Amy Winehouse is one of the most iconic singers of all time. While she felt like a throwback to better days, she was a woman with one foot in the future of music and there really was nobody quite like her.
A woman with better taste in music than us all and an infectious voice that oozes style, her life was cut short due to addiction, and while she went to rehab and said no, no, no you can’t help but feel a successful spell in rehabilitation would have seen her go from strength to strength.
However, that wasn’t to be and we’re left with an Amy Winehouse shaped hole in our lives. But that doesn’t stop us remembering her and every day her music still pops up on the radio. Which is why we’re having a look back into her life with these amazing facts about the woman…
She started out as a rapper
While we associate Amy Winehouse with jazz music she actually started her career as a rapper. That’s right, we could have heard Winehouse as a rapper and if Salt-N-Pepa would have taken off, perhaps we wouldn’t remember her so fondly.
Formed with friend Juliette Ashby, they recorded three songs called Glam Chicks, Boys…Who Needs Them and Spinderella.
She has a loose connection to the Spice Girls
Amy Winehouse signed with manager Nick Godwyn when she was just 19 years old. Stardom was destined, but 19 Entertainment, the company she signed with, was founded by Simon Fuller, the man who managed the Spice Girls and created the show Pop Idol, which has had huge success in the USA as American Idol.
She broke Grammy records in 2008
Her first album didn’t quite get the recognition it deserved, and while Frank got great reviews and won an Ivor Novello Award, it was Back To Black that catapulted her to stardom. In fact, she broke all Grammy records with that album, becoming the first British female to win five awards at one ceremony.
Her last demos were destroyed
Just before she died in 2011, Winehouse had been working on songs for her next album, which sadly never materialised. She’d got the studio booked and was ready to go, but those demos will never see the light of day as they were destroyed following her death.
David Joseph, who was head of Universal at the time, decided that it was against his morals to release her vocals and he wouldn’t have it. We may have lost another Winehouse album, but we certainly respect his decision.