Amy Winehouse is Coming to Our Hometown—Save the Date!
‘Back to Black’ recreates the moment the late singer earned her Record of the Year Grammy Award — with one exception
Amy Winehouse was almost as beloved for her unapologetic frankness as she was for her hit music.
The English singer-songwriter, who died of alcohol poisoning at age 27 in 2011, shot to international superstardom with the success of her 2006 album, Back to Black, which including the hit single, “Rehab.” Combining the sounds of jazz, 1960s-esque pop and soul, Winehouse didn’t shy away from infusing her lyrics with the trauma and heartbreak she experienced as she struggled with drug and alcohol addiction.
Nor did she shy away from speaking her mind. Case in point: one of the biggest moments in Winehouse’s career was the 2008 Grammy Awards, which made her a five-time winner for Back to Black. Among the prizes the Mark Ronson-produced album earned was Record of the Year, which was presented by Natalie Cole and Tony Bennett while Winehouse and her band watched the ceremony and performed live from London via satellite.
Related: Mark Ronson Shares Unheard Amy Winehouse Vocals in TikTok About the Making of ‘Back to Black’
In a moment that has since repeatedly gone viral, Winehouse reacted to Cole’s reading aloud fellow contender, “What Goes Around… Comes Around” by Justin Timberlake. Turning from the screen moments before the winner was announced, the singer scrunched up her face in incredulity and asked into the still-hot microphone, “His album’s called ‘What Goes Around… Comes Around?’ ”
The song in question, from the 2006 album FutureSex/LoveSounds, won Timberlake the Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance that evening. But it was “Rehab” that Bennett announced as the winner of Record of the Year, prompting a stunned Winehouse to run from the mic into the arms of her bandmates.
“This is for London,” she shouted in her acceptance speech, thanking her producers, parents and then-husband Blake Fielder-Civil, who was incarcerated at the time. “’Cuz Camden town ain’t burning down,” she added in reference to a fire that had destroyed the Hawley Arms, one of Winehouse’s favorite Camden pubs, the night prior.
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