Winehouse, in what appears to be a recording booth, rings every emotional nuance from her song as she sings the lyrics: “Over futile odds/And laughed at by the gods/And now the final frame/Love is a losing game.”
As the music fades we hear Winehouse ask quietly, and seemingly sadly, “Is that alright?”
It’s a heartbreaking moment from a tremendously talented star who fell too quickly.
Friday July 23 marks the ten-year anniversary of Winehouse’s tragic passing. The singer was found dead of accidental alcohol poisoning at the age of 27 in her London home.
The British singer with the cat-eye makeup and massive bouffant hairstyle was far from the first artist to die too soon.
“I feel like I owe so much of my career to her,” Adele told the audience. “That first album, ‘Frank,’ it really changed my life.”
Winehouse actually led a wave of stateside success for British female singers like Duffy, Estelle, Lilly Allen and Leona Lewis.
But Winehouse never seemed to realize how inspirational or influential she was, instead mired in highly publicized personal and legal troubles.
Even after both she and her critically acclaimed 2006 “Back to Black” album won Grammys, there was still more media focus on her fights, arrests, rehab stints and tumultuous relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil (the pair would divorce in 2009) than her music.
All that attention was the exact opposite of what Winehouse wanted.
“Amy hated being famous,” he said. “She said ‘Fame is like terminal cancer, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.'”
Her struggle to find herself in the midst of being a star is well documented in the 2015 documentary, “Amy,” which painted her as a pop star with a jazz soul who struggled with substance abuse.
A new documentary, “Reclaiming Amy,” marks the 10th anniversary of her death and is narrated by the singer’s mother, Janis Winehouse-Collins.
Founded by her family to both honor and further the singer’s legacy, the organization is just one way those who love her seek to do what Winehouse said she wanted to do with her music — transform tragedy into triumph.