DISGRACELAND - Amy Winehouse: Rehab, the Muse and a Rare Talent

Episode Date: May 14, 2019

Rehab, arrests, fights, hitting on Prince Harry, dramatic stage breakdowns, slagging off the press, Amy Winehouse was a rockstar’s rockstar and she was also one of the greatest musical talents of the past 20 years. Her voice was unlike any other. She modernized jazz. She gave weight to pop. When she was inspired, she was untouchable. Driven by her muse, haunted by her addictions, and harassed endlessly by the paparazzi, Amy Winehouse’s story is tragic and all too familiar, but her music and the way she expressed herself was entirely unique. To see the complete list of contributors, visit ⁠disgracelandpod.com⁠ This episode was originally published on May 15, 2019. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠disgracelandpod.com/membership⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠GET THE NEWSLETTER⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ (formerly Twitter)  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook Fan Group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Amy Winehouse are insane. She drank her weight in alcohol, brazenly hit on Prince Harry, tied herself off to mainline more heroin than 1976 Keith Richards, and tied herself to a boy named Blake, who is the baddest of bad influences.

Amy was also, at times, inspired, and most always, musically speaking at least, inspiring. And Amy Winehouse made great music. That music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Melotango Flash Flash, BK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the license for sexy back by Justin Timberlake. And why would I play you that specific slice of rapture-inspired cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on October 27, 2006. And that was the day that Amy Winehouse released Back to Black.

Her smash second album, an album that would skyrocket her to superstardom, and make her an easy mark for both the paparazzi and her demons. A suffocating reality that would kill the very thing inside of her that pushed her to make music in the first place. On this episode, a mellow tango, a lex. Trochees, a fleeting muse, and Amy Winehouse. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland, walk adjacent Camden Square.

But they were far away, distant. They may as well have been closed. Amy Winehouse saw none of the chaos around her as she made her way down the London street from Holly Arms, her local, to her flat around the way. The cameras, their flash, the intrusive shouts from members of the paparazzi and their commands do this, don't. Don't do that. How's Reg? When was the last time you saw Blake? When are we getting new music? To Amy, it was white noise.

As disruptive as it was, she could no longer register it. She'd walk down the street and affect her 1,000-yard junkie stare. It wasn't difficult. She'd done her time in the shooting gallery. Even if she was off smack and even if she was drunk, she knew how to project a gaze. Amy would trick herself into thinking about something else. Music, always music. She'd walk her. watch her voice as if the sound of it was a physical thing that could be tracked visually. Amy would take a melody, sometimes one of her own, something she was working on. These days it was usually a classic from the Torch Songbook, from one of the jazz grades she admired and studied, Saravan or Tony Bennett. And Amy would imagine that melody passing over her lips and rising up into the sky,

floating freely without the limitations of this cruel world. It would move with ease around the clouds from left, to right, slinking and sliding over the imagined bars of some cosmic scale, a sonic manifestation of the emotion welling up inside of it, a heavily mascaraed vision board, like one of those transparent acetate sheets that music school teachers would place on old viewfoil projectors, layered over the reality of the unwanted fame that complicated her world, the same world she tottered through alternately on four-inch heels and in bloody ballerina shoes. Simpler times, school was out, reality was in, and it was a mind fuck of the highest order.

Celebrity was a 24-7 invasion. It scared away the muse. Before success, the muse was like a desperate barback at last call, just there, eager, and easy. But after success, the muse became elusive. Every so often, Amy would corner the muse, and when she did, she'd wrap her tattooed fingers around his throat, push his chin up in a way that gave her access to the part of the neck

below the crux of the jaw, just under the ear. She'd press her lips to his tight skin, and like a vampire, let her hot breath penetrate the moment. She could feel the muse giving into her, sliding one hand to the small of her back, palming her head with the other, pressing the tips of his fingers to massage her scalp gently while she moved her lips and tong about his neck. When the sweat started, she knew he was hers. Her heart would swell. She could feel herself smiling, laughing, swooning inside, feeling that old feeling,

