This morning we received the following e-mail from a concerned Townsperson:
Yo, Mod:
Why is Rock Town Hall not providing dedicated coverage to the death of Amy Winehouse? Shouldn’t there be a thread on her legacy by now? I bet a lot of readers are coming to the Hall expecting our take on her untimely passing.
I thought I’d share my response to our anonymous Townsperson with you. Continue reading »
Few movies have ever bugged me as much as Dances With Wolves. I actually took the plunge and spent what felt like 6 hours in a movie theater watching that thing when it came out. I was never a Kevin Costner “hater.” I was never his biggest fan either, but I gave the man his due for No Way Out and Bull Durham. Beside miserably squirming through most of Field of Dreams, I had no ax to grind with the guy at that time in his career. For whatever reservations (no pun intended) I might have had, the story seemed like it might appeal to the broad side of me that loves Little Big Man. My wife and I decided to give it a shot on the big screen.
Man, did that movie blow! And its universal acclaim over the coming months with critics and Motion Picture Academy voters really drove us nuts. It was hard to ever like Costner again, and I disliked that movie so much that it helped me feel the pain “people of color” in America and probably worldwide have felt as Hollywood movie after Hollywood movie presents the plight of their people through the eyes of a Saintly, Heroic White Person. (And what was with Mary McDonnell doing in that movie with workout tape–era Jane Fonda‘s hairdo?)
Most recently The Blind Side was the Hollywood film to bolster this notion. Note, in the linked review, that despite the fact that the story contained probably a good deal of truth that most likely Costner’s crime again me and Native Americans has sensitized critics to new levels. You say you didn’t see The Blind Side or Dangerous Minds or Freedom Writers? I didn’t either, but although I liked Mississippi Burning, I felt a little uncomfortable by the strong presence of Saintly, Heroic White People. There are a lot of other movies that play out this way, and despite the fact that I like my share of them, I am always a little embarrassed for what I imagine moviegoesrs of minority groups may be feeling. I console myself with the fact that I’m a big fan of Ice Cube‘s Barbershop movies and that amazing, little indie movie made by and about a group of Native American friends in contemporary society, Smoke Signals.
Unlike the Hollywood movie industry, however, African Americans have played a strong leading role in music since nearly the beginning of the recording age. Any American of any race born in the 19th century forward has little excuse not to know and love at least some music by African American artists. So why have I come across so many intelligent, educated, music-loving white people who rave about Dusty Springfield‘s 1969 album, Dusty in Memphis, as if it’s a watermark in soul music?
Check out this typical rock press take on the album. Despite the fact that the writer makes it clear that Dusty wasn’t all that happy with the record or being in Memphis, singing in the same vocal booth in which true Memphis greats sweat and slobbered and playing with arguably one of the music industry’s greatest backing bands, he and a legion of modern-day fans of the album clutch onto the myth.
Far from rescuing Springfield’s career, Dusty in Memphis froze it in time, and she would not have another Top 40 hit for more than two decades. But for this album’s army of fans, who’ve picked it up in second-hand stores or in a variety of re-released formats, Dusty in Memphis is not only a popcultural milestone but a timeless emotional reference point.
I have no desire to argue the merits of the album itself. I think it’s merely OK. If I’d bought it in a used bin for 50 cents when I was an idealistic kid I would have held onto it and gotten some mild enjoyment out of it, but beside “Son of a Preacher Man,” which for my money is on par with a similar, fun, semi-corny country-soul tale like Bobbi Gentry‘s “Ode to Billie Joe” or R.B. Greaves‘ “Take a Letter Maria,” I guess I lack the pop sensibility and emotional capacity to identify either the milestone or the reference point this writer notes.
The album’s OK. Dusty Springfield was OK. Her first hit, “I Only Want to Be With You,” is outstanding! Sadly, as I learned as a completely misguided, horny teenage boy, the assumed “super-cute” musical equivalent of a young Julie Christie behind “I Only Want to Be With You,” as I bet many American boys and young men wished all cute-sounding Daughters of the British Invasion would look at that time, was nothing special. She was not even as mildly cute Petula Clark, for instance. Nice bouffant, I guess, but that’s not what I was hoping to find. Bummer. Oh, if only the English had done like the French and matched their Swingin’ Sixties cutiepies up in a recording studio with dirty, old pervs. I’d buy some half-assed Julie Christie single. But that was and is neither here nor there. Continue reading »
A televised Amy Winehouse performance would not be complete without a lot of camera time given to her retro-style singin’ and dancin’ backup singers. You know these guys: two stylish, handsome, and animated black guys in dark, ’60s-cut suits who perform a frantic, nonstop array of choreographed Motown-style moves to add some needed life behind the scrawny atrocity exhibition who’s paying the bills. The camera can only hang so long on Winehouse, in hopes of her falling over or throwing up. The backing singers keep things FUN and LIVELY!
During our examination of the African American Robed Choir (AARC) I addressed whether a rock band being supported by “colored girls” as backup singers constituted an example of exploitive black rock history. We seemed to agree that if a performance called for the tone of African American backup singers, the selection of a trio of African American singers as acceptable in terms of instrumentation, no different than a guitarist selecting a Gibson over a Fender. None of us would deny the importance of showmanship and mach schau in rock, so we can’t immediately jump on any backing singers who dance and dress in a way that adds to the performance. In the case of Amy Winehouse, however, a young, white, English singer who apes African American vocal characteristics and themes, I’ve got to question whether her use of her backing singers is a ploy for Blackredibility or the acceptable selection of human instrumentation.
