let her
get a away from it all. Amy reached over the
bar grabbed the bottle of tequila. She knew she wasn't
(30:05):
supposed to. She took a massive gulp and felt the
liquor rocket through her body. Life was beautiful, and it
was fucked up, and at times it seemed predestined. Maybe
that was something people just told themselves when they couldn't
get the ship under control, Because control, as it would
turn out was one thing Amy Winehouse would never regain.
(30:29):
I'm Jake Brennan and this is the twenty seven Club.
Club is hosted and produced by me Jake Brennan for
Double Elvis in partnership with I Heart Radio. Zeth Lundie
(30:53):
is the lead writer and co producer. This episode was
mixed by Matt Bowden. Additional music and score elements by
and Spraker and Henry Lumena. This episode was written by
Ted Omo, story and copy ending by Pat Healy. Sources
for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot com
on the twenty seven Club series page, talk to me
(31:13):
on Social Act, Disgrace Sland pod, and hang out with
me live on my Twitch channel Disgrace land Talks. For
more news on your favorite podcast, fallow at Double Elvis
on Instagram, Rock rolla, What's up here is
This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
Please check the show notes for more information. The Club
is the production of I Heart Radio and Double Elvis.
Amy Winehouse died at the age of seven, and she
lived a life that was never not out of control.
(00:21):
I can give you twenty seven reasons why that statement
is true. Three would be the number of times she
said no in quick succession when talking to producer Mark
Ronson about rehab, a response that would quickly become musical legend.
Another three will be the number of weeks it would
take for Amy and Mark to craft half of an album,
(00:42):
during which time Amy would frequently disappear to the studio
bathroom to indulge in old habits. One more for the
number of landmark legal cases she waged against the paparazzi
after photographers invaded her privacy one too many times. Nine
would be the hour in the morning when Amy would
set up tequila shots during her supposed eight month long detox.
(01:07):
Another three would be the number of months that elapsed
between the announcement of a comeback tour and Amy once
again crashing and burning, this time as the headliner of
a jazz festival. Six would be the number of songs
she was able to stumble through during that show before
Mother Nature literally pulled the pluck into will be the
(01:27):
number of years she'd have left to live when that
show ended, all totally on this episode indulging in the
bathroom a landmark legal case Mother Nature in Amy Winehouse,
I'm Jake Brennan and this is the club, m Mercer Street,
(02:28):
New York City, March two six. There she was. It
was hard to miss, her jet black beehive piled on
top of a whispy body, just as she would look
in the tabloids when she became a daily fixture. But
in New York City in two thousand and six, her debut,
Frank hadn't even cracked the top fifty in the States,
(02:49):
so nobody knew who this strange looking creature was. He approached,
she didn't recognize him. She was expecting someone a little
more seasons. As she herself would later put in, she
was expecting an older man with a beard, some hip
hop geezer. Mark Ronson was no geezer. Mark Ronson was
(03:11):
a thirty year old producer with a bit of good
buzz following him when he landed the opportunity to work
on half of the tracks for what would become Amy
Winehouse's monster second album, Back to Black, but he was
still fighting for producer credits, so it was no surprise
she didn't recognize him. In fact, Amy wasn't all too
(03:32):
thrilled to even meet the guy. Amy knew Mark was
just another DJ who happened to get noticed at some
exclusive club, and now he was using that cultural currency
to break into record making all flash, probably just trying
to ride the coattails of the nearest popeye idol he
could find. Amy wasn't out to be a popeye idol,
(03:53):
and that was well established and well documented. She just
wanted to make good music, so excuse her if the
Abercrombie looking other fucker in front of her didn't necessarily
scream authenticity. But what the hell. He was here and
she was here and might as well give him a chance.
Amy and Mark went for a walk through New York
(04:14):
Soho shopping district. Amy discovered that, like her, Mark was
born in London, but that's where the similarities ended. Mark
was crafting pop and hip hop tracks with the likes
of Nicka Costa, while Amy had been busy recording two
thousand threes, jazz heavy Frank, and they were from different universes.
(04:35):
Mark's mission was to prove Amy wrong while also proving
himself to her. He knew he was the perfect guy
for the job, so he looked for common ground. They
were both children of divorce, both of them Jewish, both
led lives that were nowhere near conventional. Mark grew up
in both London and New York and had a hybrid
accent to match that experience. Also, like Amy, music had
(04:59):
always been central to Mark's life. He spent a lot
of his childhood in the house of his stepfather, Mick Jones.