inspired, celebratory, in need of a drink. And she'd turned to the bar for a quick pull on her pint, and then back to the muse, and he'd be gone. In his place, the light of a thousand suns flashing and popping in her face, blinding her, pushing her blood to boil, ratcheting up her anxiety, backing her into her corner, leaving her little room to think, to create, to feel, to love. So citing her songs across the sky was a tactic, a defense mechanism, a way to block out the paparazzi,

in a way to stay rooted in creativity. Sometimes it worked, and most times it didn't. Today it was working, so Amy was happy. A wry smile turning up the ends of her lips as she walked on by. And the Camden summer air cooled her skin, and the bustle of early evening was kicking in. Time for Amy to head home from the pub. Nighttime was not the right time.

Not for Amy. Too much temptation, too slippery a slope. It wasn't always this way, though. Amy Wino's used to own Camden nightlife. in her own couldn't care less kind of way. Camden Nightlife itself was a different thing then as well. It was the epicenter of cool. The Northwest London neighborhood with its markets, record stores, and bookshops

was home to a bar called The End that hosted a party on Monday nights called Trash. Errol Alkin, the visionary DJ host who launched Trash, revolutionized the UK nightclub scene with the genre-defying music he spun and the performers he booked. Trash propelled British club culture beyond. John Tired Britpot, and it's where those two star-crossed lovers, the electric guitar and the big beat, the slutty electronic big beat, finally said, fuck it and jumped in the sack together. The club's demise is too close in the rear view, but in years to come, music nerds who write about this sort of thing will come to recognize that trash was as influential as the matinees at CBGB or the Velvet Rope line at Studio 54. In the early 2000s, electronic music was no longer lame.

More precisely, its offshoot, electro-clash, was the height of cool. If you were one of those people who thought drum machines or pre-programmed or triggered drums had quote-unquote no soul, you were either old, out of touch, or both. If you were lucky enough to make it pass the fashion police at the door and into trash on a Monday night, what you found writhing on the dance floor to the angular guitars and filthy beats of the raptures, House of Jealous Lovers, or LCD Sound Systems Losing My Edge, was a sound of the new millennium, an urgent, sexier rock and roll, and the embodiment of soul, a jammed, dance floor, stoned, sauced, sweaty, sexy 20-somethings, some of whom were about to write the future of pop music.

Trash was basically a rehearsal space for the Libertines, the scruffy London indie band that defined rock and roll for a large swath of British teens. Acts like The Strokes, Kings of Leon, White Stripes, Peaches, and Star-making DJ on the make Mark Ronson, all hung out at trash, all artists whose influence is felt widely in today's popular music. As I write this, the morning after the 61st annual Grammy Awards, Mark Ronson and Anthony Rosamondo, the touring guitarist who replaced Pete Dorety in the Libertines, are busy sleeping off the high of winning the Grammy Award for Best Song for Lady Gaga's Shallow. How's that for influence? Also in the crowd of trash on the regular, Amy Winehouse.

She could be seen crushed up against the stage of early Libertine's performances at Trash, and Trash's promiscuous air and genre-bending music programming can be heard on her Mark Ronson co-produced second album. And of course, Trash is where she met Blake, Blakefielder. Their love was instant, hot, impassioned, and like most of what would come to define their future relationship, illicit. Amy and Blake were both seeing other people, but significant others could not significantly tamp down their lust for one another. It was all-consuming and for Amy inspiring. Blake was a muse. The love he brought to the party was compelling. The drugs he brought to the party were another story entirely. Coke, speed, pills, heroin, and crack were all in play, and they played against

