Amy Winehouse (4 page)

They took it in turns to do the washing-up. ‘If I’ve been in all day, I’ll have his dinner ready when he comes home. I do everything for him, but we have our own lives. I’m a very sexual person but sex is a minor thing in our relationship – we’ve got so much more than that. And we let each other see other people. Tyler might stay away for a couple of days with a girl. We don’t just sit around and cuddle like your average couple: we give each other space.’ However, James was soon to give Amy something far more significant than space.

A spell at the BRIT Performing Arts & Technology School in Croydon followed for Amy. The school, which has been compared to New York High School for the Performing Arts – the subject of 1980s film
Fame
– is funded by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, but independent of the local education authority’s control. Since 1992 it has received sponsorship from the BRIT Trust, the body behind the BRIT Awards, where Amy was to achieve recognition further down the line. It has a fantastic academic record: in 2006 for instance, 93 per cent of its pupils gained five or more ‘A’ to ‘C’ grades in GCSEs.

(Incidentally, the first fully selective arts academy is now being built in Birmingham. Based on the BRIT School, the Birmingham institution in the city’s Eastside will train students in music, theatre, painting and other arts. The school, which will teach up to 950 pupils aged fourteen to nineteen, is one of three academies planned in the city.)

Among those who have studied at the BRIT are the Kooks, Katie Melua, Floetry, Dane Bowers, the Feeling, the Noisettes, Imogen Heap and Leona Lewis. One teacher observed that the BRIT school is for ‘the non-type. The school fits round their personality, rather than asking them to fit their personality round the school.’ Another adds that many of their pupils might have had negative experiences in their past, due to their creativity – ‘like bullying or being the only boy dancer in a south London comprehensive – before they came here’.

It has been said that the best way to find the school is ‘to take a train from London Bridge, disembark at Selhurst and follow
the teen wearing bright-yellow drainpipe jeans, a leather motorcycle jacket and bird’s-nest hairstyle’. There’s a lot of truth to it. When Amy first arrived at the school she found two main buildings: an oblong pavilion and redbrick building, which was built in 1907. There are at any given time 850 pupils studying at the school, all of whom enrol at the age of fourteen or sixteen. As a state-funded creative school, it is very popular and only one in three applicants is successful, as Amy was.

One teacher remembers Amy as being ‘exciting, but
nerve-racking
. She was an artist from the age of sixteen, and she wasn’t exactly suited to being institutionalised.’ Nick Williams, the principal, agrees: ‘You would have had to be mad not to realise that Amy was a very, very talented young woman and that she had what it took to be extremely successful. Katie Melua and Amy Winehouse are two very different people – the one thing they have in common is that there isn’t anyone who is exactly like them. They’re not factory-farmed. What we do is attract people into the school who are creative – that means things will happen.

‘We acknowledge that when kids leave here and find their way their experiences might be harsher, edgier or more difficult. We see no purpose in treating young people in a competitive way. Lots of bands don’t want to talk about coming from the BRIT School, and the reason is obvious: if you’re in a band, you don’t want people to feel that, somehow, someone allowed you to do that. I’m really sanguine about people who leave the school and say, “I did this, it’s nothing to do with where I went to school.”’

As for Amy, the advantage of the BRIT school was that there were hardly any boys. ‘I was like, “Where’s the men? What is going on?” So I used to lock myself away from the time of fifteen and just do music, because I hated the school. Every lunchtime, every break, I’d be up in the music room playing a guitar or piano.’

As well as her hours in the music room, it was this time that Amy first fell in love with getting tattoos. ‘I just wanted a Betty Boop on my bum,’ she chuckled. ‘I just like tattoos. My parents pretty much realised that I would do whatever I wanted, and that was it, really.’

Of her experiences of two stage schools, Amy is as forthright as one would expect. ‘I’m always happy to blow up any misconceptions that people have about stage school ’cos everyone thinks it’s really nasty there, but it’s not,’ she says of the star-maker factory. ‘I went to the BRIT School as well and that was shit. But Sylvia Young set me up to be a strong person,’ she decides. So it’s not all boobs out, bums in? ‘No, it is like that, but…’

Amy might be dismissive of the BRIT School but many associated with it are hugely proud of her involvement. BBC 6 Music DJ Natasha Desborough said, ‘The likes of the Kooks and Amy Winehouse have put Croydon on the map because of the success of the BRIT School. Even though they’re not originally from Croydon, they’ve been nurtured here, which should make everyone proud – I certainly am.’

