AMY WINEHOUSE - OUR TARNISHED CHANTEUSE

Here's a piece I wrote for the Camden New Journal. I took the picture at Amy's Snakehips DJ night, The Monarch, 2008.

AMY Winehouse, our treasured, tarnished chanteuse whose talent lay as much in the heart-shattering cracks in her vocals as her ability to bare her darkest moments in song, soul laid bare on the kitchen floor, has left us too soon. Camden without Amy is muted, the loss immense. Such was her omnipresence that the void is even greater.

I saw her at her best – The Dublin Castle, Camden Crawl 2008, entrancing as her aching vocals beguiled observers into feeling her pain, and her worst – oblivious, lost, transformed into a museum piece during her Snakehips DJ night at The Monarch as, roped off like an exhibit, Blake brooch in her hair and blinded by a constellation of camera flashes, she barely played a disc. Instead she painted her nails. I last saw her at The Dublin Castle, Camden Crawl 2010. A combination of brassy barmaid and vulnerable child, she pulled pints, enjoying every delicious second of her semblance of normality.

Some mourn Camden of old, before the market mushroomed into a mall of trinkets, when punks were more than just a curiosity carrying a sign to the nearest tattoo shop.

But Amy saw past this. She exposed the lure of Camden to a new crowd, each eagerly mimicking her style with backcombed punctuations on every corner.

While tabloids leapt in excitement every time Amy made a surprise appearance, Camden barely raised an eyelid. She was a fixture, part of the furniture, and one that was expected to turn up any moment. This knowledge was a comfort.

Amy showed her fierce loyalty to her beloved borough by not becoming precious, visiting her favoured kebab shops, newsagents and pubs regardless of the 24/7 media glare.

As she showed her allegiance to Camden, the borough returned the favour. When spotted in the street at night, it wasn’t the locals who followed Amy but the paparazzi. Her attraction to the area could well be put down to the safe familiarity of the characters and venues that went out of their way to protect her.

She saw the positive side of Camden while others were busy pointing out the dark side.

Her troubles were widely known and while the sorry end to this tiny girl with the exquisitely loaded voice was somewhat inevitable, there was the always hope that another surprise appearance was imminent and this time, those troubles would have melted away.