The titans of music periodicals are--to paraphrase Lester Bangs in Almost Famous pertaining to Jann Wenner-- "wetting themselves" over the first mythic rock prodigy in a decade and it's a woman. Out of the manufactured dung heap of the Britneys, the Simpson sisters, Timberlake and even Lily Allen comes this diamond in a glass of Tanqueray on the rocks, aptly named Amy Winehouse. Rolling Stone beats to the punch putting her on their June cover while Spin features her on their July issue.
Already a star and tabloid darling in her native UK, Europe, Canada and in the I-Pods of musicphiles in the US, the rest of Walmart and Abercrombie America and the Mayer-Blunt listening world has yet to catch up. Her music is a loving nod to every great tradition of music-as-a-rebellion from Frank Sinatra to Snoop Dogg, from The Ronettes and The Supremes to Otis and Marvin to Wu-Tang. Her pipes evoke every great voice that has enthralled and reveberated through the generation from scratchy vinyl to downloads and is not Celine Dion or Mimi and their ilk. Sara Vaughn. Nina Simone. Ella Fitzgerald. Billie Eartha. Martha. Aretha.Janis. Joni. Tori. Lauren Hill. Amy Winehouse. Her lyrics are equal parts raw confessional like Vedder in Ten and equal parts reverential to her idols (Ray Charles and Donny Hathaway) and her addictions reminiscent of Joplin and her Southern Comfort.
Her growing contingency of the adoring wax poetic of her and her songs as if to immortalize her. In the Google era that has seen many VH1 Behind the Music specials and Rollingstone's anniversary issues, they all too knowingly fear for the eventual fates of the gifted, tortured and famous. Perhaps it's because her life mirrors all those before her--working-middle class roots, divorced parents, musical home, teenage outsider, art school drop out. She is some part us. She is all of us magnified in a very skinny Jewish girl from north London. Ah, and her loves or love. In rock 'n roll, the word is both muse and torturer. Sid and Nancy. Cobain and Love. Us, the rapt bystanders of the tabloid world ask in bated breath, is she the next exponent to a self-destructing equation? She is most recently married to Blake Fielder-Civil, the man who inspired, for the lack of a better word, her to write her second album Back to Black.
I have to thank my Torontonite sister for introducing me to her, the treasure trove that is YouTube and yes some good thing do come out it sometimes, Perez Hilton. The Rolling Stone issue is out now. For instant gratification, click here or log on to her website: www.amywinehouse.co.uk.
I've chosen to feature the eponymous song from Back to Black though I have been racked with choices, truly. It starts out like the eerie beginnings of The Supremes' Baby Love. Ironic at first but given a glimpse of her relationship with Fielder-Civil, a portent? So here she is, slathered in Stella Artois, sprinkled with blow, more raw than sushi in wasabi. Get intoxicated by the Amy Winehouse train and be addicted.
And she is only 23 years old.
