Amy's Brother

Hey, having watched the documentary around 7 times now ( ) and reading countless articles on it, I started to wonder about her relationship with her brother, especially in the last few years of her life. There's lots of talk about Mitch and Janis, but her brother is not mentioned at all in the film. I know he gave an interview to The Guardian in 2013, but I'm surprised there's not more info on him. Where was he during the last few years of her life, does anyone know?

He seems a very reserved person. He didn't want to talk to Kapadia. He (and his wife later) was there for Amy, I remember reading it in Janis's book. There's no much published about their relationship, but he's the only one who properly opened up about her eating disorder. I wish he could talk more, to us that mean well for Amy, but I respect his privacy. x

Did you know about the exhibition? http://www.timesofis...8136#f351fafd84
https://www.amywineh...amy-exhibition/

He seems a very reserved person. He didn't want to talk to Kapadia. He (and his wife later) was there for Amy, I remember reading it in Janis's book. There's no much published about their relationship, but he's the only one who properly opened up about her eating disorder. I wish he could talk more, to us that mean good to Amy, but I respect his privacy. x

Do you know about the exhibition? http://www.timesofis...8136#f351fafd84
https://www.amywineh...amy-exhibition/

 

Thank you for that. I sense she really looked up to him, from the Dingle documentary. 

Alex Winehouse gave this interview in 2007:

 

http://www.blinkx.co...SzYzVHVqUlJwVW8

First time I've ever heard him speak, that's very interesting, didn't expect his accent would sound like that, thought it would be more like Mitch/Amy's, lol. Thanks for that! 

Amy didn't use to have that north London accent (cockney from north I'd say, different from east cockney like Mitch) listen to her when she was a kid, in 2003-4 pre-Frank, pre and after B2B! When they were little I guess they had a similar accent and then she changed it x

He gave this interview in 2007:

 

http://www.blinkx.co...SzYzVHVqUlJwVW8

thanks for the interview! it was very interesting, to hear his voice

 

to the last part where he said yeah, she skipped marihuana (which is btw less addictive than alcohol or drugs) aand zigarettes withing a few hours, uhm, i'm asking myself (and not since hearing this interview, actually even when she was still alive) if it would have been better for her, if she stayed on marihuana. but maybe, the story is more complex than that, so maybe i'mmissing all the backround stuff and many other indicators, but still...

 

@lialg

yeah, he is a much more reserved person and secondly he (unlike mitch) also doesn't wanna make fortune out of amy,

Yes defo @inwinoveritas the story is much more complex than that, but surely if she had stuck to weed, things would have turned out differently.

Re: your second point, what makes you say that? Lol only joking no need to comment, he's more like Janis in that sense😉

Amy didn't use to have that north London accent (cockney from north I'd say, different from east cockney like Mitch) listen to her when she was a kid, in 2003-4 pre-Frank, pre and after B2B! When they were little I guess they had a similar accent and then she changed it x

 

This is the closest I've heard to what I suspect her real accent sounded like:

 

 

I've never heard her speak with that accent in interview, but it actually matches up with a lot of Nicky's footage in the film. Still fascinating to consider that the Back to Black era look was sort of a persona she adopted, it makes the entire aesthetic seem even more theatrical and performative, she was so clever! x

A little off topic but i really liked her headband in that video! And maybe she changed her way of speaking because she moved to Camden? I have no idea how people speak in North London or Camden but just a guess.

Still fascinating to consider that the Back to Black era look was sort of a persona she adopted, it makes the entire aesthetic seem even more theatrical and performative, she was so clever! x

I'm surprised you haven't noticed before@amh91😉lol!

It's interesting you see it like that, I think party it was that, party it was simply herself changing, from a teenager she was becoming a woman, her life changed and so did her style, attitude and taste in pretty much everything really, music, fashion, people she hung out with. It's quite normal for women or I should I speak for myself, I was completely different when I was 16 to 18, 20 and so on. Perhaps at first, she was putting on a rough accent on purpose, but later it became just natural; she liked to sound "common" as Jonathan Ross defined her accent. Some people would take offence, some other would prefer to have no accent and sound posh. Then it became even more rough. (I personally love London accents and Amy's btw I've discussed it before.) Her voice when she was singing changed as well, and I'm not referring to the change towards the end.

It's just Amy being Amy in her iconic uniqueness, yet down to earth like a girl at the pub, a friend. Somebody who didn't care nor wanted to be a genius, but simply was one without even trying. It's the magic of "Amyland" x

RE: Amy's brother, does anyone recall a televised interview he did shortly after her Grammy performance (early Feb 2008)? I know he wrote an article breathlessly excited at how she had "returned to form" (http://ohnotheydidnt...m/20372066.html)

In the televised interview, I remember the interviewers asking Alex why he just didn't do something, anything, to get Amy to stop using drugs. He seemed to be taken aback and replied that he was her brother, and he could hardly tell her what to do because she wasn't going to listen to him. I think the interviewers asked him about Blake, and Alex was polite about him, didn't bad-mouth him at all. He seemed really uncomfortable in that interview, though! Does anyone remember this?

Also, around the same time, I recall a short video interview with Janis at her home following the Grammys on a British news show saying how Amy keeps getting "better and better" musically and how she'd "turned a corner" and was finally regaining her health. The family was really so relieved because Amy had gotten clean at that time. I can just imagine the stress they had been living with for so long, watching her waste away (so publicly!) from Class A drugs.

Anyone remember these interviews or have links to the footage?

I do remember having seen Alex on TV, but can't find the whole interview anymore...

Here's some snippits : 

 

I do remember having seen Alex on TV, but can't find the whole interview anymore...

Here's some snippits : 

 

Thank you, @HelloSailor! I truly remember these short interviews from Alex and Janis shortly after the 2008 Grammys, but I can't locate them, either. These two don't speak out much publicly, and when they do, I think they tend to get misinterpreted. Janis mentioned (maybe in her book) that her "gallows humor" made her appear cold and uncaring in the press, but I think that is the opposite of how she truly felt. I remember reading the joke she told about Katie the cat (teenage Amy should have been the one to be put down) and thought how poorly that came across in print. Janis used to say that the family would say, "Shut up, Amy!" because as a child Amy was CONSTANTLY singing, but I am certain that it wasn't said to her in a demeaning or abusive way, just in a facetious way. These flippant spoken remarks don't read well at all in print. And Alex was taken to task pretty brutally about a year or two ago for saying that it was bulimia that killed Amy. Now it's recognized as a contributing factor to her early death, but he sure got a lot of grief about being "in denial" about the alcohol (again, not the case). So it's not at all surprising to me that Janis and Alex may be a little press-shy. I think neither one relishes being in the spotlight.

Does anyone know where I can find audio/video of Alex? I've forgotten how his voice sounds like.

Also, any additional thoughts regarding Amy's original accent? I'm not British so I couldn't tell.