On Winehouse’s last recording, months before her death, she sounds utterly in command and seemingly unbowed by the company she’s keeping, taking risks with her vocal. Video footage shows Winehouse racked with nerves before meeting Tony Bennett to record her father’s favourite song, but you wouldn’t guess it from the finished results. There’s certainly nothing middle of the road about Fuck Me Pumps, an excoriating, viciously witty, take-no-prisoners attack on Wag culture set to a deceptively sweet melody. On arrival, Amy Winehouse was lumped in with the post-Norah Jones wave of MOR female singers, which in hindsight seems extraordinary.

Her own Just Friends is far better than her reggae covers, an understated, lilting groove, ungovernable lust in the lyrics. For instance, she charges at Andy and Joey’s You’re Wondering Now, for once missing the darkness in the lyrics. Winehouse clearly loved reggae, but, on record, she had a tendency to let her enthusiasm get the better of her. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian 13. Were it released today, it would more likely cause a storm over the gender stereotyping in its lyrics, which might obscure what a great song it is: jazzy guitar chords over a stark, sampled backing, Winehouse in particularly strident form. The opening track on her debut album, Stronger Than Me won an Ivor Novello award. As her Soul II Soul-esque take on Thelonious Monk’s most famous composition proves, she could have done that in considerable style. When Winehouse complained that the songs from Back to Black were too emotionally distressing for her to perform live, her father suggested she sing standards instead. Certainly no one else was releasing songs like Wake Up Alone, audibly inspired by the music of soul’s 50s forefathers. There were plenty of other 00s artists dealing in retro soul, but, aside from her voice, one reason Winehouse stood out was her willingness to dig into the genre’s history. She’s in the same setting on the demo of Frank’s I Heard Love Is Blind, a striking example of how fully formed her vocal talent was barely out of her teens. Winehouse auditioned for her record label, backed only by an acoustic guitar you can see video footage of it in the 2015 documentary Amy. “I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself.” 17. “I really empathise, looking through your bloodshot eyes,” she sings. Help Yourself (2003)įor all the breeziness of the music – live-sounding drums and guitar, pretty woodwind – time has lent a grim irony to the lyrics of Help Yourself, which reflects more kindly on the same relationship that inspired Stronger Than Me.

Photograph: Gianfranco Calcagno/FilmMagic 18.

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