Saving Amy Read Online Free Page B
lovely voice … I want to do something with the talents I’ve been “blessed” with. … Mostly, I have this dream to be very famous. … I want people to hear my voice and just … forget their troubles for five minutes. …’
At Sylvia Young, where Amy stayed for three years until 2000, she became good friends with Tyler James, a singer–songwriter, who later would help give her career a welcome boost.
Sylvia Young immediately spotted the young girl’s potential, commenting that Amy’s talent could have put her in the same league as Judy Garland or Ella Fitzgerald, but all was not completely well for Amy at the school. She was incredibly clever, but she was bored when she wasn’t performing and was often disruptive. She wouldn’t wear her uniform properly, had a nose ring and chewed gum in lessons.
It was about this time that Mitch also noticed Amy had began to act up in earnest. ‘… Maybe she was 14, and she would stay out all night. I had to go and find her and I was convinced that she was dead … I am morbid. That is the way that my mind works unfortunately.
‘I would be driving through the streets of North London looking for her, knocking on people’s doors … Completely irrational, but that’s the way you are where your children are concerned.’
I ask him if he thought Amy did it on purpose. ‘It’s possible. I don’t think so. I don’t think Amy has everthought through the consequences of her actions. [Has] never taken responsibility for her actions. I don’t think she was any different to how she is now.’
At school, however, the teachers had had enough of Amy’s behaviour, it seemed. Janis recalls, ‘I got called into school … and the head teacher there said to me, “Well, Amy’s not doing what she could do … academically. She’s a very, very bright girl, should be doing such and such … And he’s talking all the talk, but saying “Find her another school.”’
It would have been a tough moment for any parent, I say, having not only their child but themselves as parents judged by this teacher.
Mitch continues, ‘Sylvia Young now will say that didn’t happen, but it did … But basically she [Amy] was asked to leave. …
‘In the normal academic school, 100 percent of the day is taken up with studying, apart from the physical activities. At this stage school, it’s probably two-thirds stage work, music and dancing and a third academia and Amy … just messed around. She couldn’t wait to get back into the performance so she was asked to leave. … We sent her to another private school and she made their life there hell for them.’
I ask Janis and Mitch if they were angry with Amy.
No,’ Mitch says. ‘You could never be angry with her … There are children who are nasty and they are malicious. She was never malicious. You know, she just laughs, even now ….’
Janis adds, ‘And that’s how she is with problems ….’
After leaving the Mount, in Mill Hill, North London, with five GCSEs, Amy moved to the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon, Surrey, in South England, where she lasted less than a year. While there, she started singing with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and performed in jazz clubs. In her spare time, she was hanging out with Juliette Ashby, her old friend from Southgate. She was also, by her own account, smoking marijuana.
Amy’s voice was drawing increasing amounts of attention. In 2001, her old friend Tyler James was signed to Brilliant, a division of Simon Fuller’s talent agency, 19 Entertainment Ltd. Knowing that manager Nick Godwin and A&R man Nick Shymansky were looking for a jazz singer, Tyler gave them a tape of Amy’s.
Godwin says, ‘We put it on and there was this amazing voice, fantastic lyrics. They were eight- or nine-minute poems, really. Quite awkward guitar playing, but utterly breathtaking.’
Mitch recalls that’s when he understood that she could really sing, when 19 were interested in
At Sylvia Young, where Amy stayed for three years until 2000, she became good friends with Tyler James, a singer–songwriter, who later would help give her career a welcome boost.
Sylvia Young immediately spotted the young girl’s potential, commenting that Amy’s talent could have put her in the same league as Judy Garland or Ella Fitzgerald, but all was not completely well for Amy at the school. She was incredibly clever, but she was bored when she wasn’t performing and was often disruptive. She wouldn’t wear her uniform properly, had a nose ring and chewed gum in lessons.
It was about this time that Mitch also noticed Amy had began to act up in earnest. ‘… Maybe she was 14, and she would stay out all night. I had to go and find her and I was convinced that she was dead … I am morbid. That is the way that my mind works unfortunately.
‘I would be driving through the streets of North London looking for her, knocking on people’s doors … Completely irrational, but that’s the way you are where your children are concerned.’
I ask him if he thought Amy did it on purpose. ‘It’s possible. I don’t think so. I don’t think Amy has everthought through the consequences of her actions. [Has] never taken responsibility for her actions. I don’t think she was any different to how she is now.’
At school, however, the teachers had had enough of Amy’s behaviour, it seemed. Janis recalls, ‘I got called into school … and the head teacher there said to me, “Well, Amy’s not doing what she could do … academically. She’s a very, very bright girl, should be doing such and such … And he’s talking all the talk, but saying “Find her another school.”’
It would have been a tough moment for any parent, I say, having not only their child but themselves as parents judged by this teacher.
Mitch continues, ‘Sylvia Young now will say that didn’t happen, but it did … But basically she [Amy] was asked to leave. …
‘In the normal academic school, 100 percent of the day is taken up with studying, apart from the physical activities. At this stage school, it’s probably two-thirds stage work, music and dancing and a third academia and Amy … just messed around. She couldn’t wait to get back into the performance so she was asked to leave. … We sent her to another private school and she made their life there hell for them.’
I ask Janis and Mitch if they were angry with Amy.
No,’ Mitch says. ‘You could never be angry with her … There are children who are nasty and they are malicious. She was never malicious. You know, she just laughs, even now ….’
Janis adds, ‘And that’s how she is with problems ….’
After leaving the Mount, in Mill Hill, North London, with five GCSEs, Amy moved to the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon, Surrey, in South England, where she lasted less than a year. While there, she started singing with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra and performed in jazz clubs. In her spare time, she was hanging out with Juliette Ashby, her old friend from Southgate. She was also, by her own account, smoking marijuana.
Amy’s voice was drawing increasing amounts of attention. In 2001, her old friend Tyler James was signed to Brilliant, a division of Simon Fuller’s talent agency, 19 Entertainment Ltd. Knowing that manager Nick Godwin and A&R man Nick Shymansky were looking for a jazz singer, Tyler gave them a tape of Amy’s.
Godwin says, ‘We put it on and there was this amazing voice, fantastic lyrics. They were eight- or nine-minute poems, really. Quite awkward guitar playing, but utterly breathtaking.’
Mitch recalls that’s when he understood that she could really sing, when 19 were interested in
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