Amy's inspiration. Her demons, always just a touch below the surface, were easily called into action to speed her descent into the grimy addictive underground that a new boyfriend trafficked in. Blake fielder, mover, mover, shaker, drama maker, roving gambler with the rambling tongue in the faraway eyes, thief, junkie, and the future, Mr. Amy Winehouse. Wu-Tang Clan, Shangri-Las, Salt and Peppa, and Donnie Hathaway all ended up on the mix. The mix playing on repeat in Amy Winehouse's head. These artists and more singed Amy Winehouse. Their musical influence on her was both obvious and subtle

depending on who you were talking about. But the one trait they all shared that Amy picked up on and never put down was their command of voice. Say what you will about Wu Tang, the Shangri-Las, Salt and Peppa, and Donnie Hathaway. But when they were doing their thing, each ascended to the head of their respective packs,

and it was because of the command of their music, specifically over their voices. Amy Winehouse was a top-notch vocalist, sure, a jazz singer. As her hero, Tony Bennett, said of her, she sang the right way. He was right. Hearing that quote, it's easy to think that he's talking about her technique. And when we talk about vocal technique, physicality, and God-given gifts figure heavy into the equation. But the other component, emotion, is just as important, but perhaps more crucial is what the singer chooses to do with that emotion. Like an actor, singers make choices. And no pop singer in modern history chose more wisely than Amy Winehouse. She transported herself in order to connect the lyrics she sang, whether they were standards sung previously by jazz or Motown giants, or whether they were written by her. And if they were written by her,

you can bet they were drawn from a place of deep experience, usually pain. She would thoroughly search for an emotion before committing her voice to it in song, and the result was a stunning command over her instrument, her voice. As strong as Jimmy Hendricks' command over his guitar, or Keith Moons over his kit, or pick your iconic and analogy, Amy Wino's could match it. But to make a great record, it takes more than just that command and that power. It takes something even more special.

It takes a song, a hit song, with a lyric that is hardwired to the singer's heart, where the singer is such a reliable narrator, and the lyric, despite its simplicity, is compelling because of its authenticity. When a lyric has that combination, simplicity, authenticity, emotion, point of view, it has the power to stop the world from spinning and make listening. or say to themselves, oh yeah, duh. And then sprint to the internet or record stores or wherever people get their music to listen to it over and over and over again.

And that's what Amy Winehouse's breakout single did with the lyric. They tried to make me go to rehab. And I said, no. Of course you did. Look at you. Big Ronnie Specter Beehive. Black mascara for days. Tattoos, skinny like a Coke spoon.

Teeth fucked up in that sexy English way. And no kidding, you said, no, no. You have hearts to break, bars to close, charts to top, and more and more songs to write for us about that son of a bitch who messed you up. What's his name? That dude with the rolled up Fred Perry's sleeves who constantly looks either hung over or wasted. Your muse, you say, Blake. Amy Wynos had a hit, and her new husband, Blake Fielder, was very much along for the ride. Though the ride began over a bumpy road, in the beginning, Amy and Blake had significant others.

And when they seemed to have finally committed to each other, Blake bailed, and the ride began. went back to his girlfriend. Amy was heartbroken, but she was also inspired. She opened an emotional vein and poured her heart out into her lyrics and onto tape. And when her Blake-inspired batch of songs was finally released, Amy's first single, Rehab, shot up the charts in both the UK and the States, launching her second album that Mark Bronson co-produced Back to Black, up the charts.

Amy took America by storm, first with a star-turning performance on the late show with David Letterman. where she and her excellent borrowed backing band, Brooklyn's Dapkings, announced her arrival with authority. From there, radio, or what was left of it at the time in 2007, along with the internet, got fully behind the single, and with Amy's arresting punk rock by way of girl group Good Looks and Quick Wit, the press and the tabloids were immediately intrigued. Suddenly, Amy Winehouse was everywhere.

And before it was all said and done, Back to Black would win five Grammy Awards and become the second biggest selling album all time in the UK and go on to sell a combined 12 million copies worldwide. But with success comes stress, superstar-level stress. Amy Winehouse now had a shit ton of responsibilities. And all she wanted to do was get back to life in Camden with Blake, drink, get high, which with Blake in tow was now a preferred way of passing time

and write new songs. But she faced extensive touring, performing songs she'd already gotten tired of performing. The reluctant pop star was thrust into the music industry marketing machine and tasked with winning over audiences through TV appearances, interviews, and photo shoots. Worst of all, what came with all that was increased interest from the tabloid press in the burgeoning age of social media. She was under more scrutiny than ever and stressed the fuck out about it. Amy was sometimes insecure about her looks, her weight, and even her talent.

