Much as I slated the Kurt Cobain statue in Aberdeen Washington earlier in the year, the news that a life-size statue of Amy Winehouse is due to be placed in Camden in the next few weeks actually seems a more poignant gesture.
The bronze statue, the work of sculptor Scott Eaton, is scheduled to be erected in the area of the Stables Market on 14th September – which would’ve been Amy’s 31st birthday.
The initial plan was apparently for the statue to be situated in the famous Roundhouse music venue, but placing the tribute in the Stables Market makes it more accessible to more people.
It seems wholly appropriate that Amy should be a permanent visual presence in the vicinity of the London borough she was so intimately associated with (and herself passionate about).
The reason I disliked the idea of the Cobain statue in Aberdeen was because, firstly he didn’t like Aberdeen, and secondly because, complete with ‘tragic’ tear dropping from eye, the statue was just tacky and was something Kurt himself would’ve hated.
I imagine Scott Eaton’s Amy statue isn’t going to be tacky in the same way.
With Camden being one of my two or three favorite places in London, I personally would be happy to see a permanent visual reminder of Amy when I’m in the area, even though in fact I often think of her when about that part of town anyway. And she herself seemed to love Camden.
Let’s hope the actual statue isn’t lame.
Meanwhile a few months ago a previously unpublished interview with Amy Winehouse was brought to light.
The interview was conducted in 2004, a few months after the release of the Frank album, by freelance journalist John Marrs on behalf of a weekend magazine. The journalist sat with a young Ms Winehouse in a Turkish restaurant in Camden and spoke with her for 45 minutes. But this being three years before her Back To Black era reinvention, the magazine editor didn’t publish the interview, not believing Amy would be successful enough to warrant the page space!
The ‘lost’ interview concludes on a rather poignant note as Amy thinks about how she’d like to be remembered as a real musician and “a pioneer”.
“I’ve got all this time to make that happen,” Amy said in 2004, “that’s what’s so exciting. I’ve got years to do music.”
Funny enough here’s an even more lost Amy Winehouse interview (if that makes sense) from the mists of the past, this one appearing on travel website getoffthebeatenpath.com.
I can hardly believe it’s been over three years already since she’s been gone.
I hope that it’s a fitting memorial statue, also.
Such a shame that the lost interview wasn’t even published online. It’s only 2004, if there wasn’t print space for it then surely it could have been published directly online, one would imagine.
Chalk it down to journalistic lack of vision.