First off, tell me that you seek the views of a person who has spent much of his 52 years listening to, adoring and studying the history Jazz, Blues, Soul and Rhythm & Blues. Tell me you seek a self-proclaimed historian of “American Classical Music,” who, since the mid-1960s, has trolled the rich history of the sounds that influence every note played by today’s musicians. Tell me that you wish to share ideas with somebody who remains in awe of the great American migration that brought the Delta Bluesmen northward; that you wish to hear the opinions of somebody so impressed with the way the Jazz bands urbanized and swung into so many branches that he deems the word “Jazz” to be inadequate to describe the art. If this is the somebody whom you seek, this “blue-eyed” Brother is your best boy.
The term, “American Classical Music,” shall grow in acceptance, into what future generations shall describe as the range of original musical art forms predominantly performed by Americans of African descent (and adopted by certain “blue-eyed” American and British cousins).
As a charter member of the Jazz Leadership Society, I have been honored with the privilege of 30 years of access to the world’s most astute experts on the subject of American Classical Music. My record collection has engorged my iPod with 42 Days and 42 Nights—and growing—of the best sounds that have ever poured forth from the lungs, hands, hearts and souls of the most brilliant artists ever to grace this Planet.
So when I propound on the level of various musical talents (with a tinge of self-consciousness, as I am not a musician), I confess to being a complete musical snob. I am extremely difficult to impress. Being outside the mainstream of musical tastes has been my rule since 1965, when I was age 10 and my brother Roy came back to our Chicago-area home from St. Louis University with these wild new sounds from Memphis, Motown and Muscle Shoals; vinyl masterpieces from James Brown, Otis Redding and Carla Thomas; Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Four Tops and Stevie Wonder; Aretha Franklin and all the rest from the pantheon within which resides the greatest generation of Soul/R&B that American Classical Music offers.
As I have navigated this journey, virtually every significant act; virtually every meaningful recording; virtually every one-hit wonder; virtually every Hall-of-Fame riff in American Classical Music history has passed my ears, and is likely in my collection or on order. (For many years, as I spread my joyous discoveries, I endured “N-Bombs” from some of my young and stupid, crass, mainstream-listening contemporaries, hardening my lifelong resolve never to tolerate that awful word.)
Among the ongoing highlights of my life have been the childlike thrills that have accompanied each discovery of sounds from artists new and old. To describe a soul-jarring sound as “Black,” has and always will be the ultimate compliment when I hear something that grabs ahold of me. I admit it; I feel the physical effects; sometimes a sweet vocal or instrumental (think Ella Fitzgerald’s voice or Clifford Brown’s trumpet) has me weeping with joy and awe.
Furthermore, I confess that a performer’s Grammy Award and other mainstream plaudits have not been favoring factors vis-à-vis my opinion of a performer’s place in the annals of musical achievement. In reality, I tend to look at broad public appeal as a contra-indicator for the purpose of my judgment of a musical artist, such is my contrarian nature regarding musical talent (among the many issues for which I submit contrarian views).
One evening this past Spring 2008, from the “Must-Read” list contained in my favorite news website, Lucianne.com, I clicked a link to a video hit offering of a recent multiple-Grammy Award winner. I hereby evoke an out-of-context reference to the tag line from the television show Name That Tune. In one note—ONE NOTE—I was grabbed in a way that I have never in recent memory been grabbed by a new artist. I can only hope not to throw out all my snob creds by referencing this amazingly soulful talent. No one—and I mean NO ONE—in a position of authority had ever told me their opinion of this young performer. No one ever had directed me to this talent, or in any way influenced my opinion. I still harbor some self-consciousness, as the level upon which I place this young performer’s talent is so improbably high, based on my standards; based on the fact that NO ONE who was born later than I has EVER had this kind of impact on me.
I had clicked away while the video was loading, so I heard the first notes before seeing the video.
The sound was mesmerizing. It was so Black! But it was not Motown. It was not Stax. It was not Chicago Blues. This girl’s sound must have come from outer space! Was I moved? WAS I MOVED!!
About five seconds into the video, my 14-year old, streetwise son Cory called out from the next room, “Dad, why are you listening to Amy Winehouse?”
