00:00I think that she always thought that she didn't want to conform musically to what people were telling her to
00:04do, and...
00:20Can you remember what did you feel the first time you listened to Amy Winey's voice?
00:25Well, the first time I saw her live was the first time I heard her voice, actually,
00:28because she was playing in a jazz club in Soho, and she was part of an ensemble of new up
00:35-and-coming talent.
00:36And so I went there, and she was stood, you know, not that far away from me,
00:40and I just remember being rooted to my seat thinking, what an incredible voice this young girl has.
00:47But also sort of seeing how shy she was, and so just sort of like quite still and very, very
00:53shy.
00:54And then after that, I sort of followed her music, which obviously was quite impactful.
00:59And you?
01:00I mean, I remember the first time I heard her music, I played it by my dad, actually,
01:07and he'd sort of recorded her on the television and sat me and my brother down and was like,
01:13you have to watch this girl, like, this is crazy, this is very special.
01:18And we did, I mean, I would have been very young, I would have been about six years old,
01:22but I remember that moment and feeling like, oh, okay, we have to listen.
01:26And I think that it's just like, you know, a signifier of how important she was to so many people.
01:31I watched an interview in which she says that she didn't consider herself like a singer, but more a songwriter.
01:40But we all know her also for her voice, obviously. In which way, in your opinion, her voice is unique?
01:47I mean, it just is. It's hard to describe uniqueness because it's unique, but it feels like, you know,
01:53the most incredible thing is just that she feels like her voice will just transcend time in the same way,
02:00you know, all her great sort of heroes and influences like Billie Holiday and, you know, people like that,
02:06their voice just sort of carries over generations and generations.
02:09And I think that's a real signifier of an incredible uniqueness.
02:13And I think authenticity is what makes anything completely unique, you know, so I think she kind of, I mean,
02:20the fact that she wrote this music herself as well is probably lends itself to the fact that, you know,
02:27hearing her say these words that meant so much to her is the thing that adds its uniqueness.
02:34But I mean, I don't know, then again, Valerie is one of the most, you know, iconic covers of all
02:40time.
02:41So there's so many things, you know.
02:43In the movie she says, she says, how come people don't get jets?
02:49And she identifies herself like a jet person.
02:52So do you believe that the problem for her was that she didn't feel that many people understood her?
02:59She felt that she was misunderstood in some ways.
03:02I think that she always felt that she didn't want to conform musically to what people were telling her to
03:07do.
03:07And if you listen to Frank, I mean, it's musically quite a complicated album.
03:16I mean, I learned to play guitar on those songs.
03:20Like I would not recommend learning to play guitar on, you know, songs like I Heard Love Is Blind.
03:25That's a lot of jazz chords and it's tricky.
03:28And I think that, you know, people felt that it wasn't going to sell, you know, in America or whatever,
03:36because it wasn't understandable, it wasn't pop.
03:40I don't think that mattered to her.
03:42I think that she wanted to create something that was authentic.
03:46And I think it just so happened that what she was inspired by at the time of Back to Black
03:50was a sound that was slightly more recognizable.
03:56Like, you know, that sort of doo-wop girl band sound that inspired Back to Black
04:01was just more relatable to people, to a bigger audience than this sort of jazz inspired Frank album.
04:11But I don't think that that was her bending.
04:13It was just that it was just happened to be what she was inspired by at the time.
04:19And speaking about that, she also says in the movie, I don't care about the fame game.
04:24For us today is crazy because everybody now think first about their Instagram posts
04:29and then about the songs, maybe.
04:31So how important is to really focus on the authenticity, as you were saying, on the music, on the words?
04:39How important is not thinking too much about the fame game?
04:43No, I think, I mean, I feel that, you know, she was true to her word.
04:46And I think the thing that she was most proud of was winning, you know, the Ivor Novello Award for
04:52songwriting.
04:53And I think she really saw herself as a songwriter and a singer, a singer maybe just after that.
05:00But I think that, you know, for us, our film is completely guided by her lyrics, her voice.
05:06And that was so important to sort of feel like she's almost telling us the story through her music in
05:12that way.
05:13And I think the most important thing to her was always about, like, being respected by her peers.
05:17Like, I think, you know, there's nothing bad about being ambitious.
05:22I don't think she would crave fame in any way, but she wanted to be respected.
05:26And I think there's an incredible interview where someone tells her halfway through that Prince wants to sing with her.
05:33And she's like, her face, you know, you can see this, like, unbelievable joy and pride.
05:39And I think she, it wasn't that she wanted to, like, hide away and no one to ever hear her
05:44music.
05:44But, like, the byproduct of fame, you know, that very specific thing that I guess now means being just sort
05:52of exposed, wasn't interesting to her.
05:55Thank you so much. Thank you.
05:57MTV interview, I watched that too.
06:00Yeah.
06:14Thank you.
06:15Thank you.
06:16Thank you.
06:17Thank you.
