I do think this is one of the best live acoustic performances ever. Her voice is dumbfounding. I would have to say it's my favorite. I think if I could sound like anyone, it would be Amy Winehouse. What a loss we have experienced. Poor girl.
I feel it only appropriate to write about Amy Winehouse today as her life tragically ended this morning. Personal feelings aside about addiction and how powerful it really is, how we might have all seen this coming a long time ago, or how we feel about her criminal background and long list of assault charges, I want to dedicate today to her.
Amy Jade Winehouse was born September 14, 1983 to Jewish parents Mitchell Winehouse, a taxi driver, and Janis Seaton, a pharmacist. She was heavily influenced with the sound of jazz throughout her younger years and would end up shaping the foundation of her music today. She has one older brother named Alex, but it was Amy who was the singer, the loud one in class constantly getting in trouble for her consistent need for music, singing until she would get punished.
By the age of 9, Amy's grandmother suggested Susi Earnworth Theatre School for further training. By 10, Amy and her friends formed a rap group called Sweet & Sour. It was a short-lived little group with classmates. After four years, she was accepted into the Sylvia Young Theatre School. Alas, Amy was kicked out of the school for not applying herself and for piercing her nose. From there on, she joined several alternative arts schools.
Her father sang her Frank Sinatra when she was young and by the age of 13, she had received her very first guitar and within a year was writing songs for her first album Frank. She started singing with a jazz band and her then boyfriend soul singer Tyler James, sent a demo to A&R records. Her being discovered is actually a very sketchy story. She had signed with one label but was not allowed to reveal her identity until then someone bigger picked her up and she then re-signed and eventually found an agent to carry her further. It is unclear to me how she was discovered and where she went from there. Like most of Amy Winehouse's life, it remains a mystery.
Winehouse's debut album Frank was released on October 2003. The album entered high levels on UK charts in 2004 and received a few not-as-prestigious awards but nonetheless was generally acclaimed and not forgotten. People were comparing her to Sarah Vaughan and Macy Gray.
After release of her bluesy, jazzy, sweet sultry sound of Frank, Winehouse shifted her focus to the girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s giving her sound sort of a spiced up doo-wop version of sultry meets sexy. She wrote songs such as "You Know I'm No Good" and "Rehab" and performed them on radio to eager ears. Her audience waited with breath that is bated in anticipation of the 11-track album Back to Black that topped UK charts at #1 numerous times and immediately climbed its way to #7 here in the U.S. It was the highest selling album in 2007 selling 1.85 million copies. Time magazine claimed "Rehab" as the number one song in 2007. Her singles from that album soared to new heights the jazz community had not seen in a long time. Amy Winehouse was making history.
Amy Winehouse had received grandiose accolades such as Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance and Best Album of the Year taking home numerous Grammys in 2008. She then started booking performances for renowned people with great impact in the world such as for Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday party and was asked to guest star on hundreds of television shows and begged to do live performances to be broadcast all over the world. She was the "it" girl. She was even entered into the Guiness Book of World Records for most Grammys ever won by a British female performer.
In her final days, she had started a number of projects with some of the greats such as Quincy Jones, ?uestlove from The Roots, and Tony Bennett. She was to release her last album in January 2011. When January came and went, it was revealed that Winehouse had not been near a recording studio in some time and was dealing with health-related issues. She did say however that the third album will be much like the second and will be basically a "jukebox" album. Even co-president of Island Records, Dacus Beese said that some of the songs "just floored me".
Adele has given thanks for the smoother transition to the U.S. having given British pop vocalists a whole new name for themselves and Lady Gaga has sang her praises for paving the way for female artists to climb their way to the top. This is better known as "The Winehouse Phenomenon". Now we will be left with her music and her fashion, as she has worked on a 17-piece fashion collection with the Fred Perry label.
What I won't want her to be remembered for, and fear this to be true, that her relationships and assault charges will overpower her angelic voice and extreme talent unique to the modern female community and envied by everyone. Her on-and-off abusive relationship with estranged husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, changed the sweet young aspiring singer to a crack cocaine using heroin shooting waste. In and out of court people figured they would eventually commit suicide and could be seen cutting themselves to numb their feelings of withdrawal. They eventually divorced in 2010 and she reportedly vowed to get clean as she feels she does not need drugs. But addiction to drugs and addiction to fame, popularity, empty love, eating disorders, self-harm and depression are habits hard to kick. And eventually led to the imminent death of Miss Amy Jade Winehouse, lover of jazz, singer of the blues, a beautiful voice that the world will never forget.
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