Sitting transfixed at this video, mouth open, supporting my head to keep it from slamming into the table, tears rising, heart beating frantically, breath short, hand over mouth in amazement, I managed to choke out, “She’s ffff…antaaaastic.” This five-foot three, 100-pound ball of big hair, tattoos and trouble, of whom I had recently become aware through my daily perusals of the dead-tree media and constant exposure to celebrity news; this girl who I saw in a photo stumbling, wandering about in the wee hours in her underwear, deeply immersed in self-induced misery? That girl????
That girl, Amy Winehouse, is simply the best soul sound I have heard since I first heard Aretha Franklin during the late 1960s. The key difference is that during the 1960s, when I began my musical journey as a pre-teenager, I was too virginal to realize that I was hearing perhaps the most gifted songbird in the history of Civilization. I am 40+ years wiser today, and completely unimpressionable.
(More interesting still is the fact that I discovered Amy Winehouse in a video. So, initial confusion accompanied my complete surrender to the depth of this feeling her sound inspired. Had I heard this unreal talent on audio only, I would have been wracking my brain in wonderment that I did not have this “Sister” in my collection. It simply would not have occurred to me sight unseen that this sound could have poured from a soul singer not of African descent. Just no way, no how.)
It’s almost embarrassing to be writing this piece, having over the years fallen so deeply in love with Gladys Knight, Diana Ross, Carla Thomas, Mavis Staples, Martha Reeves, Koko Taylor, Barbara Lewis, Annette Snell and other life-changing blues and soul singers, to be raving about this melanin-challenged newcomer.
So I listened to “Rehab,” and I wondered, “What is happening to me? This pasty-faced girl has the Blackest, most soulful sound I could ever imagine. Wait!! It’s just not possible that I could be hearing this right. It must be my state of mind. How is it possible for me to be so thunderstruck? I’ve heard everything. How could this girl be so good?”
So I went into work the next day, and consulted a colleague 15 years my junior, a long-time events DJ, with as many weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and retirement parties under his belt as anyone we know; a guy who has a line on just about every sound available to or wanted by a party DJ. I asked Jeff if he had ever heard this girl. Jeff says, “Come over here [his monitor], and watch this.” This time, Amy is performing “You Know I’m No Good.” Once again, I feel this feeling—this feeling that I can only describe as that system-shock; that feeling I’ve been getting in my guts since I began my musical journey more than 40 years ago; the adrenaline rush that I first encountered with my discovery of the sounds of James Brown, Otis Redding, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder and the rest of the greatest soul sounds in history. Now Jeff is telling me that if I start “weeping like a girl” he’s going to squish me with his lumberjack heft. He can; believe me, he can, but I start to watch and listen, and, I can’t control the impulses. Da boy cain’t he’p it!
And remember: It still did not compute in my calculations that a sound so Black was pouring from this skinny, crazed, light-skinned babe.
Self-consciously, I was still wondering what kind of state of mind I must have been in to be having this epiphany over a 24-year old British girl. I admit a strong pro-Black bias when it comes to my listening tendencies; hence, I still could not reconcile this sound, coming from this tiny person whose physical appearance is so incontrovertibly “un-Black.” I say, “Jeff, what else to you have?” So then Jeff played “Tears Dry on Their Own.” Here we go again!
That week, I downloaded the three songs, and I listened. And I listened again. Sorry, but it was almost a surreal assault on my hardened sensibilities, to be ready to vault this new talent into the rarefied air at the top of my all-time list. Three songs, and Amy Winehouse was already leapfrogging past everybody! “What kind of bleepery is this (self-editing one of her utterly original, lyrical vulgarities)?!”
You know what I did next. I went to Amazon and ordered Back to Black, Amy’s Grammy-winning album. Truly a first for the musical snob, buying a Grammy-winner in this day and “Age of Mediocrity.”
Now it’s two weeks later; another spring afternoon, and I’m sitting at my monitor at home, starting work on the content of my new website, JIM EDUCATES WARRIORS. The first two cuts from the album coursed through my Bose CD unit I had already heard a bunch of times. I remained in control of my emotions, but I confirmed my initial judgment of this extraordinary talent, hearing this girl’s sounds in my comfortable surroundings, from my own sound system.
Then it happened. “Me & Mr. Jones” hit me in mid-keystroke. I thought I was having a stroke! I’m doubling over, rushing over to push open the sliding door facing Upper Manhattan. I need air! I’m incapacitated! How can a white girl sound so soulful, so Black? Where did these arrangements with horns and bells come from? Who’s writing these lyrics? Whose sense of humor inspires this stuff? Whose “F-Bombs” that I am adoring are exposing my stunning hypocrisy, as I reflect on the hip-hop lyrics my kids listen to and which I reject so dismissively?
