It’s hard to believe that almost ten years have passed since Amy Winehouse, the beguiling anti-darling of music, tragically passed away at the age of 27.
I well remember the day she died — July 23, 2011 — in part, because it was my 30th birthday, but mostly because it was one of those pieces of news that felt shockingly sad and yet hopelessly inevitable.
If you watched 2015’s Oscar-winning documentary Amy (and chances are, you did) it’s likely you were among the chorus of voices lamenting the failure of duty of care provided by her father Mitch, although he countered that it was “tainted” and portrayed him as a villain.
Now, Winehouse’s mother Janis is sharing her own accounts of the late singer, in a new BBC documentary titled — Amy Winehouse: 10 Years On — to mark the tenth anniversary of her daughter’s passing.
“I don’t feel the world knew the true Amy, the one I brought up,” Janis Winehouse said.
“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to offer an understanding of her roots and a deeper insight into the real Amy.”
The surviving Winehouse has been motivated to share her story after a 2003 Multiple Sclerosis (MS) diagnosis left her concerned that her memories of her late daughter will be lost.
Those fears were also addressed in her 2014 book Loving Amy: A Mother’s Story, in which she wrote about gradually losing her memory as a result of the chronic disease.
The BBC said Janis’ version of events “often differs from the narrative we have been told before” and that the matriarch “will be joined by family and friends, and the film will offer a new female-driven interpretation of her life, her loves and her legacy.”
Over the course of her all-too-short career, Winehouse was the recipient of six Grammy awards — five of which were for her transcendent 2006 album Back to Black and its iconic single Rehab.
The singer grappled, very publicly, with substance abuse and mental illness with many people speculating that her tumultuous marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil exacerbated her problems.
Upon her passing Winehouse, who died from acute alcohol intoxication, became part of the infamous “27 Club”, joining fellow artists Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison all of whom passed away at the same age.
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