7 replies to this topic

[Uno]

I just ran across this old 'Birmingham Post' interview from October 2003, where Amy actually names the two songs that she didn't want on her Frank CD and why she didn't want them included...


Culture: Jazz singer who doesn't want to fit in; Young jazz chanteuse Amy Winehouse has already been compared to Billie Holiday, but is signed up with pop impresario Simon Fuller, finds Charlie Melvin.


This Monday saw Island Records release Frank, the fittingly titled debut album from straight-talking Londoner Amy Winehouse.

It was preceded by the single Stronger Than Me, which limped into last week's pop chart at the lowly position of 71, so it's clear she's aiming for a long-term shelf-life, rather than five minutes of instant fame.

It's a busy day in the Winehouse household, and clothes are strewn everywhere.

'We've just had a styling meeting,' the 20-year-old brunette says, to explain the mess. 'I'm styling myself, but I think they want to supervise, to make sure I don't look crazy. I think that's what they think they're doing. I'm quite a girly girl anyway, so I like to dress up in a feminine way.'

Amy Winehouse is signed to millionaire impresario Simon Fuller's 19 Management, the home of Rachel Stevens, S Club and Victoria Beckham, not the sort of place you'd expect to find this down-to-earth Jewish girl.

'It is totally unlikely,' she agrees. 'From the beginning, I was very dubious about working with them. I'm an unedited person, I just say what I think.

'I'm honest, but I'm not an idiot. I don't feel like I've sold out if I go with them. You'd be surprised if you realised how much control I have over the musical output. I wrote almost everything on the album.'

Even so, Frank contains a couple of tracks that Winehouse didn't want included.

'They did bend my arm and forced me to have two songs that I hate on the album,' she moans. 'I did Help Yourself and Amy Amy Amy a while ago, and I don't think they sit with the other songs as well as some songs that didn't make it. I had to cut off songs that I loved, that meant something to me, because Island are worried about commercial success.

'That's fundamentally it; they've watered down my vision, which at one point was as clear as I could hope for on my first CD. I'm very concerned about them releasing those tracks as singles -that's my worst nightmare. I've gone into their offices and begged them not to.'

Winehouse is launching her album with three live dates, coming to Birmingham's Carling Bar Academy -where she played a secret show last month -tonight, with support from Balsall Heath's Chris Tye.

'I can't wait,' she says. 'It's just going to be me and my guitarist Ian Barter. I play guitar and I sing.'

The London-born singer-songwriter got her first guitar at the age of 13, and attended the famous Sylvia YoungStage School in North London, for a year and eight months, before she was asked to leave.

'I was just being a brat and being disruptive and so on,' she says. 'I loved it there, I didn't have a problem, I just didn't want to conform. And they didn't like me wearing a nose piercing.'

The move to a South London girls' school didn't suit her any better.

Every lunch break would find her locked in the music room alone, playing a guitar or piano.

By the time she was 16, Amy was advised to audition for Bill Ashton's National Youth Jazz Orchestra, which was to prove the turning point in her short career.

'I wasn't really with NYJO long enough,' she admits. 'I assumed they did all the standards, but they do stuff mainly written by Bill with other people, which is lovely, but I couldn't get with that, to be honest.'

Bill Ashton remembers her as an absolute natural: 'She could sing anything almost immediately, in the style of Billie Holiday.

'She sounded as though she was about 50-years-old on 60 fags and two bottles of whisky a day. She had this rough, lived-in quality to her voice.

'She'd been at the Sylvia Young Stage School, which is just a minute's walk away from where we rehearse, and Sylvia Young herself had rung me to say, 'I've got this singer who is absolutely wonderful,' and Amy turned up and she said, 'My name's Amy Winehouse and that's a Jewish name'.

'She sang a song one Sunday at The Rayners Hotel in Rayners Lane, where we bring any new people along, and then a few weeks later my singer let me down, so I rang Amy and she scraped together four songs and she sang them all brilliantly.

'Later, 19 Management asked us to put some girl singers' names forward for what became Pop Idol. I put Amy forward and gave them her phone number.

'She went along, but she wasn't at all humble about it. Simon Fuller's idea was to form a big band and they'd rung me to get a person to front it. 'That's how 19 Management became aware of Amy Winehouse. She may not know this to be true, but I was responsible for it.'


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[ILoveAmyWinehouse]

Thank you! I been wondering what songs she did not like from Frank! I don't blame her for not liking "Amy, Amy, Amy" I think it's a cute song, lyrically, but that is my least favorite song too.

I wonder what other songs she wanted in the album but did not make the cut. I'm thinking one of them is "half time".

[amylove]

heyyy I was right! haha.. didn't know about help yourself though.

i think this is the thread where it was talked about..
http://www.amywineho...she-hated-FRANK
fact: my first post ever on the forum is in that thread

I'm wondering if best friends is another she wanted on there too... she did that live even though it wasn't on the album..

Edited by allisost, 02 February 2013 - 04:40 AM.

[Jmoney]

I think "What It Is" would have been perfect for the album, damn record companys, I still feel its a perfect album though, just a shame Amy wasn't completely happy with her album.

[amylove]

^I think that was the first song she recorded for it. the album isn't perfect, there's a few songs I would have taken out and put out later... it probably would have been if they let amy do what she wanted.....

[Mrs. Jones]

I've always felt Frank was a little all over the shop, like she didn't quite know what kind of identitiy she wanted for herself (or the record company).
A lot of her frank-era songs that didn't make the album actually suit Amy better, in my opinion, and would've made her more propular faster. Strangely enough, I find they cut out some songs which I find quite commercial, and included some which are jazzier, thus alienating some of her young puclic.

[ILoveAmyWinehouse]

I've always felt Frank was a little all over the shop, like she didn't quite know what kind of identitiy she wanted for herself (or the record company).
A lot of her frank-era songs that didn't make the album actually suit Amy better, in my opinion, and would've made her more propular faster. Strangely enough, I find they cut out some songs which I find quite commercial, and included some which are jazzier, thus alienating some of her young puclic.

I totally know what you mean. She had great songs during that era that didn't make the cut to the album. I think Frank is a great album, it shows how talented and well-verse Amy was but "trilby", "do me good", "long day", "half time", "get over it", "best for me", "round midnight", "fools gold" (was it written in this era?) all shouldn't have been shelved or shut down, it should of made the cut, in my opinion.

But to add to what you said, I don't see a problem with Amy making a jazzier album than commercial. Jazz is what she originally was. I think Amy should of had two albums at the time. A jazz album, and her more "commercial" album with the hip hop/jazz mix.

[LaPeep]

Ya, I had wondered too.