And when she felt insecure, she got destructive. After fleeing a photo shoot in tears because she didn't, as she said, feel pretty enough. She managed to find some courage after a fortifying bottle or three of champagne. Drinking through her work days was the way she coped. Eating was something other people did. Her body suffered. She no longer filled out her form-fitting pin-up girl dresses and sometimes joked that she used every eating disorder available to her as a means of maintaining her figure.

As her body got smaller and eventually frailer, her hair got bigger, her makeup more dramatic. She hoped that artifice would create some distance, telegraphed to her fans and detractors alike that what really mattered was the music. Success for Amy Winehouse was not what she expected. It was problematic. Amy blamed many of her problems on her daddy issues.

Mitch Winehouse had not only left her mother Janice when Amy was nine, he'd also brought around to the house the woman he'd been having an affair with for most of Amy's young life, beginning when she was just two years old. In effect, shoving his love life and rejection of them in their faces. Amy craved her father's attention. She still looked up to him and wanted his approval. But underlying that sense of abandonment and rejection were behavioral problems

that she'd shown since she was a toddler. She suffered from depression and may have been bipolar, and she was put on a mood-stabilizing drug in an attempt to control her symptoms. Most often, though, she took her anger out on herself. She began cutting at age nine, just little lines and cross-hatcheted marks so tiny you could barely see them. But they were there, and they gave her a kind of release. They gave her a sense of control, however fleeting. As an adult, she still cut herself.

It was something she and Blake had done separately as children, and now they did it together. Romantic, the little blood, a little more blood. Then the shame and the scars. She cut herself to punish herself, to punish Blake. At the same time, she began to depend more and more on Blake, a man who could barely take care of himself, to support her emotionally to take care of her. Blake was her man, her muse, her mess. A hardcore drug user, he brought heroin and crack into the relationship. But Amy wasn't some passive victim.

She embraced his world of drugs wholeheartedly. When she was using drugs and drinking, Amy lacked self-control. And then again, why should she control herself? She was Amy Winehouse. You never knew which Amy you were going to get. She could be funny and flamboyant or fucked up and fidgety. At the Q Awards in 2006, where you two received yet another award of some kind, Amy was there sitting in the audience.

She got antsy as Bono droned on. He literally would not shut up. Amy wanted a drink. She wanted to smoke and her feet hurt. Her hair itched. She wanted to leave. Jesus, Bono, will you ever fucking shut up? She shouted.

It came out loud. in her heaviest cockney accent. Heads turned, people shushed, Bono glared. She could give a shit about pissing off Bono. And she didn't mind making a scene either. She wanted out. Award shows weren't her thing. For Amy, a girl from Camden, festivals were more to her taste.

At the Wireless Festival, she was in her element. She hit the VIP bar. She was feeling right in her short yellow halter dress, peepedotes, dilettles, mile-high beehive, and signature red lipstick. She looked around backstage to see who was. worthy of her attention. As Jay-Z began his set, Amy noticed the A-listers who were surrounding her,

the magnificent Beyonce, that smug little snob, Gwyneth Paltrow, and the has-been twins, Kate Moss, and Madonna. But Amy wasn't interested in any of them. She had her sight set on an unsuspecting and officially single royal,

Prince Harry, or Prince Hot Jinge as he was dubbed in the tabloids. He was captivating in all of his royal glory. Amy watched him vibe to H-To-the-Izzo. He raised his hands to the anthem, as did his dozen or so bodyguards. And suddenly, they were on high alert, because Camden's tattooed rose was rolling up on the prince. The crack-addled songstress, the great Amy Winehouse herself, was barreling right at him. Popsie swarmed around her as she moved toward

where Harry sat at the side of the stage. Ooi, Ari, she called. He'd never met her, and he wasn't exactly planning on doing that now either. What was she doing? My God, she was coming closer. Oi, O'y, Ari, it's me, Amy. At this point, security reined down on her and promptly apprehended her. Prince Harry remained embarrassed but polite as she was dragged off by her handlers and then by security. Sometimes, Amy had things under control. Other times she did not. That was the case on the night Amy had been invited by a friend to a children's production of Cinderella.

