Amy Winehouse_ The Biography - Chas Newkey-Burden [61]
He pointed out that, when he interviewed her, all the acts she name-checked were American: Frank Sinatra, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Michael Jackson. He argued that what the States were seeing, with the arrival of Amy and fellow Brits Lily Allen and Joss Stone was not a British invasion, but a British echo, in which Brits brought their own take on American music to the American audience. He praised Amy’s ‘rough, outspoken’ personality before concluding, ‘The British aren’t coming. They’re already here – and they may be staying for a while.’ Plenty for Amy to feel positive about there, then, even if he insisted on claiming Amy’s music as American, in order to offer his approval.
Farley was not alone in seeing a wider trend at force. Writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, Mary Houlihan also placed Amy within a grouping: ‘A wave of female singer-songwriters from the British Isles are making an impression on fans at home and abroad. What they have in common is a sassy attitude grounded in an irreverent love for updating and mixing popular musical genres.’
Ahead of Amy’s performance at the Schubas venue in Chicago, Houlihan singled her out for particular praise: ‘This rough-and-tumble performer is the latest to hit our shores. She is a tabloid fixture back home and is definitely a grittier presence than her compatriots.’
The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette immediately stepped Amy out of the Brit pack: ‘Unlike fellow breakthrough Lily Allen, who sneaks her biting lyrics into smiley bluebeat ska tunes, Winehouse goes for the grit of vintage soul and R&B… Sweet or sour, genuine or just having a laugh, Winehouse is worth spending an hour with.’
Heather Adler, in the Calgary Herald wrote,
It seems impossible that such a deep, commanding voice could possibly be mustered by this skin-and-bones, white, Jewish girl, and she might look bored to be doing it at times, but her talent somehow manages to trump all of her trip-ups. Props to Lily Allen and Peter Bjorn & John, too. You kids are good, but you’re not ‘legend’ good like Wino.
A San Francisco newspaper journalist wrote, ‘While Allen appears to be a papier-mâché star, Winehouse looks like the real thing.’
Before long, the Wall Street Journal was back on the case:
Singing in a smoky voice, Ms Winehouse updates a classic soul sound, complete with trilling horns and drums with a hip-hop edge; her label, Universal, is hoping for a crossover hit. Ms Winehouse’s second album has been a big seller in the UK, where it came out in October (her first wasn’t released in the US).
The article quoted Universal’s international marketing vice president Hassan Choudhury as saying that Amy’s success was unsurprising. ‘The US is more receptive to UK music than ever before and I put it down to fantastic records and great A&R from the UK company, having an international view when they sign artists,’ he said.
Once again, then, Amy was standing outside the Brit pack. However, the same newspaper was less than complimentary when it came to reviewing Back to Black. Noting the album’s ‘lyrical nods to Ray Charles and Donny Hathaway, not to mention musical rips from Nina Simone’, the reviewer sneered,
Winehouse would clearly love to be viewed as a member of such esteemed and soulful company, but she doesn’t come close: In the end, she’s too snotty to be sultry, too obvious to be intriguing and too derivative to be of much interest behind her vaguely endearing single ‘Rehab’, a sad justification for why she doesn’t want to clean up her act. Sorry, but the first step is admitting you have a problem.
Ouch!
Amy could afford a smile, though, on scoring the highest new entry by a British female artist in the history of the US chart when Back to Black shot in at Number 7. Back to Black was enthusiastically embraced by music fans on this side of the pond, entering the Billboard Hot 200 chart at an impressive Number 7