So the nineteen eighties stadium rock powerhouse Foreigner Foreigner's monster
hit I Want to Know What Love Is was written
by Mick Jones about Mark's mother. Davious artists were in
and out of Mark's home. Robin Williams once tucked him
(05:20):
into bed. Daryl Hall played at early morning chess with
Mick Jones while Mark headed off to school. In the morning,
Mark would frequently wake up to the sounds of late
night jam sessions and parties that he routinely found himself
wandering downstairs in the middle of the night, unnoticed by
the adults, where he gravitate towards the stereo a magnet
to steal and press his body up against the speaker
(05:43):
to absorb the vibrations. Music had been his life since
as long as he could remember. His education was by
audio osmosis. He had a deep understanding of the relationship
between Jewish American songwriters and black music. Soul, hip hop,
and Amy's first love, jazz. Amy threw a curveball. She
(06:04):
didn't want to make jazz anymore. In her eyes, jazz
had been hijacked by snobs. She didn't want to make
snob music. She was now obsessed with the girl groups
of the nineteen sixties, the Shangri Las, the Crystals, the
Ronett's Big Beehive Music. Mark had little experience with the
sixties girl group sound, but he was intrigued. His shy,
(06:27):
saw spoken demeanor in non confrontational way of discussing music
in life allowed Amy to open up. She started to
talk about more than just music. She even told Mark
about the on again, off again relationship she had with
Blake Fielder. Civil Mark knew that being a producer wasn't
just about making music. Sometimes you had to play therapist,
(06:49):
as well a prester on Blake. It had been a
whirlwind romance, she said. Blake had gone back to his
ex girlfriend six months later. Amy was with another right now,
but god damned to Blake do a bloody number on her.
After they split, Amy got it bad, real bad, rock
bottom bad, drinking all the time bad, and everyone was
(07:10):
worried about her. She laughed just thinking about it. She
explained to Mark how she had been in and out
of the hospital and wound up living at her dad's
house so he could keep an eye on her. Mark
took it in stride. He wasn't in the business of
judging the people he worked with. Even if Amy was
painting herself as a major league hop mess, he was
there to help her pull that pain out and put
(07:32):
it down on wax. You know what else, say, he confessed.
Tried to make me go to Rhea. Oh yeah, Mark
was curious, what did you tell them? I told him No, no, no, wait,
Mark stopped deadness tracks, the attitude, the cynicism, the irony,
it was all there herew around the words in his head. No, no, no,
(07:55):
that was that was it. It was gimmicky hooky. It
was a song and the two decamped to mark stu dio.
Thirty minutes later, Amy emerged with Rehab fully formed, but
it was a slow, chugging blues tune. Mark wanted to
make it more pop, make it dance. Pop didn't sound
like a dirty word when it came from Mark's mouth.
He wasn't Simon Fuller. Mark was actually trying to understand
(08:18):
where Amy was coming from, how she heard the tune,
how she felt it, just like he had felt the
vibrations of the music come out of a speaker at
an after hours party when he was a kid. Mark
sat down at the drums, banged out of rhythm, and
Amy started strumming in time. Holy sh it. She couldn't
believe how quickly the song came. It was like it
(08:38):
was there in the room and she and Mark just
reached out and grabbed it. And the other songs came
just as quickly. When Amy returned to the studio the
next day, Market built out tracks for the song that
will become Back to Black. It was exactly what she
wanted the entire album to sound like. For three weeks,
the duo punched the clock at the studio, along with
(09:00):
the punchy support of the dap Kings, Brooklyn's Keepers of
the Old School, Soul, Flame, live horns, raw tunes, real music.
Amy sift rum and coke in between vocal takes. Mark
had succeeded improving Amy wrong first impressions be damned. Mark's
first impression of Amy, however, didn't include any red flags
(09:21):
that she was struggling. Her work ethic was much stronger
than her reputation. The two got on like a house
on fire. Songs like rehab played more like tongue in cheek,
declarations of independence and desperate cries for help. In the studio,
Amy kept her darkest secrets to herself. It wasn't just
rum and cokes. Between takes, she gorged herself with food,
(09:45):
like she was medicating anxieties with calories. And then she
disappeared into the bathroom minutes and back to the vocal booth.