Then “Just Friends.” Then the title tune. It’s over! I must be ready for a rubber room! I’m still incredulous that an impact so profound could be dominating my consciousness. I really had thought I had heard everything—until now.
I started to read the album’s liner notes, and hit the internet. Understand, I still could not believe what was happening to my musical value system. My time-worn values had descended totally into disarray!
As I perused the liner notes, my inner voice was shouting, “She writes all this stuff herself! She writes of all of this lust; all of these chemical poisons; all of this heartache; all of this betrayal and loveless sex. She’s a BLUESMAN!! Amy Winehouse is a Bluesman in the spirit of all of the greatest Delta and Chicago Bluesmen. Have I lost my mind?” (Perhaps!)
Come to think about it, I have figured out which all-time great Chicago Bluesman has been channeled into the form of this tiny, light-skinned, female package. Amy Winehouse is the reincarnation of Little Walter Jacobs, who quite simply is at the tippy-top of the shortest list of history’s most magnificent blues harp (harmonica) players. I could write a separate essay about my worn-out Little Walter vinyl LPs, my learned impressions of this Bluesman’s early days backing up Muddy Waters before going out on his own; his unique, saxophone-like sound; his total mastery of the blues harp; his impeccable timing; the urgency and the poignancy of his delivery, or the wicked sense of humor contained in his heartfelt lyrics, or his tear-jerking vocal sound. (Take a trip to heaven. Give a listen to Little Walter’s “Just Your Fool,” "I Got To Find My Baby," “Tell Me Mama,” “Blues With a Feeling,” and “Boom Boom, Out Go the Lights.”)
I have read of Little Walter’s legendary temper and his alcohol demons, which combined to send him to his death at age 37 from injuries suffered in one of his street fights.
Channeling the spirit of Little Walter, we could be describing the uniqueness, the intemperate personality, the tonal mastery, the just-right timing, the urgency, the poignancy, the bawdy humor and the soul of Amy Winehouse, three generations (and a skin-bleach and a sex-change) removed.
But I digress.
It’s the morning of Saturday, April 19, and I am driving my family to Atlantic City. In transit, I decide I’ve just got to confess my amazing discovery of this blue-eyed hellion to my college roommate, a guy with whom I spent much of my college nightlife hitting every blues/jazz/rock/country act that passed through Urbana-Champaign during the 1970s. Kevin and I spent some of our most misguided years getting down and dirty with some of the best Chicago Bluesmen and their bands. (To this day, we guffaw at the antics we pursued with the great Luther Allison in mid-act at the club Ruby Gulch, during which Luther groggily thanked us for the sneaky-pete, and just before he went into an awe-inspiring blues guitar riff that to this day was the most moving, most devastating live piece of musical performance I have ever had the joy to witness.) Kevin, now a successful, suburban Chicago tavern operator, is well aware that I am a complete musical snob, and I’m sure he’s wondering whether I’m puffing another sneaky-pete that Saturday morning, as I implore him to give the jukebox a whirl when he hits the tavern later in the day.
I continued to ponder this discovery, and I began thinking, “What would be the ultimate test of this girl’s talent?” That’s it! Let’s see if Amy Winehouse has performed any of the classics. Can this girl bring it on with material I have heard countless times from other wonderful vocalists? So I ordered Amy’s first album, Frank, which contains the standards, “Moody’s Mood for Love” and “There Is No Greater Love.” She’s got the goods! GREATNESS CONFIRMED!
Predictably, the music industry is marching forth with a steady stream of “Amy Winehouse formula” wannabes, in accordance with the time-tested industry strategy of beating to an ugly pulp any successful “formula,” with little regard to nuance. No worries for us who identify the inimitable nature of true artistic genius: Amy’s style and total package as song-writer, Bluesman, vocalist and storyteller are simply not to be imitated successfully. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, when admonishing a young hitter that seemed infatuated with the contorted batting stance of the all-time great Frank Robinson, “If you can’t imitate him, don’t try to copy him.”
Amy Winehouse is really, really hurting. At her current burn rate Amy soon will disappear in a tragic puff of smoke, and we know that the world would keep spinning, with or without her gifts. Still, we can hope for Amy to free herself from the chemicals that most certainly WILL kill her voice in short order, even if her tiny body were capable of holding up under the constant poisonous infusions that her peer group and celebrity media ghouls seem determined NOT to help her to shed.
