Outsiders: Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse (1983-2011) was an English singer-songwriter whose unique vocals and genre mixing made her a household name with just two albums in her career.

For Further Reading: 

• Amy Winehouse: Biography, Musician, Grammy Winner
• Growing up with my sister Amy Winehouse
• Amy Winehouse, British Soul Singer With a Troubled Life, Dies at 27
• Amy Winehouse Remembered: “Her intelligence astounded me…”

This month we're talking about Outsiders -- women who marched to the beat of their own drum and rejected stereotypes about what women "should" be. They are aesthetic pioneers, norm-benders, and often the only woman in their field.

History classes can get a bad rap, and sometimes for good reason. When we were students, we couldn’t help wondering... where were all the ladies at? Why were so many incredible stories missing from the typical curriculum? Enter, Womanica. On this Wonder Media Network podcast we explore the lives of inspiring women in history you may not know about, but definitely should.

Every weekday, listeners explore the trials, tragedies, and triumphs of groundbreaking women throughout history who have dramatically shaped the world around us. In each 5 minute episode, we’ll dive into the story behind one woman listeners may or may not know–but definitely should. These diverse women from across space and time are grouped into easily accessible and engaging monthly themes like Educators, Villains, Indigenous Storytellers, Activists, and many more. Womanica is hosted by WMN co-founder and award-winning journalist Jenny Kaplan. The bite-sized episodes pack painstakingly researched content into fun, entertaining, and addictive daily adventures.

Womanica was created by Liz Kaplan and Jenny Kaplan, executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, and produced by Grace Lynch, Maddy Foley, Brittany Martinez, Edie Allard, Carmen Borca-Carrillo, Taylor Williamson, Sara Schleede, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, Luci Jones, Abbey Delk, Adrien Behn, Alyia Yates, Vanessa Handy, Melia Agudelo, and Joia Putnoi. Special thanks to Shira Atkins.

Original theme music by Brittany Martinez.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello from Wonder Media Network. I'm Jenny Kaplan and this
is Womanica. This month, we're talking about outsiders, women who
marched to the beat of their own drum and rejected
stereotypes about what women should be. Their ascetic pioneers, norm vendors,
and often some of the only women in their field
with a beehive hairdoo, thick black eyeliner and a husky voice.

(00:26):
Today's Womaniquin blended soul and jazz to make a sound
for the modern age. She crashed onto the music scene
in the mid odds with her hits back to Black
and rehab. Her clashes with the press and personal struggles
turned public made her all the more notorious. Please welcome
Amy Winehouse. Amy Winehouse was born on September fourteenth, nineteen

(00:51):
eighty three, in a small suburb outside London to Russian
Jewish parents. Her father was a cab driver and her
mother was a pharmacist. Her older brother, Alex, did not
give her a warm welcome. He didn't like her brand
new baby smell. From an early age, Amy loved music.
Many of her uncles were jazz musicians. She'd set her

(01:12):
father's record spinning and listened starry eyed as Frank Sinatra
kruhned fly Me to the Moon. She also loved hip hop.
At age ten, she formed her own rap duo with
a friend called Sweet and Sour, modeled after Salt and Peppa.
Amy was smart and mouthy. When she wasn't reading books,
she was getting into arguments with her teachers. Once in

(01:33):
secondary school, she declared, I'm going to go to stage school.
Her teacher replied, Amy, stage school is a dream. It's
not what people really do. Amy proved that teacher wrong.
She soon won a scholarship to the Sylvia Young Theater School,
which she left before graduating, though some reports had claimed
she'd been expelled for not applying herself and for piercing

(01:55):
her nose. Later, Amy attended the Britz School for the
perform Arts and Technology. On the weekends, she sang jazz
with big bands at the Cockpit Theater and performed solo
sets with her guitar in the backs of pubs. When
she was sixteen years old, one of her friends offered
to pass one of her tapes along to his manager,
Nick Schamanski. Nick liked the tape. Amy got her big

(02:18):
break when she was just nineteen years old. Amy signed
a deal with Island Records. In two thousand and three,
Amy released her first record, called Frank. It was met
with critical acclaim, though Amy, always self critical, wasn't happy
with how the album turned out. While her management company

(02:39):
pushed her to work on a second record, Amy instead
spent hours a day, several days a week at the
local pub in Camden playing pool. It was around that
time she met Blake Fielder Sibyl. Amy was so infatuated
during their summer affair that she got a tattoo of
his name on her left breast. When Blake left her,
Amy was in shambles. Discussions of Amy's private life often

(03:05):
overshadowed discussions of her artistry. Tabloids often reported on her
public outbursts, drug arrests, and concerts cut short due to
excessive drunkenness. She channeled her heartbreak and pain into her
second album, released in two thousand and six, called Back
to Black. She wrote the titular song in three hours.

(03:28):
The record cemented her as a star. To this day,
it's one of the best selling albums of this century
in the United Kingdom. Her hit song Rehab includes the
refrain they tried to make Me go to rehab, I
said No, No No. It became a top ten hit
single in the UK and in the US. In two

(03:49):
thousand and eight, Amy was set to appear at the
Grammy Awards. She was nominated in six categories, but she
failed the drug test needed for her US visa, which
prevented her from a peer in person. She ended up
performing over satellite. The night may not have gone as planned,
but it was a huge success. Nonetheless. Amy won five awards,

(04:11):
including one for Best New Artist. Back to Black was
Amy's last album. She continued to work and tour, but
struggled to write more songs. In early twenty eleven, she
canceled her European tour after forgetting lyrics and common facts
like the city she was performing in on stage. Amy's
best friend told the press in twenty twenty one, Amy

(04:32):
was a girl in her twenties suffering from addiction and
everybody was watching it. She added, when you go to rehab,
you have to be the strongest you've ever been in
your life, when you were the weakest you've ever been
in your life, and she had to go through that
in front of people. Amy was found dead in her
home in London on July twenty third, twenty eleven. She
was just twenty seven years old, the same age as

(04:54):
other music legends Kurt Cobaine, Jim Morrison, Jimmy Hendrix, and
Janis Joplin when they passed away. The coincidental similarities of
these deaths has led to the concept of the twenty
seven Club, an informal list of musicians whose lives tragically
ended young. Later, the cause of Amy's death was ruled
to be alcohol poisoning. Her older brother, Alex also believed

(05:16):
that bolimia played a factor. Following her passing, her parents
established the Amy Winehouse Foundation to inform and support people
through the effects of drug and alcohol misuse. All month,
We're talking about Outsiders. For more information, find us on
Facebook and Instagram at Wamanica Podcast special thanks to Liz Kaplan,
my favorite sister and co creator. Talk to you tomorrow.