That's a fantastically well-written bio of Amy! Thanks Sue! Wish there were more!
Some of my favorite parts:
On a good day in London you might actually hear the sound of the melting pot. In a cafe there could be jazz. As the cars go by, hip hop beats and basslines. Some old reggae booming from the neighbourhood vinyl shop. Home, and your noisy flat mate's blaring TV on the R'n'B channel. It's not going to happen every day, but over a lifetime, even a short one of nineteen years, the history of sweet, strong urban sounds might rub into a person's blood, and that person might grow up musically wise before their years. It could be a girl, white or black. She could be funny, tough, smart, idealistic and devoted to musicianship. If she had a voice that was timeless and salaciously textured and capable of melting concrete even on low heat, that would be too good to wish for.
Amy Winehouse, daughter of the city and pupil of the wide musical universe of "stuff that has soul" is just such a walking, emoting miracle.
The debut album from Amy has not been force-fed. It has grown naturally out of her teenage passions, innate skills and on-going curiosity. Perhaps that's why it has such a healthy balance of old and new, smoky ballads and beats, summer and autumn. Its an album that fits as well alongside 'The MisEducation Of Lauryn Hill' as it does Dinah's 'After Hours With Miss D'. There are beats that lope and grooves that swing. A Wurlitzer organ swings low on a sorrowful lament. Smiling horn samples pull up in to the sunshine. There are interludes where flute and acoustic guitars take over. Then vinyl static from a sampled beat leads into a lazy groove. The bass lines get jiggy again. And consistently Amy 'knocks the shit' out of the songs, whether sultry, teasing, grieving or soulfully communing.
Three letters; two syllables; one stellar voice and an uncaged future: Amy.