Her makeup smeared in her appearance pale. Later, Studio Style
First would comment on how Amy would redecorate bathrooms every
time she disappeared into one. In her mind, she was
(10:07):
holding it together. She had it all under control, and
no one was the wiser. The people would get wise
and she would lose control. She couldn't hold it all
together on her own, and it would put her life
in mortal danger. Amy Winehouse sat on a beach in St.
(10:51):
Lucia and felt the warm salt air blow against her hair,
four thousand miles away from London and its prying eyes,
so many eyes in London. London was more than big brother.
London was big sister and big cousin, and big aunt
and uncle too. It was two thousand and eight and St.
Lucia was planned as a reset of sorts. After her
(11:14):
no show at the Rock on Senne in Paris, her
disastrous appearance at Best of All in the Isle of Wight,
and that dust up at the Prince's Trust Charity ball.
Amy was in desperate need of a reset for mind,
body and soul. She was determined to get clean. She
was rebuilding herself physically and mentally. She was seeing things
(11:34):
clearly now. She wanted out of this dog and pony act,
and she knew exactly what to do about it. She
hit the paparazzi where it hurt, hit them horror fuckers
from see it coming as it stood right now, She
could see them coming a mile away, all the way
in St. Lucia, she could still see them, and they
(11:55):
were right where she left them back in London. They
were always where she left them. She went to bed,
and when she woke up, and there was that time
when she was just trying to pick up a prescription
like a normal human being, and they didn't care. As
soon as the taxi pulled up to the curve, they
were on her flashes painted the back seat of the cab.
She stumbled out the door and towards her apartment, flanked
(12:16):
by a bodyguard, and one of the paparazzi noticed the
prescription slipping in his hand. The temptation was too strong.
It was right there, the extra strength medications Old Wino
was taking. He could not take the shot private medical information.
Are you fucking kidding me? Amy stormed after the scum,
halfway between distress and disorientation, nearly falling down in the process.
(12:40):
Her bodyguard pulled her back towards the door of her apartment.
And they had no common sense, none of them, As
if common sense would make any difference, as if after
years of hounding her, her assails would finally give up
the chase. And they didn't be on slot of clicks,
the onslot of flashes. They continued point blank, merciless, and
they haptured everything. The disheveled hair, the cracked lips, dry skin,
(13:05):
vacant eyes, the mass scare that streaked down her face
after an emotional afternoon, her Rah reaction when blake Field,
her civil was released from prison and wanted to be
sent straight to rehab. The man she loved and then
the man who broke her heart, and also the man
who introduced her to Class A drugs, the very same
man who inspired the album that ensured she'd never have
(13:25):
another private moment in her life, the man she reconciled
with and then married, only losing to prison six months later.
Amy was really just a few short years ago. She
was making the best music she'd ever made with Mark
ronson I'm Back to Black. The music they made together
liberated her from the heartache that had run her down
(13:46):
like a freight train. Now she couldn't even show her
face in public. She needed bodyguards everywhere she went. She
was a global superstar, and every time she left her
home to go to fucking McDonald's there were thousands of
pictures to document it. A little ship Back to Black
wasn't just a blessing it was a curse. She felt
(14:07):
the strong hand of her bodyguard grabb her by the
shoulder and guide her to the door. She fumbled with
her key. The endless stream of flashes and clicks continued,
and the cameras snapped and snapped, and then Amy snapped.
She rushed the closest creeting with a camera she could
find and grabbed his lens. He pulled it away inside
stepped Amy. She staggered into the street, and then the
(14:29):
taunts started. The paparazzi, Why oh, why no, why no.
They continued to mock her, trying to provoke another explosion,
another priceless photo, another story to sell to the Daily Mail.
Amy turned around and surveyed the crowd of cameramen separating
her from the front door of her apartment, and he
was hopeless. Her bodyguard ushered her into the nearest calve
(14:53):
that he could, and they sped off. They didn't even
have the decency to let her enter her own guy
damn home without mobbing her, and that home was now
ground zero for the press. Each morning and each evening,
there would be a platoon of paparazzi waiting outside her door,
hoping to catch a glimpse of the beehive ballistic missile. Eventually,
(15:17):
people could tell if Amy was in town or not
simply by the presence outside her apartment. Months later, when
Amy headed to St. Lucia and the paparazzi were forced
to trail smaller games celebrities, thieves would break into her
house and steal a number of personal possessions and guitars,
recording equipment, thousands of pounds, all because they knew there
(15:39):
was no way Amy was in town if the front
of her home wasn't flooded at all hours. Fuck the
one century, you were always in the wrong place and
it was always the wrong time. The dawn of the
digital age, the golden age of reality TV celebrity in
two thousand and eight was not your father's celebrity. Jimmy
(16:01):
Hendricks and Janice Joplin didn't have to deal with this ship.
