Amy Winehouse She was an artist who acquired the status of icon in the history of music. The singer, who tragically passed away in 2011 Due to intoxication resulting from his addiction to substances, he burst into the industry with a defined shape and an overwhelming personality.
The Winehouse phenomenon was due to He imposed his soul and R&B style, but with a great influence of jazz, a genre that was lost in the 2000s.. His vindication of the music of the past but with a modern touch and his retro aesthetic They made her an essential figure on the musical scene of the time.
The singer has only two published albums: “Back to Black” from 2006, which catapulted her to world fame, with songs like “Rehab”, “You Know That I’m No Good” and “Tears Dry On Their Own”, and “Frank”, his debut album released in 2003 and which turns 21 today.
All about “Frank”, Amy Winehouse’s debut album
Prior to the release of “Frank”, Winehouse He hung out in jazz clubs and pubs.where he displayed his talent. She was even a featured vocalist of the National Jazz Orchestra of the countryalthough a call from Island Records changed their destiny. It was there that he began recording what would be his debut album.
The result was “Frank”which in translation could be considered as “frankness”but that also It was dedicated to Frank Sinatra, one of Amy’s idols.. In any case, that honesty that the title of the album could speak of was also one of the strong points of the project of the British, who He stood out for his powerful lyrics, which synthesized a feeling of heartbreak, sadness and melancholy..
She herself highlighted the help of her producer Salaam Remi for this project: “With him I felt that musically anything was possibleand I’ve never felt like that working in England, where they don’t want to listen to a girl who thinks she knows what she’s talking about.”
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The 16 song album He was nominated for the Brit Awards in two categories and entered the music rankings in the United States and the United Kingdom. The success was resounding, and you could breathe the birth of a new star. That Motown style, from the 70s, was something that had not been heard in a long time, and the freshness in Winehouse’s voice and interpretations put “Frank” at the top..
What surprised me most about her was her approach to black music as a white girlalthough she quickly silenced the criticism: “If someone came up to me and said ‘Hey white girl, quit my music’ – although I don’t think that would happen – I would say ‘I don’t really understand where you’re coming from. I write songs on my guitar; I went to a producer and he made them for me. ‘What’s the problem?'”
Once the album is finished, Photographer Charles Moriarty was in charge of giving a presentation image to the young Winehouse. They both walked through the streets of London until a shot on Princeton Street was the final one. “We only used one roll of film and I think the cover of frank we got it within the first hour“Moriarty revealed.
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on the cover You can see a smiling Amy, wearing a pink t-shirt, while walking a dogwhich could give us an innocent impression that would quickly collapse when listening to the album. The photographer also confessed that he was dazzled by the artist’s hairstyle: “She took her hair and It transformed it into this kind of beehive and it became something I had never seen before.. It was something from the 60s, something old, Motownbut very classic. “It was an impressive outfit.”
Because it was not only his powerful voice that crossed the audience, but also his appearance, like a figure that seemed to have arrived from some past time to transform the present.
Despite the good impact that the album had, Winehouse confessed years later that she did not like the album at all: “Somehow, “I want to get Frank out of everyone’s houses and keep working on him for five more years until he’s perfect, and then give him back to me.” To that he added: “The marketing was screwed, the promotion was terrible. Everything was a disaster. I had never heard the album from start to finish. “I don’t have it in my house.”
Although not only was she affected artistically, but those songs were very intimate and had deeply marked her: “There are certain songs that I can’t listen to because they are so personal that it hurts to listen to them. I always try to write a song to work things out with myself, and I want to do it with a little punchline at the end because “I don’t want to remember anything bad in my life.”.
Source: Ambito