The friend was starring as Prince Charming. By the time Amy arrived, she was feeling the fight rise up in her. She wanted to embarrass her friend, just a little. She wanted attention. She wanted to be funny, to be loved. She wanted to disrupt, to hurt. She wanted the glass slipper, to tot her around in, to break, to cut. She wanted, she needed the prince.

She needed to be Cinderella. She was Cinderella. Fuck Cinder's! She screamed. Marry me, Prince Charming, me! The little kids in the audience were confused. The parents shocked. The theater manager beside himself.

Amy got up. out of her seat was walking up and down the aisles, trying to take charge with minimal embarrassment the theater manager approached. A low voice in her ear said, please come with me and Ms. We pulled away. We have a private VIP seating area where you'd be more comfortable. He continued politely. The fuck I'm coming with you. A couple of security guards intervened to escort her out of the building. She said she needed to use the bathroom first, but that was just the ploy to hit the bar again. She wobbled toward the bathroom and then made a break to a small service bar in the hallway. To the tuxedo bartender, she said, I want a vodka. Miss Winehouse, wouldn't a glass of water be?

And then, that's when she hit him. The bartender, an open-handed smack, right in his face. Then, a closed fist wallop. Then Amy attacked for real, flailing arms and legs, scratching, kicking. The bartender, about twice her size, tried restraining Amy. And that's when the levitons connected straight with his balls. The full security team managed to get Amy under control. Her bodyguard promised she'd report herself to the police in the morning. No one had called the cops, but someone tipped off the press. And as she left the theater, the paparazzi was in full effect. Flash, flash, flash.

An endless barrage of intrusive cameras and questions. Amy, what happened? When's the next record coming out? Is it ever coming out? Amy, why are you so skinny? What did you smoke tonight, Amy? Where is Blake? Is he cheating on you?

When are you going to rehab? Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy, Amy. She looked up through her tangle hair high. Undone, a mess. One shoe in her hand. One lost. Her bare feet stepping unsteadily through the cold winter night. She had just one question. For the theater manager, the cops, her husband, her father, her fans, the tabloid sleazy

who followed her? One question. Just who the fuck do you think you are? We'll be right back after this word, word. word. Blake Fielder decided on one more drink. Right after he decided on one last line of Coke. And after that, he decided that maybe another line was in order.

And of course, then another drink. And then a line, and then I drink. And then a bump, and then more drink. Then, a look of his index finger and a swipe across the top of the bathroom sink for what was left of the blow. Then, a shot to dull the realization that he had no more Coke. He exited the bathroom and bobbed his head manically to the song from pulp blasting through the club speakers at ear-shattering volume.

And then he sucked his gums, pulled out his empty bindle from his sticky jean pocket right there in the dance floor and pressed it into his nostrils, inhaling hard but getting nothing. Back to the bar. Another shot. And then a failed attempt at calling his guy. Dude was nowhere when he needed him. And Jarvis Cocker really needed to tone it the fuck down. Blake was annoyed in Coke or no Coke the Macbeth was bumping.

The bar had survived two world wars. Even typhoid, but Blake and his drinking buddy were about to give the place a run for its money and open a very unsavory chapter in their own lives. They were jacked up, shouting at no one in particular and banging on their table. And most everyone tried ignoring them. But the crowd at the upmarket establishment was getting tired of their cocaine-fueled hooligan bullshit. Stoned out of their minds and pissed that there was no more coke, Blake and his friend were by all accounts ready to blow their tops.