The lines between reality and public perception were blurred. People
didn't want to see celebrities living her life that was
so high it was out of reach. They wanted the
glamorous stripped away. They wanted real people, flaws and all,
but especially flaws, and in the case of Amy, Wino's
people got to see it all. If she had a
(16:23):
bad concert, if she was drunk during the night out
on the town, if she showed up with Blake on
the street in front of her apartment, bloody and bruised,
if she chased down paparazzi, wild eyed and half conscious,
is she puffed from a crack pipe. People couldn't get enough.
They were printing money off of this bullshit, and nearly
everyone around heim Me cashed in. Many in her circle
(16:45):
included ensuring the paparazzi would only become more of a nuisance.
It would never really go away. She just wanted to
make music. All this other ship had him in part
of the deal. It wasn't her vision. She felt unsafe
going about her daily life, so she decided that it
was long past time to reclaim her safety, her comfort,
(17:05):
her life. She wasn't going to take it anymore, so
she left. She stayed in St. Lucia for eight months,
and on May one, two thousand nine, she relaxed under
a hot sun on a beach while a High court
back in London ruled in her favor to grant an
anti harassment injunction against Big Pictures. The leading paparazzi agency
(17:28):
in the country. It was a landmark victory. The paparazzi
were no longer allowed within a hundreds of Amy winehouse.
They weren't allowed to take photos of her in front
of her home, and they weren't allowed to photograph her
friends and family members without consent for Amy. It wasn't
just a victory, but it was a little fuck you
to the industry that had taken advantage of her for years.
(17:50):
She was in control now, and not just over who
could and couldn't take her picture. She was in control
of her health, her career, her love life. She was
over blazed. She was making plans to move out of
Campden to the more serene hadley Wood area of Enfield,
north of the city. Her new house, her new life,
would be waiting for her when she returned home. But
(18:11):
there was something else waiting for her to and if
she looked hard enough, she could see it coming. We'll
be right back after this word word word. On the
(18:33):
first day of the two thousand nine St. Lucia Jazz Festival,
the rain was relentless. A tropical storm ripped through the island.
The eye of the storm aimed directly at the sight
of the concert, hard driving rain, not just tropical, biblical,
and the weather was so intense that the first day
of the music festival was canceled and by the second
(18:55):
day the rain had finally let up that there was
another hurricane preparing to bear down on the main stage.
This hurricane wasn't a tropical weather system, but rather the
headliner of the festival, the main draw. The crowd waited
eagerly under a bright, eerie full moon, and the hurricane
picked up speed backstage. It was Amy Winehouse's first show
(19:18):
since the the Bocle at the festival eight months prior.
The show where she showed up late and left early,
the same one where she ordered two cases of Jack
Daniels and did her best to consume every last drop
of it and under an hour the show book ended
a tumultuous two thousand and eight. That year started off
well enough five Grammy wins, but it was all downhill
(19:41):
from there or uphill, depending on your point of view.
Amy's beloved Blake was sentenced twenty seven months in prison.
Two bleak videos of Amy and the Libertines Pete Daherty
were posted online, and they were high as hell and
playing with baby mice like a couple of dirty fingered
little kids, though their fingers were dirty with presumably from
a crack pipe. This behavior just added fuel to her
(20:05):
ongoing public relations fire. Amy was arrested three times. She
had lost complete control. It was now careening towards the
predicted oblivion, unfurling in a wild fit. She was quickly
becoming the next tragic chapter in the history of young
talent who burned out before their time. Time to put
(20:26):
two thousand and eight in the rear view. It was
two thousand nine, and things were going to be different.
Amy was healthy, She gained weight and was no longer
looking dangerously thin. She had started a yoga regiment, was
riding horses, and was bonding with the locals in St. Lucia.
