Amy, My Daughter by Mitch Winehouse Read Free Book Online Page B

Don’t tell Nan till Friday. I want to surprise her.’
    I promised I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t keep news like this from my mum and phoned her the minute Amy left.
    When I think about it now, I realize I took Amy’s talent for granted. At the time I actually thought, Good, looks like she’s going to make a few quid out of this.
    Amy’s record company advance on Frank was £250,000, which seemed like a lot of money. But back then some artists were getting £1 million advances and being dropped by their label before they’d even brought out a record. So, although it was a fortune to us, it was a relatively small advance. She had also received a £250,000 advance from EMI for the publishing deal. Amy needed to live on that money until the advances were recouped against royalties from albums sold. Only after that had happened could she be entitled to future royalties. That seemed a long way off: how many records would she need to sell to recoup £500,000? A lot, I thought. I wanted to make sure that we looked after her money so it didn’t run out too quickly.
    When Amy first got the advance she was living with Janis in Whetstone, north London, with Janis’s boyfriend, his two children and Alex. But as soon as Amy’s advances came through she moved into a rented flat in East Finchley, north London, with her friend Juliette.
    Amy understood very quickly that if her mum and I didn’t exert some kind of financial control she’d go through that money like there was no tomorrow. I had no problem with her being generous to her friends – for example, she wouldn’t let Juliette pay rent – but she and I knew that I needed to stop her frittering the money away. She was smart enough to understand that she needed help.
    Amy and Juliette settled into the flat and enjoyed being grown-up. I would often drop by. I’d left my double-glazing business and had been driving a London black taxi for a couple of years. On my way home from work, I’d go past the end of their road and pop in to say hello, but Amy always insisted I stay, offering to cook me something.
    â€˜Eggs on toast, Dad?’ she’d ask.
    I’d always say yes, but her eggs were terrible.
    And we’d sing together, Juliette joining in sometimes.
    It was around this time that I first suspected Amy was smoking cannabis. I used to go round to the flat and see the remnants of joints in the ashtray. I confronted her, and she admitted it. We had a big row about it and I was very upset.
    â€˜Leave off, Dad,’ she said, and in the end I had to, but I’d always been against any kind of drug-taking and it was devastating to know that Amy was smoking joints.
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    As time progressed, everyone at 19, EMI and Universal was so enthusiastic about Frank that I began to believe it was going to sell and that maybe, just maybe, Amy was going to become a big star. On some nights when she had a show, I’d go and stand outside the place where she was playing, like Bush Hall in Uxbridge Road, west London. Her reputation seemed to grow by the minute. I’d listen to what people were saying as they went in, and they seemed excited about seeing her.
    Afterwards Amy and I would go out for dinner, to places like Joe Allen’s in Covent Garden, and she would be buzzing, talking to other diners, having a laugh with the waiters. In those days she liked performing live – as a virtual unknown she felt no pressure and simply enjoyed herself; she was always happy after a show, and I loved seeing her like that.
    Her voice never failed to blow audiences away, but she needed to work on her stagecraft. Sometimes she’d turn her back on the audience – as though she didn’t want to face them. But when I asked if she enjoyed performing, she’d always say, ‘Dad, I love it,’ so I didn’t ask anything more.
    In the months leading up to Frank