However, Amy was ready to make her first big splash.

B
y this stage, Amy was singing regularly with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. While performing with the orchestra, she was spotted by some very well-connected people. One of the people they were associated with was a certain Simon Fuller.

Fuller has been described in many different ways, some of them hysterically complimentary, some of them wildly derogatory. Born on 17 May 1960, Fuller has become perhaps the most important figure in the entertainment business. He has also been named by
Time
magazine as one of the hundred most influential people in the world. ‘My business is creating fame and celebrity, and I’m one of the best in the world. I know it to the finest detail.’ Not half! He started off working at
Chrysalis, in publishing and then A&R. In the mid-1980s he discovered the artist Paul Hardcastle and branched out on his own at the age of just twenty-five. His first single with Hardcastle, ‘19’, was a Number 1 hit and, off the back of the success, Fuller set up his own management company – calling it 19 Management.

Next, he discovered singer-songwriter Cathy Dennis and helped her to a string of worldwide smash hits during the 1990s. Then, he plucked Annie Lennox from her
post-Eurythmics
lull and relaunched her as a phenomenally successful solo artist. However, even these achievements were dwarfed by the success he had with the Spice Girls. He took over their management in 1996, and within months the band were a major success and their debut single, ‘Wannabe’, went to Number 1 in thirty-six countries. Next up, he launched S Club 7 who had eleven top-five singles in the UK. Ever with his eye on a dynasty, when the band split Fuller had a ready-made replacement – S Club Juniors.

Then came his move into television with
Pop Idol
and then
American Idol
. These shows smashed television viewing records and
American Idol
has gone on to become the most valuable TV format on the planet. Up to 74 million votes were cast during the
American Idol
final in 2007.

Fuller has also entered the sports world, guiding the careers of Steve McManaman and David Beckham. He owns the commercial rights to the name and images of Muhammad Ali and Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate. Most recently, he has reunited with the Spice Girls to promote their reunion world
tour. Worth £450 million, Fuller has been described as ‘the man who wants to rule the world’. Well, if that’s true then he’s pretty close to realising his ambition.

For Amy’s part, she was not a fan of Fuller’s
Pop Idol
franchise. ‘I never wanted any of this and that’s the truth,’ she says of her fame, adding, ‘I would have been happy to sing in a covers band for the rest of my life. And I wouldn’t have gone on one of those shows in a million billion years, because I think that musicality is not something other people should judge you on. Music’s a thing you have with yourself. Even though the people who go on those shows are shit, it’s really damaging to be
told
that you are.’

There are conflicting reports on how Amy came to Fuller’s attention. One story has it that Sylvia Young arranged for two of his colleagues to come and watch her perform with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra; the other has it that James, who was already signed up to a subsidiary of 19 Management called Brilliant 19, put a word in for her with his managers.

Whatever the case, once at Brilliant 19, Amy was managed by Nick Godwin. A sharp music man, Godwin had been involved with the Spice Girls. He followed the tried-and-tested Brilliant 19 path of honing and nurturing talent. Amy had not long since stopped working as an entertainment journalist, writing for a music magazine and a fledgling showbiz news agency. Now, however, she was ready to step onto the other side of the showbiz divide.

Amy puts the link with 19 down to her friend Tyler James. ‘I had one gig with the National Jazz Orchestra and my friend
Tyler, he was with his A&R guy Nicky [Shamansky], and Nicky said to him, “I heard this girl singing jazz on the radio,” and Nicky said, “Well my friend Amy sings jazz and she’s great.” I think I must have been about sixteen. So I think Nicky was the one who convinced me to make a tape.’

As with the BRIT School, Amy is now keen to distance herself somewhat from the 19 Management experience. ‘I met Simon Fuller, like, two times!’ she once sighed when an interviewer asked her about her involvement with him. Indeed, she once also claimed that the extent of Fuller’s involvement with her was that he happened to share a building with her management company Brilliant 19. In fact, Fuller funded that company. When asked what impression he made on her, she says haughtily, ‘Businesspeople don’t leave an impression with me. They go out of my head straightaway.’