She had physically moved herself far away from her old haunts,
in her old habits. But old habits, you know what
(20:49):
they say, They die hard. Her demons lingered in the
air in her head, and they followed her like a
dog follows its master. She was off jump it. She
was frequently photographed sipping red wine and smoking what one
Guardian article described as a strange cigarette. Come on. Amy
(21:10):
was writing a fine line of control one moment, having
it in the next moment not so much. Her father, Mitch,
brought a camera crew to St. Lucia, claiming that he
was making a documentary about his life. Everyone knew the score.
Though if he needed money, he could provide it. She
just didn't want the constant clicking and flashing of cameras
back in her life. And then she received news that Blake,
(21:33):
her Blake, had fathered a child while in rehab. Fuck,
and that one hurt more than she thought it would.
For all the good the island had done her, it
seemed Amy couldn't escape her previous life. She stood backstage
at the St. Lucia Festival, her trademark b I've Hair
to Back in all its glory, hovering elegantly over her
(21:56):
tattooed arms. A few stiff drinks took the edge off
on what of it. She thought she'd been drinking regularly again,
but she figured out how to keep it under control.
She'd been hospitalized in February for dehydration, but she convinced
herself that that had been an adverse reaction to her
medication and had nothing to do with the amount of
(22:16):
alcohol she was drinking. Right. St. Lucia was in England.
Knew Amy Winehouse wasn't Old Amy Winehouse. She wouldn't let
the same old story be told, not again. Right. Her
mind and body were healthier, and she was fixing to
make sure her career was healthy too. And that's what
she told herself as she knocked back another vodka and coke.
Then she heard the announcer come over the p a,
(22:38):
Ladies and gentlemen. St. Lucia Jazz Festival introduces Hurricane. Amy
jumped the gun. She blew onto the stage and blew
her Q in the process. It wouldn't be the only
cue she missed that evening. The drums thutted out a backbeat.
The backup dancers started to groove. Amy followed their lead,
but found herself woefully off beat. As she turned her
(22:59):
back to the crowd and steady herself with a deep breath,
she faced them, but no words came out. She moved
the mic stand to the left and then to the right,
and she called for the bass players to step forward,
and then she shrugged her shoulders and she was completely
fucking lost. Amy swayed back and forth and what the
hell was happening? She had this. She had it under control, right.
(23:21):
A few nonsensical words scattered to the wind, her mind
raced the island, her dad, her blake, rehab rests, the alcohol,
and music funk. That's right. She was supposed to be
performing music, and for a full two minutes she wandered
around as the music played, caught halfway between awkward dancing
and nearly falling over on stage. With each step she
(23:43):
leaned against the microphone stand. Her knuckles went white as
she gripped the mic and summoned every ounce of energy
she had, and finally she found her voice. Right here
we go. She barely made it through the first song,
you know you now, slurring some words and right for
getting smothers sarcastic cheers from the crowd, and maybe she
(24:05):
wasn't in control after all. She spied againness on the floor.
She steadied herself for long enough to pick it up,
and then steadied herself for a few seconds more and
knocked it back. Hurricane Amy was picking up steam, and
so was the weather outside. A steady rain began to
pummel the audience and the stage. Amy stumbled through two
more songs, and the energy and the crowd began to shift.
(24:28):
This wasn't the new Amy wine House they had heard about,
the one who got her shipped together, the one staging
a massive comeback. And now they weren't just seeing a
rerun of the rundown old Amy Winehouse. They were getting
fucking soaked. Amy lifted yet another cup to her lips,
this time a Voga and coke. Her mind wandered, she
could have been anywhere. Her head was heavy. She leaned
(24:50):
against the drum riser. She just needed a moment to rest.
A backup singer pulled Amy off the riser, and she
played it off, jokingly flirting with him as she made
her way back to the mic and the bewildered crowd.
And then immediately after the next song, the lights went out.
Literally the rain had turned from steady to straight up,
(25:11):
the downpour so heavy that it shorted the rigging on stage,
and the torrential rain matched Amy's manic, drunken energy. By
the time the lights came back on, Amy had finished
her vodka and coke and meandered through an uninspired rendition
of tears dry on their own. It would be a
minute before anything at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival was
(25:31):
dry and the entire scene was soaked Hurricane Amy made
a downturn. She walked off the stage in the middle
of the next song. Valerie staggered backstage and retraced her tracks,
and there was no real escape from what her life
had become, not even on St. Lucia. As she sat
on a couch backstage, absolutely wasted, she started to understand
(25:56):
the unsettling truth. If she ever wanted to take back
control role, she'd have to dry out first. Amy Winehouse
(26:26):
sat with a friend at the bar of St. Lucia's
Cotton Bay Village resort. Her massive gold hooped earrings peeked
out from her dark, luscious curls, day old mask, garraw
smeared around her eyes, her clothes hanging from her wiry frame.
