Amy Winehouse Biography

She might sound like a 40s jazz singer, but she's using forefront beats and lyrics- she's letting her voice go where its meant to go. Her style is not for the candlelit basement. It's out there living in the real world of Gucci bags, Diesel underwear, high heels, breast implants, weed after school, cheating airhead honeys and runaway crushes. Forget about torch themes from yesteryear.

"I wasn't there, so I can't write that," says Amy. "I'm young, man, and I'm a city girl. I can only write about what I've gone through. To me there's no point in doing a song unless it's a challenge in every area. I don't tend to do anything unless it's a challenge."

Carole King and James Taylor made their presence felt on the family stereo, but Amy was more drawn to her dad's jazzier taste. Under her father's tutelage, she picked up serious exposure to Sarah Vaughn and Dinah Washington ("my dad always claimed he discovered her!"). The classic song 'standards' she'd known at stage school sounded stiff compared to the jazz versions. Moving through Ella to Dinah she felt her way forward though the old greats. Ella was "technically faultless" but Dinah "could do jazz, and then she could knock the shit out of a blues... when she was 12 she was directing the church choir!
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