The primary half of 2007 was a exceptional time for Amy Winehouse. The 12 months started along with her second LP Again To Black comfortably ensconced on the summit of the UK albums chart and in February, the Camden-born singer/songwriter bagged the BRIT award for Finest Feminine Solo Artist. A month later noticed Winehouse’s smash single “Rehab,” a frank self-portrait addressing her battle with dependancy, conquer America by breaking into the US High 10 whereas its father or mother album Again To Black rose to No. 2 in The Billboard 200, cementing the singer’s worldwide fame. However arguably her crowning achievement got here on June twenty second through a triumphant look on the world-famous Glastonbury Competition.
Winehouse had carried out at Glastonbury earlier than, in June 2004, the place she was sandwiched between reggae singer Mikey Dread and blues-rock doyenne Bonnie Raitt within the Jazz World tent and principally carried out songs from her just-released debut album, Frank. Three years later, Winehouse’s profession was dancing to a distinct groove; the languorous jazz stylings that outlined her debut album had given technique to a extra sturdy retro-soul sound on Again To Black, which immediately chimed with the general public and helped rework her into a worldwide star. And she or he had a brand new picture to go along with it; Frank’s long-haired pure look had given technique to a towering beehive hairdo and thick eye-liner, which one critic memorably described as “Ronnie Spector meets the bride of Frankenstein.”
Hearken to Amy Winehouse’s Reside At Glastonbury 2007.
Again To Black‘s success heralded a dramatic rise in Winehouse’s inventory and noticed the singer return to Glastonbury in June 2007 as a headliner on the Pyramid Stage alongside the fashionable indie bands Kasabian and The Arctic Monkeys. Backed by a five-piece rhythm part flanked by three horn gamers and two sharp-suited male backing singers, Winehouse took to the stage and – towards the backdrop of darkish clouds and falling rain – kicked off with the uptempo “Addicted,” a music detailing her love affair with “weed.”
That quantity was simply one in every of ten songs from Again To Black included in Winehouse’s set; the album’s hit title tune and the Motown-channeling “Tears Dry On Their Own” obtained large roars of recognition and approval from the “Glasto” trustworthy however probably the most affecting efficiency got here within the form of the excellent self-penned ballad, “Love Is A Losing Game,” for which Winehouse later received an Ivor Novello award. She prefaced her efficiency by saying: “This is a song I wrote when I didn’t believe in love and then I started listening to the darkness a lot more.” Her rendition – maybe affected by her boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil’s being in jail on the time of her Glastonbury efficiency – is deeply poignant, revealing a core of fragile vulnerability that lay behind the singer’s brash demeanor.
Elsewhere in her set, Winehouse sprinkled in some arresting cowl tunes. A few them have been related to the UK two-tone group The Specials: the Coventry band impressed Winehouse’s vibrant revamp of their tune “Hey Little Rich Girl ”in addition to her ska-style retread of Toots & The Maytals’ “Monkey Man.” She additionally reworked soul man Sam Cooke’s 1961 hit “Cupid” utilizing a jaunty reggae groove; Winehouse had beforehand recorded the music for a BBC radio session and was performing it stay for the primary time at Glastonbury.
Winehouse closed her set with one other cowl; a music she described to the viewers as “one of my favorite tunes from last year” – “Valerie,” as recorded by the Scottish indie band The Zutons. Solely two weeks earlier than her Glastonbury look, Winehouse’s producer Mark Ronson had launched a solo album referred to as Model that featured her as a visitor artist on a soulful repurposing of “Valerie”; it will take the UK singles chart by storm in October 2007.
Winehouse performed Glastonbury once more. However this was, by far, her finest. Reside At Glastonbury 2007 is a recording that undoubtedly provides additional luster to her legacy, revealing the London chanteuse as some of the magnetic and compelling stay performers of her era.
Hearken to Amy Winehouse’s Reside At Glastonbury 2007.
