Jayne Dowel: She wasn’t a role model but Amy was a star

Now, I know that Mrs Brown, who describes herself as a “mum, charity campaigner, and believer in good things”, is an obsessive tweeter, but come on, you’ve got to be impressed. When Rolling Stone Brian Jones drowned in a swimming pool in 1969 can you imagine Mary “Harold” Wilson sending a quick note of condolence to his mum and dad? Mrs W. probably didn’t even know which one of the long-haired rockers he actually was.

But such is the nature of modern culture that a respectable Establishment wife and a wayward, substance-addicted 27-year-old singer from Camden can both be part of the same firmament. Perhaps Sarah played Amy’s second album, Back to Black, to cheer herself up when Gordon was having one of his bad days in Number 10. The songs about obsessive love and addictive personalities would have given her some context, if nothing else.

When all the moralisers have packed up their pulpits and gone off to find someone else to pick on, it is worth remembering the impact that Amy Winehouse had. A word here, and it’s not meant to sound sexist. I’m not convinced, from anecdotal evidence, that a lot of chaps ever really “got” Amy Winehouse. Too needy, too intense, and too mad-looking to take home to mother perhaps, she was just that little bit too much.

So, I guess that Sarah Brown liked her for the sam e reasons that many women liked her. Above all, she had a fantastic voice, a voice that seemed to connect with other women on some weird, deep and primal level. And some of those songs she wrote smacked you right in the solar plexus. She was only just out of her teens when her first album, Frank, came out, but it was difficult to imagine that this nicely-brought up Jewish girl from North London hadn’t lived your life for you already, whatever your age.

And it was this fantastic voice that won her accolades for Back to Black, and made her the first British singer to pull off five Grammy Awards. She won a whole lot of other awards too, proving that there was much more to her than falling out of bars, an ill-advised marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil and bad hair days. Like Sarah Brown, I became a fan. But on the evidence of Rehab, the single that made her name and prophesied her eventual downfall, I was not impressed. I thought it was commercial and gimmicky. It wasn’t until I saw her on television at the Glastonbury Festival in 2008 that I saw the point of Amy Winehouse. This tiny figure with a massive voice, backed by a load of super-cool musicians. The ska beats, the soul, the total eclecticism of her music. Not to mention the sheer guts it must have took to get up there and belt it out like that in skyscraper heels.

She swam against the tide. Rebelled against her upbringing at the BRIT School for performing arts. Fell out with her taxi driver dad Mitch, who touched all of us daughters with his devotion. And she took on Simon Cowell. Not in a straight fight, although that would have been quite a sight. No, she challenged the status quo he has created, the idea that to be successful, vocalists must be packaged into easily-digestible light entertainment-friendly packages.

In 10 years’ time, who will you remember? Alexandra Burke? Or Amy Winehouse?

You might not pick Amy Winehouse as a role model for your teenage daughter. But it is worth remembering that without Amy, we might not have had Adele, another hugely-successful British female artist who hardly fits any mould. The music industry is always on the look-out for the next big thing, preferably in a form that replicates an already successful artist. There are many differences between Adele and Amy Winehouse, but the similarities, the big voice, the soul and Sixties influences (and the BRIT school in Croydon) are pretty obvious.

If you think that “pop” music doesn’t matter, consider this. It contributes billions to the British economy every year, it brings in tourists and sells our GB brand around the world. The death of one sad messed-up singer in Camden might not jolt this world on its axis, but it should make us take stock of what we have.

And remember this, whatever else she might have been, Amy Winehouse was a true British individual. A one- off. A talent destined to burn brightly for a short time, never to fizzle and splutter into the inglorious comeback hell of middle age. She might not have taught us how to live, but she certainly lived.