Live wires, hot mics, spilled out and bound to believe. and they were scaring the customers. At last, the barrunner, affable, and impeccably dressed, stepped up to their table and informed them that it was time to pay up and go home. When he escorted Blake and his boy to the door, the pair grabbed the bartender and dragged him outside by his suit jacket. Blake's boy threw him to the ground. He and Blake then viciously kicked the man in the head as he curled into a bloody fetal position. One kick to the face, the sound of cracking bone. The bartender's cheekbone busted.

A kick to his eye in his eye socket. shattered, a brutal kick to one side of his jaw, and then to the other side of his face, and the bartender was barely conscious. When all was said and done, after multiple surgeries, the bartender had to have his face fitted with metal plates to make it look like a face again. His destroyed eye socket was reconstructed with titanium. Mesh was used to hold his eye in place. His jaw, once it was reattached to his skull, was held together with a metal bolt.

Not ten men down like Roger Moore, just one man the two coaked up idiots kicked the shit out of for no good reason. And there's a name for that kind of beating. In English criminal law, it's called an assault of grievous bodily harm with intent, or GBAH for short. At Snaresbrook Crown Court, Blake Fielder was brought before the Honorable Judge David Radforth, who told Blake that his behavior was, quote, gratuitous, cowardly, and, I shit you not, a disgrace. unquote. Blake, incredibly said, But, Judge, I were right pissed at the time. The judge who thought Fielder was a pathetic swine, shook his head and disbelief.

Blake began to worry about the prospect of serious jail time. Within a few months, Blake was falling down and pulling Amy along with him every chance he got. Together, hand in hand, they were spiraling. Worse, they were constantly in the news and tabloids. They were busted for cannabis in Norway, and Amy's embarrassing gig at the MTV European Music Awards did nothing for her public image. Then, as if all of it wasn't bad enough, a video of Amy smoking crack surfaced on the internet. She was devastated, and, to top that, Blake had tried to avoid jail for the beating

by offering the victim 200,000 pounds to clam up. Blake had been found out and been made for the bribe. The jig was up, and there was no way around it. He was heading to jail for 27 months. So before shipping off to prison, he decided it was time to lay low. He and Amy hold up in their place in Camden where they drank, smoked, and snorted themselves into daily stupors. The dull base of Wu-Tang in the streets bouncing constantly in the background. Cocaine, ketamine, ecstasy.

Amy washed it all down with Stella, red wine, and vodka. She and Blake shut the world out because the world was dangerous. People were fucking parasites. They alone would save each other. They had to stay together. They were all they had. The knock on the door came out of nowhere. Amy and Blake were asleep.

The knocks then graduated to full-on banging and shouting. Amy and Blake stirred in their bed. Bang, bang, bang. Silence. Police, open up. More silence, more banging. Then, one, two, three, and finally, one big bang. The door miraculously held its own.

And then the crow bars came out. A crack in the sound of iron rubbing up against concrete. Amy shot out of bed as if from a nightmare. Blake! Her mouth was parched and her throat was sore. This is the police. Open up. Fuck, Blake! Bleary-eyed, but instantly propelled by adrenaline.

Amy's husband sprang up from the bed, stumbled over empty bottles and overflowing ashtrays, and peered through the curtains. Down in the street were dozens of police, a fleet of panda cars and a couple paddy wagons. The cops at the door with their crowbars proceeded to dig in and tug at the sides of the door frame. Amy leaped to the window, panicking, hyperventilating.

Blake! He grabbed it by the wrist. We got to go now. He shoved himself into his crumpled jeans, grabbed his hat, phone, and smokes. He nabbed an extra t-shirt that he would later tie around his neck to ease the sting from the long scratch marks that angrily scored his flesh from cheeks to chest. Amy pulled on a skirt from the floor and stepped into her filthy ballet slippers. In tears, she pushed up her battered beehive. It toppled over and pulled on her scalp.

