Amy, My Daughter by Mitch Winehouse Read Free Book Online

were walking down Charing Cross Road, towards EMI’s offices, when Amy stopped and said, ‘I’m not going to the fucking meeting.’
    Nick replied, ‘You’ve already missed one and there’s too much at stake to miss another.’
    â€˜I don’t care about being in a room full of men in suits,’ Amy snapped. The business side of things never interested her.
    â€˜I’m putting you in that dumpster until you say you’re going to the meeting,’ he told her.
    Amy started to laugh because she thought Nick wouldn’t do it, but he picked her up, put her in the dumpster and closed the lid. ‘I’m not letting you out until you say you’re coming to the meeting.’
    She was banging on the side of the dumpster and shouting her head off. But it was only after she’d agreed to go to the meeting that Nick let her out.
    She immediately screamed, ‘KIDNAP! RAPE!’
    They were still arguing as they walked into the meeting.
    â€˜Sorry we’re late,’ Nick said.
    Then Amy jumped in: ‘Yeah, that’s cos Nick just tried to rape me.’

4
FRANK – GIVING A DAMN
    In the autumn of 2002, EMI flew Amy out to Miami Beach to start working with the producer Salaam Remi. By coincidence, or maybe it was intentional, Tyler James was also in Miami, working on another project; Nick Shymansky made up the trio. They were put up at the fantastic art-deco Raleigh Hotel, where they had a ball for about six weeks. The Raleigh featured in the film The Birdcage , starring Robin Williams, which Amy loved. Although she and Tyler were in the studio all day, they also spent a lot of time sitting on the beach, Amy doing crosswords, and danced the night away at hip-hop clubs.
    Because she had gone to the US to record the album, I wasn’t all that involved in Amy’s rehearsals and studio work, but I know she adored Salaam Remi, who co-produced Frank with the equally brilliant Commissioner Gordon. Salaam was already big, having produced a number of tracks for the Fugees, and Amy loved his stuff. His hip-hop and reggae influences can be clearly heard on the album. They soon became good friends and wrote a number of songs together.
    In Miami Amy met Ryan Toby, who had starred in Sister Act 2 when he was still a kid and was now in the R&B/hip-hop trio City High. He’d heard of Amy and Tyler through a friend at EMI in Miami and wanted to work with them. He had a beautiful house in the city where Amy and Tyler became regular guests. As well as working on her own songs, Amy was collaborating with Tyler. One night in Ryan’s garden, they wrote the fabulous ‘Best For Me’. The track appears on Tyler’s first album, The Unlikely Lad , where you can hear him and Amy together on vocals. Amy also wrote ‘Long Day’ and ‘Procrastination’ for him and allowed him to change them for his recording.

    Amy sent me this Valentine’s Day card from Miami, while recording tracks for Frank in 2003.
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    By the time Amy had returned from Miami Frank was almost in the can but, oddly, though she’d signed with EMI for publishing nearly a year earlier, she still hadn’t signed with a record label. I kept asking anyone who’d listen to let me hear Amy’s songs, and eventually 19 gave me a sampler of six tracks from Frank.
    I put the CD on, not knowing what to expect. Was it going to be jazz? Rap? Or hip-hop? The drum beat started, then Amy’s voice – as if she was in the room with me. To be honest, the first few times I played that CD I couldn’t have told you anything about the music. All I heard was my daughter’s voice, strong and clear and powerful.
    I turned to Jane. ‘This is really good – but isn’t it too adult? The kids aren’t going to buy it.’
    Jane disagreed.
    I rang Amy, and told her how much we we’d loved the sampler. ‘Your voice just blew me away,’ I said.
    â€˜Ah,