Recently British singer/songwriter Amy Winehouse, 23, has been touring through Ireland, France and Belgium in support of her recent release, Back to Black (2007),which includes the smash hit singles “Rehab,” “Back to Black” and “I’m No Good.” Unfortunately, the singer and acoustic guitarist recently and abruptly cancelled her 2007 North American tour, with early speculation from the media that Winehouse had finally entered rehab, although her management team has said the claims were false and the singer canceled due to severe exhaustion.
The 20-something has been in the musical spotlight ever since her 2003 platinum-selling debut album, Frank. Her strong accent and songwriting skills, which always include deeply personal topics and brutal profanity and truthfulness, caused her music to explode from the UK’s Top Ten charts into the U.S. music scene. Winehouse thrust herself into the media’s tricky web when she began showing up drunk for club and TV performances - so intoxicated that she could not sing an entire set, as was the case at one scheduled show in 2006. When her label threatened to drop her if she didn’t enter rehabilitation, she dumped them instead, picking up new management and penning a song about the entire issue - “Rehab.”

Often compared to Billie Holiday, Macy Gray and Lauryn Hill, Winehouse grew up in northern London and was surrounded by jazz music starting at an early age. Listening to her parents records of Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington and Frank Sinatra when she was a youth, Winehouse then turned to more rebellious music as a teenager, such as TLC, Salt-N-Pepa and other hip-hop acts. At age 16, the youth was expelled from London’s Sylvia Young Theatre School. Winehouse?s big break came when her close friend, schoolmate and pop singer Tyler James passed on her demo tape to Island records. Less than three years later, the label released her debut album, which was nominated for the 2004 Mercury Music Prize and two British awards.
“I never wanted any of this and that’s the truth,” Winehouse said about her recent success in a 2004 interview with The Independent on Sunday. “I would have been happy to sing in a covers band for the rest of my life. And I wouldn’t have gone on one of those [reality] shows in a million, billion years, because I think that musicality is not something other people should judge you on. Music’s a thing you have with yourself. Even though the people who go on those shows are shit, it’s really damaging to be told that you are.”

Winehouse has been steadily continuing to do her thing in the UK and the states, and although her North American tour was canceled, the musician said she is sticking to her guns with her music and style no matter what the media has to say about it, according to an article published in March 2007 by Interview Magazine. Here is a little insight into what was going on in her head while writing songs for her last two albums.

“What I listen to rubs off on the way I write, and I was just listening to a lot of stuff like that while I was writing ‘Back to Black,’” Winehouse said about the 1960s-style sound that comes across in her newest album. “But I wasn’t really trying hard to do anything like that. It was quite an intense year and a half. When I did my first record, I was smoking a lot of weed and went in with the whole hip-hop mentality of, like “F–k you! You don’t know me! I didn’t really love you anyway!’ And then between the first and the second records I fell in love, and I stopped smoking weed, and I started drinking more and that whole alcohol mentality is very depressive, right? Like, “I’ll f—ing die for you!’ So all the stuff I was listening to was kind of like that. I thought it was cool being all ‘do or die - all or nothing. I’ll rip my heart out and give it to you on a plate.’ Life is short, and If you don’t throw yourself out there, then what’s the point?”

Who wouldn’t want to learn more about this daredevil musician? Listen to some of her music and check out her tour dates at www.amywinehouse.co.uk or send let her know what you think by posting a message on her MySpace page.