The hair extensions had torn away the hair at her temples where there were now two large, raw-looking bald spots. Much of her hair was broken, and the towering hive now covered what had once been healthy, lustrous locks. Her arms and legs were scratched and bruised. Her eyeliner ran down her face as if she'd been left out for a week in the rain. Boom, boom, boom. Determined to penetrate the apartment, the police had tossed aside the curl bars in favor of a battering ram. There was one thing left to do. Dirty, crusty, battle-wounded, hungover and still high.

The two managed to launch themselves down the back stairs like a tweaked-up Bonnie and Clyde. They hauled off to a road behind the house and held a cab. The heavy door finally cracked away off its frame and fell backward into the house. Boots trampled into the regal three-story residence. The rooms would have been beautiful if you ignored the debauched party scene. The empties and the trash and the smell of vomit. Even the seasoned cops had to admit that it was pretty blue. leak. And while the raid was really about the warrant for Blake's arrest, for the bribe, the police

had reasonably expected to find drugs. But Amy and Blake had finished them off. And they poked around through the bottles, boxes, and ashtrays, the piles of clothes and clumps of hair. The floor was sticky, and the tabletops were covered with a variety of crack pipes and wads of crumpled tinfoil, but no actual drugs. He and Blake had made it to North London to the apartment of a friend, and they were on the run, and they had a hide. Meanwhile, Their paranoia was at full tilt. Had their friends sold them out to the paparazzi or worse, called the cops? Was the flat bugged?

Had the cops already planted evidence? Amy had a bad feeling. Maybe they should move on and get out, away from their friend's apartment. And was she really a friend anyway? Or was she just like the rest of them? Not to get her or Blake. Fuck her. Look how she looked at us when we arrived.

Like we're common criminals. When we're not, we're Amy and Blake. And who the fuck are you? And who were you on the phone with just then? And who were you calling? And then, the doors of the apartment broke in with no warning. The police were in Amy's friends flat in seconds. Before Amy could react, they grabbed Blake and handcuffed him.

Amy was beside herself, crying violently and hanging on to Blake. Baby, I love you, and I'll be fine, that sort of thing. But she wouldn't be fine. Not at all. After Blake's arrest, Amy's publicist made a statement saying that Amy was recovering from exhaustion and asked that the public and the media respect her privacy, like that was ever going to happen. Recovering from exhaustion, also known as going to rehab,

was something that Amy badly needed. Her family, friends, and record label urged her to enter her facility in Essex to come off of the drugs and booze. Alcohol was Amy's true demon, and seesawing on and often increased the chance that she could die during detox or retocks. The booze rather than what she smoked or snort,

had wrought the worst havoc on her tiny body. However, her heavy cigarette smoking led to a diagnosis of emphysema in 2008. She was only 24 years old. Alone at rehab, Amy was desperate to see Blake. While visits were prohibited, he managed to get to her. One time, he brought her a tiny package, and later, during one of her daily screenings,

doctors found heroin in her system. Did Blake bring her the drugs out of love or something else? He himself was a drug to her, her protector, her sootheer, her muse. So much so that when Blake was incarcerated, Amy moved to a different rehab center just to be close to him. But in 2008, at the insistence of both sets of their parents, Amy and Blake divorced.

Blake signed the papers while he was still in jail, and Amy headed off to St. Lucia to quit heroin and quit Blake once and for all. The doctor was stern, cross-looking, but with empathy in his eyes. There is none of the normal condescension, just seriousness and concern. Amy's family listened intently while Amy slept off the strain of her latest overdose in the adjacent room. The doctor's words were no surprise. She'll die if she has another overdose.

If you understand me, Amy will die. With the amount of cocaine, crack, heroin, and alcohol in her system, it's a miracle she's not in a coma. You get lucky this time. She's a petite girl. The message was clear. Amy Winehouse's family needed to make their rock star daughter go to rehab and actually rehabilitate or she would be dead before her 28th birthday.

