*WARNING* Explicit lyrics and content
I was working on a review of Steely Dan for today's post when I realised it was the anniversary of the passing of Amy Winehouse.
It's hard to believe that in her short and spectacular career she only released these 2 studio albums. Everything else, the compilations, the live album and the box sets have all been released posthumously.
'Frank' was her debut album, with Amy getting songwriting credits on 11 of the 13 tracks. She really announced her arrival by including a no-nonsense song co-written by her and her producer Salaam Remi .. 'Fuck Me Pumps'. The album title 'Frank' was in part Amy's tribute to Frank Sinatra who she noted as one of her early influences. The LP is included in the book '1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die' and was 57th on the 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century.
Then came 'Back To Black'. This time she again went with Remi but also the producer / DJ / musician Mark Ronson. The different production techniques show in the tracks each worked on. The Remi tracks like 'Me & Mr Jones' (with the unforgettable line 'what kind of fuckery is this') have a different feel to them from the Ronson songs. Ronson used backing by Sharon Jones' band The Dap-Kings and a fuller orchestration.
The end result though is a brilliant mix of soul and R&B and 60's girl group and 'wall of sound' all blended with Amy's phenominal voice, moving from styles and genres and emotions effortlessly. The album is personal, drawn from her drug use, her drinking, her weight loss and turbulent lifestyle. As of 2019 it had sold over 16,000,000 copies.
We (Tracy and me) first saw Amy in the early 2000's on a British TV show before we'd even heard any of her music. She was mesmerising, unlike anything we'd seen or heard before. A young contemporary singer with an old soul singing in a way that brought out a history of music she had never lived through but which was living inside her.
A Deluxe edition of Back to Black was released in 2007 with some live, b-side and bonus tracks. Although they were not the writers, 3 songs made popular by The Specials were on the deluxe set. 'You're Wondering Now', 'Hey Little Rich Girl' and 'Monkey Man' gave a hint to the music Amy listened to growing up. The Mark Ronson 'Valerie' was also included, as well as Spector's 'To Know Him Is To Love Him' and Sam Cooke's 'Cupid'. Add to that Amy's own compositions such as 'Rehab', 'You Know I'm No Good', 'Love is a Losing Game' and basically every song she ever sang and all of a sudden her body of work is big enough to show how she deserves her place in music royalty, but always too small to have fully revealed the extent to which her talent could have taken her.
It was heartbreaking to watch in real time how her life started to disintigrate and her judgement fell away. It was only a matter of time and it was obvious to almost everybody.
Sadly, on July 23 2011 Amy joined the 27 Club, that tragic collection of bright lights extinguished at a too-young age. Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain and then almost inevitably, Amy.
Amy Winehouse was truly one of a kind. Play everything she ever did repeatedly.
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