AMY WINEHOUSE: AT THE BBC (2012)
1) Know You Now; 2) Fuck Me
Pumps; 3) In My Bed; 4) October Song; 5) Rehab; 6) You Know I'm No Good; 7)
Just Friends; 8) Love Is A Losing Game; 9) Tears Dry On Their Own; 10) Best
Friends, Right?; 11) I Should Care; 12) Lullaby Of Birdland; 13) Valerie; 14)
To Know Him Is To Love Him.
More often than not, the barrel-scraping
process these days involves the BBC and their obsession to press the «Record»
button every time somebody crosses the threshold into one of their studios.
More often than not, the results are only of serious interest for hardcore fans
of the somebody in question. With Amy Winehouse, this is somewhat different:
she never had the time to release an official live album in her lifetime — and,
moreover, her reputation of a live artist was seriously soiled by all the scandalous
reports on drunk performances and embarrassed walk-outs towards the tragic end
of her career. Essentially, we have next to no reminders of what it really was
that launched that career — her inspired and creative performances in small
London jazz clubs.
Hence, this rag-taggy collection of live
recordings from various local gigs, taped by the BBC (At The BBC is a somewhat misleading title: most of the tracks come
from festivals such as «T in the Park» or TV shows such as Jools Holland, so The BBC Presents would have been more
appropriate), anyway, this collection is an essential purchase for everybody
who has no problem with recognizing Amy as a major artist of her generation.
The package consists of a small DVD with six performances from a small church-held
gig in 2006, and a CD with material scattered from 2004 to 2009 — the «golden
age», during which Amy's rule over British R&B remained uncontested. Hits
and classics are interspersed with little-known obscurities and covers, bits of
stage banter and radio host dialogs are included for authenticity, and the
recording quality is predictably flawless — this is the BBC, after all.
Like every seasoned R&B performer, Amy always
comes across as loose and free-flowing when performing live, sometimes coming
so close to «chaos» that you almost start wondering just how influential booze
and other substances must have been in that
particular moment. But apparently they weren't: on each and every one of these recordings,
she is actually in complete control, always picking herself up and shooting
back into space just as she seems almost ready to hit the ground. Take a listen
to ʽRehabʼ, for instance — her phrasing on this live performance takes far more
risks than the studio original, with surprising modulation decisions and an
idiosyncratic «stutter» that sounds amusing rather than annoying. Of course,
she is really working based on the pattern of the average great jazz vocalist, searching
for a one-in-a-million vocal style that would walk a tight balance between
«natural» and «ohmigosh, what is that?»,
but many people do not succeed in
that register, coming out with laughable results — with Amy, it is always her
that gets the last laugh, no matter how much fun one might poke at her «heroin-addicted
toothless old hag» impersonation.
Most of the tracks performed come from the
first two albums (and are not limited to major hit singles — ʽOctober Songʼ and
ʽJust Friendsʼ are two very welcome inclusions), but towards the end you also
have the lady sharpening her teeth on old pop standards (ʽI Should Careʼ,
ʽLullaby Of Birdlandʼ) and on Phil Spector (ʽTo Know Him Is To Love Himʼ), all
of which sound predictable, but pleasant in «Amy Winehouse mode». Still,
nothing beats ʽRehabʼ and ʽYou Know I'm No Goodʼ (the latter gives me one more
pretext to lament the misuse of that wonderful bluesy bassline in the intro —
how come its kickass potential was wasted after the first couple of beats?): it
would be strange if Amy were less emotional and convincing on her own personal
stuff than an old Phil Spector love ballad.
Possibly, a full-fledged live album
representing a single event would have been a better choice for release, and I have
no doubt that a whole bunch of these will be coming up — plenty of stuff has
already been released on DVD or showed up on YouTube, and Amy's nimble backing
band is always a delight to hear — but this particular assortment, without
necessarily turning into a cheap «greatest hits live», shows the overall scope,
and could even work as a perfect introduction to Amy's values for the
uninitiated (a «classier» introduction, in fact, than any best-of collection).
Thus, although I am no big fan of oversaturating the market with archival
residue, so far, everything seems pretty reasonable; big delighted thumbs up
here.
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