Here's a bit of a follow-up to my recent singing of the praises of the esteemed Paul Weller & Gary Brooker. This morning I was giving a spin to Amy Winehouse's debut album Frank, and wondering why I don't do so more often. The thing is, I know the answer. It's glorious stuff, with that voice and all, but I always feel a bit sad playing it, given her early death. Thinking of what might have been, I suppose.
A day or two back I was reading something about how great Back To Black - her 'breakout' album - is and how it moved way beyond the debut taking Amy into the very top league. Now I wasn't close enough to the current music scene at the time (I never am, in truth) to know all that much about the presumed ranking of various contenders. But I've always preferred the earlier work. According to the article Frank is more of a niche piece and her appeal as a performer on its release was limited to precisely the kind of musos who love all that jazz & the off-beat. So, since I'm very much in that minority, I suppose that's why its (and her) appeal to me goes so deep.
Anyway, this leads me to a sort of happy fantasy about Ms Winehouse. That she didn't get uber-famous; that she thrived in her little niche and the jackals and hounds from the tabloids never got their nasty claws in her; that she become a part-time member of The Specials (a band she loved); that she became a co-vocalist of sorts with the Modfather; and that, somehow, this engagement with what she loved and what is really real put her back on the straight path.
And that somehow we got many more years of Amy, Amy, Amy.
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