She was perched barefoot like some rare bird, the kind
the honeymooners and families on vacation and never seen before.
(26:49):
Amy was once again starting to look like things weren't
going her way. One week removed from her complete meltdown
at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival, she wasn't even supposed
to be here. She was supposed to be home in
England performing at the Star studded Island Records fiftie anniversary
party alongside Bono and the Boys and you too. But
just because she was supposed to be there didn't mean
(27:12):
she wanted to be there. Far from it. Fucking Bono,
she thought, She chuckled to herself as she recalled the
Q Awards back in two thousand six. You two up
on stage receiving some bloody award or another, Bono rambling
on with another pair of his fucking designer sunglasses. She
sat in the audience and suffered. He just went on
(27:33):
and on, droning like the spoiled prick that he was.
She was beyond fed up, and she let Bonno know it.
She didn't hold back in the whole place hurt her.
Shut up. I don't give a funk. She wasn't on
some trip to change the world, and she wasn't about
to rub shoulders at some namous record label birthday party.
(27:54):
If she wasn't getting ready Forget Island Records. She was
going to keep doing her thing on an actual old island.
She ordered a shot at tequila and trained it. If
she was going to make a comeback, it would be
on her terms. She didn't need to be on stage again,
sucking hell. The Beetles stopped performing live and they turned
out all right. Amy could still hear the booze from
(28:15):
the crowd echoing through her mind. She thought of the
years that had passed since she put a record out.
Universal kept rejecting her demos. They said the songs didn't
sound like they would sell eleven million records, like her
previous songs dead. What do they even know about it?
It was the same people who enjoyed listening to Bono
rambo on like he was fucking Gandhi. Amy downed another
(28:39):
shot at tequila. The bartender looked at her anxiously. It
was anyone's guests if she'd walk out of the bar
casually or end up on all fours and making a scene,
and the bartender placed a cup of hot water in
a few tea bags in front of Amy and her friend.
Amy would have been insulted if it wasn't so funny.
She was doing quite well, thank you. Normally she would
(29:01):
have had six shots by now. Today she'd only had two.
It was nine in the morning. Like almost everything the
past few years, Amy's time in St. Lucia didn't go
according to plan. She meant for St. Lucia to be
her escape, her detox, her rehab on her own terms.
(29:21):
Most importantly, it was a time to reconnect with herself,
to get back to the music in a way from
the tabloids and paparazzi. But they followed her everywhere, and
now she was slipping the colt, the pills, the junk
that was all out of the picture. She kicked those
habits with the booze that never really went away. And
(29:43):
as Amy tried to sober herself up hours before noon,
a wave of anxiety crashed through her mind. She couldn't
trust her fans, she couldn't trust her friends, she couldn't
trust her family, her father, her blake, her sweets was gone.
But there was only one thing that truly let her
get a away from it all. Amy reached over the
bar grabbed the bottle of tequila. She knew she wasn't
(30:05):
supposed to. She took a massive gulp and felt the
liquor rocket through her body. Life was beautiful, and it
was fucked up, and at times it seemed predestined. Maybe
that was something people just told themselves when they couldn't
get the ship under control, Because control, as it would
turn out was one thing Amy Winehouse would never regain.
(30:29):
I'm Jake Brennan and this is the twenty seven Club.
Club is hosted and produced by me Jake Brennan for
Double Elvis in partnership with I Heart Radio. Zeth Lundie
(30:53):
is the lead writer and co producer. This episode was
mixed by Matt Bowden. Additional music and score elements by
and Spraker and Henry Lumena. This episode was written by
Ted Omo, story and copy ending by Pat Healy. Sources
for this episode are available at Double Elvis dot com
on the twenty seven Club series page, talk to me
(31:13):
on Social Act, Disgrace Sland pod, and hang out with
me live on my Twitch channel Disgrace land Talks. For
more news on your favorite podcast, fallow at Double Elvis
on Instagram, Rock rolla, What's up here is
Host
Jake Brennan
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