When pressed on her time under Fuller’s guidance, she says, ‘It was never right. My manager on paper was not the person doing the day-to-day stuff. He was a lovely fellow but he didn’t care about music. He was definitely one of those people who left their work in the office. I needed someone else. I needed someone who really cared.’

However, Fuller insists, ‘Music is my first love. I have hundreds and hundreds of CDs! And I understand it. Music is a positive force.’ Fuller was said to be horrified by Amy’s increasingly bitchy remarks about other artists, including Madonna, of whom she said, ‘She’s an old lady. She should get a nice band, just stand in front of them and fucking sing.’ Reportedly, he was unimpressed by her bitchy remarks about
other pop stars, including his artist Rachel Stevens. A source said, ‘Amy is under the wing of
Pop Idol’
s Simon Fuller and he is upset about her remarks on his stars.’ Was she under pressure to sell a certain number of records? ‘I don’t think he cares if he gets a return on me. He’s got
Pop Idol
and his empire. He’s a smart man.’ Amy has also been asked whether she was
really
uninterested in making money at this stage of her career. ‘No. Well, I am. Everyone’s interested in money. But if someone offered me three million pounds to make a Rachel Stevens cover record, I’d take it. Ha-ha! No.’

‘When I was eighteen, I wasn’t banging their door down. I didn’t go out looking to be famous,’ she says. ‘I’m just a musician.’ Her designated manager at 19 admitted at the time, ‘She can be very frustrating. But I don’t have an issue with her frankness,’ he says. ‘She’s a real artist who’s going to make records for years to come, someone passionate who speaks their mind and isn’t interested in money.’ In 2006, she and Fuller parted company and she took up Raye Cosbert as her new manager.

Before long, Amy had signed her first record deal with Universal/Island Records. Darcus Beese was the label’s A&R man who signed her and he says his rivals were ‘gutted’ to miss out on Amy. Beese was of course jubilant and arranged to show off his new acquisition to the great and the good of his company. Amy played an acoustic set in the boardroom of Universal/Island. As she sat down in the posh leather seats, she nervously clipped her hair back, politely declining an offer of a glass of water. Then her nerves dispersed as she launched into a smooth, acoustic offering of ‘There Is No Greater Love’.
At the end of the song, she received a rapturous round of applause from the music executives, who were delighted to have such a potentially profitable artist on their books. They could see the pound signs in front of their very eyes.

The artist known as John the White Rapper remembers meeting Amy around this time and being blown away by both her personality and voice. ‘Once there, I didn’t really say much to be honest, but Amy was singing and I remember being shocked – I’d never heard anybody sing so beautifully so close to me; all I could talk about when we walked home was getting her into the studio.’ Their friendship was swiftly declared. ‘After that we started to hang out. I was a bit of a nice guy, really. I’d go round and there’d be mess like you would not believe – piles of washing-up everywhere – and I hate mess so I used to wash up. I think that’s what made her love me.’

Again, though, Amy wasn’t seeing things quite the same way. Her father Mitch says that, to the laid-back Amy, signing up with Universal/Island was ‘just her way of getting her music out’. Amy confirms this: ‘I honestly never thought I would make any money from music – I figured I’d get a job in an office or as a waitress. I never had a great plan or promoted myself, but in a way I’ve been working for this for years.’ She recalls her sense of puzzlement when it first all took off for her. ‘He [Nicky Shamansky] said to me, “Do you want some studio time?” and I was so green around the gills I was just, like, “For what?” He said, “Well, if you write songs with your guitar and make a record, you’ll get a record deal.” I was like, “Really? What do you get out of it?” I guess I’m a very lucky girl.’

How typical of Amy – to think she was the lucky one in the equation. To the outsider, the lucky people in this equation were the record company who captured the talent of this extraordinary young woman. Lucky, too, were the listeners who would get to hear her wonderful songs. However, Amy has always put music ahead of not just fame but also ego. In any case, with her signature secured on the contract, the next step for her record label was to get her to put out a record. And what a wonderful yet controversial record it was to prove to be!