No, no, no, would not be an acceptable answer. So Amy checked herself in at the Priory Clinic in London and made a go of it. It was May 2011 and she needed to get ready for her European shows happening. that summer. But when she checked back out, she found herself uninspired in semi-sobriety. Living clean was boring. There was no inspiration for new music. Playing her hits was also boring, and utter drag, no excitement. But the bills needed to be paid. Rehab ain't cheap. So dates were booked, including her big comeback show in Belgrade. Amy reluctantly agreed, the money was too good, but she dreaded the thought of playing the shows. Now, sober, and without Blake,

She couldn't see herself up there prattling on about rehab and torched love without alcohol, without her muse. The first show was a disaster. With her anxiety through the roof beforehand, Amy took to a bottle of wine to calm her nerves. She drank it fast, the entire bottle, and then another, and by the time she appeared on stage in front of 200,000 people, she was legless, so drunk that she was completely unable to perform. The crowd booed Amy off stage. It's difficult to watch the video of this performance and to see such a commanding artist completely out of control, unable to do anything really.

She can barely stand, never mind sing. She flirts with the backup singers who somehow maintain an air of professionalism and politely chase her away from their mics, hoping to drive her to her own, to grab it with her spidery fingers and unleash that tortured voice into it. The voice that almost a quarter million people

had turned up to see. But instead, she just sits down on the drum riser and watches the show as if she's not even a part of it, totally defeated, spent. And when news hit to the show or the lack thereof, the rest of the tour was canceled. Amy headed home, back to Camden. Amy's feet hurt. If it wasn't the arches from the tight heels, then it was the souls from her near soulless ballerina shoes. She weaved her way through the paparazzi, the glare of their flashes, the annoyance of their shouting.

She tried hard to keep the song in her sight, but the muse was gone, and so was the song. Her heart sunk. She felt that pull in her chest and her mouth water slightly. She knew there was vodka in the house. She'd drink tonight to dull the pain and tomorrow get back on the wagon. But tonight, tonight, she'd get fucked up and fuck around with some music. Try to get something out, not to tape or at least onto paper. She wabbled up the stairs to her place, leaving the soul-sucking paparazzi behind.

on the sidewalk, vultures. She headed to the kitchen, grabbed the vodka, popped the top, and began pulling straight from the bottle. Then she hit her bedroom. She wanted to play drums, get her blood and creative juices flowing. With the alcohol,

coursing through her veins and feeling hot and restless, hitting the sticks on the stretched skins would be a release. There were things she needed to do. Her heart beat like the wings of a bird in a cage, trapped, and there were calls and texts

she needed to return. Her phone was somewhere. When her living bodyguard complained about the noise, she traded the sticks for jazz brushes. She drank more vodka. There, the muse, it was back, sort of. She could sense it pulling on her heart. There was something she needed to write down. Her guitar was somewhere. She moved on to some wine she had stashed away. There was a song flowing through her. She could feel it now. The rhythm got slower, jazier, softer. The beat was intoxicating. She could feel herself slowing down. She could feel her anxiety drifting. The pulse

of her heart slowing to match the fading rhythm inside of her. She let it take her down. She stopped playing but still hear the slowing beat or maybe she could just feel it. Finally, she could feel something. She was alive or so she thought the beat slowed down even more.

She put her hands to her heart. Calmer now. Slow. So slow. So slow. So slow. She slipped down to the floor off of the drumstool to her knees, leaning over to her bed to pull the down comforter off of it and onto her frail and now freezing body in one slow-mo fell swoop. The beat sounded like it was underwater now. She could see the notes floating around the room along with the feathers from the ruffled

comforter. They drifted slow, slow, slow, slow through the lamplight in time with the drowning beat. Ever so softly, she let herself fall further and further away from the muse until eventually she was gone. Thousands of mourners with flowers, candles, teddy bears, bottles of southern comfort, and packs of smokes. Some wearing pin-up dresses,

some in sharp suits, most in tears, stood in front of 30, Camden Place, to pay their respects. Alone, addicted, and perhaps most damning, uninspired, their Amy had left them. She also left them her voice, her incredible voice,

but altogether too soon. Amy Wynott. was dead at 27 years old. Which is a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist member,

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