We can only hope that Amy will find the answers to her demons, retain the sense of urgency that animates her greatness, and forestall her inevitable, horrible demise, should she reject the efforts of her father and others concerned about her well-being, but who thus far have proved to be helpless to ward off her self-destructive urges.
Selfishly, I cannot abide the loss of this uniquely gifted, wonderfully talented, ridiculously intelligent, brilliantly funny artist, who writes her own material, bends her notes like Sarah Vaughan, shouts like Etta James, growls like Janis Joplin, croons like Billie Holiday—and so unfortunately, parties like Sid Vicious.
I cannot permit myself to remain silent in the face of the imminent loss of Amy Winehouse. She is THAT good. The loss of Amy Winehouse would be devastating to me. She is THAT good. Yes, Amy is THAT good. Let me put it all on the line, here and now. Amy Winehouse is right up there with the best I have ever heard. Someday, Amy Winehouse could find a place with the Four Queens and the Empress Aretha, but only if Amy gives us more time to hear her build a large legacy of greatness. It ain’t looking good for her right now, I am sorry to say.
Reading years ago about the great Charlie “Yardbird” Parker’s 35-year old body on that mortuary slab, as yet unidentified but thought to be a man of 65, advanced to a physical age of twice the chronological number thanks to the effects of the excesses available at the time, I began to reject the traditional line of philosophy about the tragedy of early, self-induced death. You know, the trite, “If only he could control his impulses, we could have had the enjoyment of his once-in-a-lifetime talent for oh, so many more years….”
I concluded that it is the “total package” out of which spills the history-making output of the all-time greats. Warts, pimples and all—drinking to excess, smoking, eating, drugging, sexing to excess. To exorcise the demons would excise the urgency, and nullify its impact.
I read the heart-rending tale of Dinah Washington, one of my Four Queens (alongside Ella, Billie and Sarah), in whose vanity decided that she should take high doses of diet pills in her effort to squeeze her buxom body into her party dress, and whose seventh husband, Dick “Night Train” Lane (then the greatest defensive back in NFL history) was widowed when alcohol combined with the pills to kill her in 1962. I remember very vaguely (I was seven at the time) my Mom reading aloud of Dinah’s demise from a news article.
Dinah made it to age 39 before her mistakes vanquished her goddess-like sound. Amy will be gone long before that, unless she finds the ability to respect herself in a way she has thus far refused to respect herself.
I hope against hope that Amy Winehouse shall find it in her being to reject her self-destructive habits, and to channel her incredibly unique sound (notwithstanding the increasingly numerous imitators) into new achievements, to make her indelible mark on a world hungering for more of her gifts. I hope against hope that Amy would stop engaging in activities that subject her to ridicule from celebrity-sniffers with nothing better to do; that Amy would finally put to the well-deserved, lasting shame the perverted ghouls that provide bandwidth for those of no personal accomplishment to posit on the internet as to “when will Amy die?”
Do you know what I dream about? I dream that Amy Winehouse will wake up one morning in the very near future, and NOT smoke a cigarette; and NOT take a whiff of powder; and NOT hit the glass pipe; and NOT sip an alco-beverage.
And I dream of Amy Winehouse going to the studio and hitting some of Queen Dinah’s classics with tape running—starting with one of the all-time most soulful of the Queen of the Blues’ many, many soulful tunes, “I Don’t Hurt Anymore.” How apropos this tune would be as to her condition! Imagine Amy belting out that tune! Just imagine!
Amy, Amy, Amy (title of another of the young Amy’s masterpieces), please stop your death march. Please take immediate action to allow the world to realize your greatness. Please understand that your gift is ever so fragile. Don’t let me lose this dream, Amy! (And by the way, please consider running the tape, and putting your indelible mark on “Don’t Let Me Lose This Dream,” one of Empress Aretha’s innumerable classics.) Please honor Dinah and Aretha in a way NO ONE else can, combining your most incredibly natural soulfulness, your bluesmanship, your once-in-a-generation musical instinct, your inner sweetness (I can see it through the haze!) and your memories of the life of self-hurting that you will have left behind as you begin a new life of non-fatal mischief.
Don’t let me lose this dream, Amy!
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