You tried to make me go to rehab\/I said, ‘No, no, no’… Everything both good and bad about Amy Winehouse was contained within those first two bars. Good because, as the opening gambit for her second album, she immediately shed her image as something approaching the female Jamie Cullum. Instead, Rehab updated the classic 60s soul\/girl group sound so perfectly that Winehouse immediately bridged the generation gap, helped by an image change – to the iconic, decidedly rock’n’roll mix of a beehive hair-do, tattoos and drastic weight loss. Rehab ushered in her Back To Black album, arguably the biggest album by a British artist this century, which has spawned a slew of imitators and won plaudits everywhere, while also shifting the kind of units the record industry only dreams of these days.<\/p>\n
Rehab was also that rare thing: people remembered when and where they first heard it. So file it under Firestarter by The Prodigy, Common People by Pulp, The Stone Roses’ Fools Gold, Parklife by Blur, Loaded by Primal Scream or U2’s The Fly. Perhaps with these choices I’m just showing my age, but such an impact is a rare commodity these days.<\/p>\n
Northern soul fans’ ears pricked up too, hearing echoes in Rehab of tunes like Soul Time by Shirley Ellis. While Amy’s debut album, Frank, suggested an artist who had been moulded simply to appear on Michael Parkinson’s TV show, the gutsier, more soulful strains of Rehab and Back To Black seemed to follow no such trend. They certainly opened the door for the likes of Lily Allen, Kate Nash, Adele and Duffy (whose breakthrough hit, Mercy, drew on the same 60s\/Northern soul influences as Rehab).<\/p>\n
So why was Rehab bad, too? Well, tongue-incheek or otherwise, this pouting confessional revealed genuine personal problems chez Winehouse, tales of which have soiled the tabloid press ever since. From drug and alcoholrelated woes and brief spells behind bars, to a volatile marriage with Blake Fielder-Civil and clashes with, well, anyone in her way. Amy just might be the perfect barometer for the ailing music industry. Both have shown an uncanny knack of tapping into the cultural zeitgeist, but with little sense of any longevity. In this age of voyeuristic celebrity culture, her car crash life has proved to be the perfect marketing campaign.<\/p>\n
The fact that this very notoriety shifted product better than any TV marketing drive is nothing new, of course; pop music has always sold itself via scams, stunts and gossip columns. From The Rolling Stones pissing up against a petrol station to Oasis’ sibling squabbles and fisticuffs. But at what cost? The difference here is that Winehouse seems closer to the self-destruct button (making it impossible to avoid comparisons with acquaintance Pete Doherty) than many of her predecessors. We can only hope she has the endurance of a Mick’n’Keef or a Courtney Love when all evidence points instead to Brian Jones or Kurt Cobain.<\/p>\n
Winehouse’s seemingly tough, streetwise exterior is typical of our age, in that it disguises a more conventional, aspirational stage school background (in the past, and with notable exceptions like The Small Faces’ Steve Marriott, such traditional showbiz training provided a fast track to zero credibility – but not so these days).<\/p>\n
Born into a respectable Jewish family of four in Enfield, north London, in 1983, Amy Jade Winehouse developed a love of jazz singers like Ella Fitzgerald at a tender age, nurtured by taxi driving father Mitchell’s penchant for singing old Sinatra tunes.<\/p>\n
She displayed early signs of a disruptive ebullience at primary school, which found a more productive outlet when she moved to the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School, aged nine. For a short while, rap duo Sweet’n’Sour kept her occupied before she moved to the Sylvia Young Theatre School (which led to her first TV appearance, on The Fast Show in 1997). After allegedly being expelled, she jumped ship to the BRIT School in Croydon, and made some tentative first stabs at songwriting with the help of her first guitar.<\/p>\n
After leaving school, Winehouse sung with the acclaimed National Youth Jazz Orchestra while working as a reporter for a news network. Via a demo tape and the efforts of boyfriend\/acquaintance Tyler James, Amy was signed to Simon Fuller’s company, 19 Management, and a deal was inked with Island\/Universal (who also snapped up Tyler).<\/p>\n
That led in turn to Frank, created with guidance from experienced hip-hop producer Salaam Remi, the album provoking comparisons with jazz and jazz-influenced singers past and present (from Sarah Vaughan to Macy Gray) and winning a Mercury Music Prize nomination. But its impact was minuscule compared with that of Back To Black, which has remained in the charts ever since its release in late 2006.<\/p>\n
Away from the tabloid tittle-tattle about her ailing health and dysfunctional behaviour (from crack cocaine abuse to talk of her demonstrating the early signs of emphysema), her career has been buoyed by a plethora of professional awards and achievements. Back To Black has sold five million copies worldwide to date, and made her the highest-debuting British female artist in the history of the US albums chart when it entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 7. Last year, she won five of the US Recording Academy’s most prestigious awards: Best Pop Vocal Album, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, Best New Artist, Song Of The Year (Rehab) and Record Of The Year (Rehab) at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. This incredible haul made her the first ever British female artist to win so many Grammys in one night – matched in terms of female performers only by Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones and Beyonce. That’s not to mention a slew of awards from the Brits, the South Bank Show, Ivor Novello (three coveted awards for songwriting), Mojo, Glamour, Elle Style, Mobo, the World Music Awards, MTV Europe and Q.<\/p>\n
In Back To Black’s wake, debut album Frank went double platinum, helped by a vinyl remix package. In the ensuing two years since the release of Back To Black, Universal have recycled her wares in various guises: deluxe editions, remixes, DVDs and, at the end of 2008, the selfexplanatory Frank & Back To Black, a 4-CD compendium aimed squarely at the Christmas market. That’s understandable, but Amy’s career has now reached a crossroads.<\/p>\n
Rehab, and indeed the whole of Back To Black, owed much to producer Mark Ronson’s love of old soul and funk, which led to him recruiting funk singer Sharon Jones’ backing band The Daptones. Despite its immense radio exposure, Rehab had stalled at No. 7. Amy’s biggest hit to date has been her guest vocal on a version of The Zutons’ Valerie from Ronson’s own album, Version, issued towards the end of 2007 amid chaos in the Winehouse camp. Her UK tour was cancelled after just a handful of shows during which audience and artist abused each other.<\/p>\n
Which direction she takes with her next record is absolutely vital. “But when I come back,” she sang in Rehab, “you’ll know, know, know.” Watch this space then.<\/p>\n
For the moment, Winehouse seems to be ignoring pressure to record her third album by announcing plans for her own label, Lioness, with a cool £1 million budget. The first release on Lioness looks like being the debut album from Amy’s 13-year-old god-daughter, Dionne Bromfield, who’s been treated to a monthlong, £15,000 singing course in LA. Along with Amy herself, guests on the album are rumoured to include Lady Gaga, Lemar and X Factor finalist Eoghan Quigg.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Record Collector takes stock of the dizzying array of special editions, deleted singles, promotional items and unofficial product which are selling nearly as quickly as imitation Amy Winehouse wigs and tattoos. A note of caution for any budding collectors: prices vary drastically for Amy’s rarities, especially for those longdeleted singles from Frank. Also, several items are often purported to be official when they are in fact bootlegs. Read on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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