Continue reading »
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Train wreck or triumph? Amy Winehouse, the soul singer whose messy personal life has ravaged her promising career, will emerge from a London rehab clinic later on Sunday to perform live via satellite at the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.
It is perhaps one of the most keenly anticipated appearances in the 50-year history of the music industry’s top awards show — and not just because she will likely sing her big hit, “Rehab.”
“I’m going to be glued to it,” said Howard Benson, a nominee for producer of the year. “She’s a real, true talent. Her personal stuff notwithstanding, her music definitely speaks from the heart.”
Truly, whether you like the music or not, does anyone share in Howard Benson’s mock-sincere anticipation about her heartfelt music?
I wish I could find the hi-def broadcast version of this guest appearance by Amy Winehouse with The Rolling Stones at the 2007 Isle of Wight Festival. It’s really bad, and the camera crew on the hi-def broadcast picked up some very telling looks of varying emotions from the musicians:
If anyone finds a clip of the hi-def broadcast version, please send it our way. Thanks!
Townsman Saturnismine sent in the following thoughts and asks the Hall for its advice.
Thankfully, every now and then, the Great Big Music Machine in the Sky spits something out that’s flawed, irregular, maybe not even likable, but possessing qualities so intriguing that we can’t look away, even if we sense tragedy in the final frame. This time it’s a British soul Jewess named Amy Winehouse. She’s a one woman freakshow of mixed signifiers, a completely “hot mess” if you will: big hair, tattoos, a seemingly authentic “other woman” persona, a fine pair of husky pipes, and a feel for vocal phrasing so subtle that the utterance of a single note can make this Townsman feel connected to the Universal life force at its very source.
Just as the Summer of ’06 was The Summer of (Gnarles Barkley’s) “Crazy”, Summer ‘07 may very well go down in pop annals as “Rehab” Summer. If you haven’t heard this neo-Ray Charles handclapper in the supermarket, the Laundromat, or while waiting for Sethro Baer to fix your teeth, then you live under a rock. For cryin’ out loud, this is the song that made my mother teach herself how to download music from iTunes. For those of you who haven’t heard “Rehab” (from Winehouse’s late 2006 release Back to Black), take a listen.
It’s nice to hear a distinctive voice interpreting and performing a song. It’s also a pleasure to hear some thoughtful production that manages to sound new (without embracing studio-by-numbers, Sam Ash trends) while at the same time sounding vintage.
If we dig deeper into Back to Black, we find everything “Rehab” promises – and more: lyrics with intelligent word play that doesn’t obscure meaning; nuanced, but never labored sounding vocals on every track. But perhaps most impressive is that Amy wrote the songs. We hear an in-depth tutorial in the “isms” of Billie Holliday, Spector’s girl-groups, Motown, Memphis, Aretha, and Amy’s British girl forebear in the pursuit of Americanness, Dusty Springfield. Somehow, we also hear more than a few fucked-up-isms stolen from the bottom of Rickie Lee Jones’ bag of tricks. But Amy hasn’t just skimmed the surface in order to graft this or that move from her idols. She’s inspired. She “walks with” her idols rather than looking up to them. One imagines that she’s been listening to the stuff (and nothing but this stuff) and singing along all her life.
The combination of sadness and bounce in “Me & Mr. Jones” is so evocative of a post-war/pre-Beatles past that it automatically conjures images of too much lipstick, cat glasses, and grainy 8-mm movies of children in footy pajamas around Christmas trees spliced with, oh, I dunno…equally grainy footage of JFK’s head splattering all over Jackie O’s pink coat. But what really make “Me & Mr. Jones” special are little moments like the one at 0:20. Check how Amy drops her throat into her heels to sing the words “Slick Rick gig.” If we suspected, before this utterance, that we were listening to the bitch offspring of Ma Rainey, Billie, and Ronnie, we’re sure of it by 0:26.
The album’s crowning jewel is “Love is a Losing Game”, a pungent chunk of turf from Nelson Riddle’s backyard, featuring a devastating, harsh, but vulnerable and hesitating vocal. At 0:46, Amy tosses the word “love” across a sea of strings with a sad carelessness rarely mustered by singers in any era. Effortlessly, she has shared with us an exceedingly private moment, when she has mournfully, but absentmindedly thrown something into the dustbin that was once more important to her than anything else in the whole world; heartbreaks have turned love into a trifle that has been gathering dust on the mantle, something obsolete that needs tossing before it becomes a problem again.
Choose any moment to focus on her voice, you’ll find stuff like this. Back to Black is an ocean full of treasures buried beneath the gravel at the bottom of the sea.
And if there’s any question as to whether or not Amy can bring this kind of heat live, search Youtube for her Letterman performance, or check this one: a cracked, yet powerful reading of “Rehab”…
…all while fixing her hair! Say what you want about some of the more affected vocal stylings in this appearance, the girl’s got “stuff.”
And this is where it gets complicated. Continue reading »
