• About
  • Support AJW
  • Jewish Community Directory
  • Subscription Information
  • Contact Us
American Jewish World
No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • All
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia & New Zealand
    • Europe
    • Israel/Mideast
    • Latin America
    • Minnesota
    • US & Canada
    On trumpet, Frank London

    On trumpet, Frank London

    Editorial: In the ghetto

    Editorial: In the ghetto

    Natalie Fine Shapiro’s artworks bring the colors of spring

    Natalie Fine Shapiro’s artworks bring the colors of spring

  • Arts
    • All
    • Blue Box
    • Books & Literature
    • Music
    • Televison & Film
    • Theater & Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

    A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

    On trumpet, Frank London

    On trumpet, Frank London

    Surviving the hell of death camps

    Surviving the hell of death camps

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel & Culture
    Jewish Cubans survive the island’s economic collapse

    Jewish Cubans survive the island’s economic collapse

    My time with the Greek Jewish community

    My time with the Greek Jewish community

    Tracing family roots in Germany

    Tracing family roots in Germany

  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • AJW Digital Archives
  • News
    • All
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia & New Zealand
    • Europe
    • Israel/Mideast
    • Latin America
    • Minnesota
    • US & Canada
    On trumpet, Frank London

    On trumpet, Frank London

    Editorial: In the ghetto

    Editorial: In the ghetto

    Natalie Fine Shapiro’s artworks bring the colors of spring

    Natalie Fine Shapiro’s artworks bring the colors of spring

  • Arts
    • All
    • Blue Box
    • Books & Literature
    • Music
    • Televison & Film
    • Theater & Performing Arts
    • Visual Arts
    A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

    A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

    On trumpet, Frank London

    On trumpet, Frank London

    Surviving the hell of death camps

    Surviving the hell of death camps

  • Lifestyle
    • All
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Health & Wellness
    • Home & Garden
    • Travel & Culture
    Jewish Cubans survive the island’s economic collapse

    Jewish Cubans survive the island’s economic collapse

    My time with the Greek Jewish community

    My time with the Greek Jewish community

    Tracing family roots in Germany

    Tracing family roots in Germany

  • Editorial
  • Opinion
  • AJW Digital Archives
No Result
View All Result
Morning News
No Result
View All Result
Home Arts

Mourning Amy Winehouse: A biblical vixen goes back to black

American Jewish World by American Jewish World
May 23, 2020
in Arts
0
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

By DVORA MEYERS

NEW YORK (JTA) — Late last year, I spent the better part of a month working on a lengthy profile on Amy Winehouse, the British Jewish retro soul singer who tragically died over the weekend at 27. It was in the doldrums of this process, which included reading a book about Jewish immigrants who perform in blackface in the early 20th century and researching the bizarre music producer Phil Spector, one of her primary musical influences — that I was forced to ask myself: Why do I like Amy Winehouse so much?

Appreciation

I had become an instant fan of the singer almost from my first listen to Back to Black in 2007, Winehouse’s second and now final album. At first, like many others, I was very taken by the ballsy track “Rehab,” where she famously rejected the help she so clearly needed. Yet at the time of the track’s release, she hadn’t yet spiraled out of control. Her refusal seemed as much a denial of her alcohol and substance abuse problems as an aversion to the type of image rehab that many actors, singers and politicians are forced to undergo in order to make them more palatable to the general public.

Amy Winehouse, shown at a June 2007 rock festival in France, foretold her own fate in "Back to Black," says Dvora Meyers, when she sang, "I tread a troubled track/My odds are stacked/I go back to black.” (Photo: V. Gable - Festival Eurockéennes)Amy Winehouse, shown at a June 2007 rock festival in France, foretold her own fate in “Back to Black,” says Dvora Meyers, when she sang, “I tread a troubled track/My odds are stacked/I go back to black.” (Photo: V. Gable – Festival Eurockéennes)

Winehouse seemed immune to this kind of image meddling. As a Jewish woman raised in a strictly Orthodox community, I identified with her refusal to be controlled if not her choice of transgressive behavior. (My habit of wearing pants can hardly be considered self-destructive.)

It was this unrepentant behavior that signaled Winehouse’s place in a very different line of Jewish women — not the “nice” ones who make you chicken soup when you’re sick or assure their sons that they’re the smartest boys in the world and any woman would be lucky to marry them. Winehouse’s ancestors are the biblical vixens: Dina, who slept with Shechem; Deborah, the biblical heroine; or, more recently, Monica Lewinsky, the “portly pepperpot” (as The New York Post dubbed her) who nearly ended Bill Clinton’s presidency. These women possessed sexuality so powerful and intoxicating that it influenced national and political outcomes.

READ ALSO

A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

On trumpet, Frank London

Her devil-may-care attitude extended to her live performances. Even at her best, Winehouse shimmied awkwardly and endearingly as she sang onstage. Her doo wop-styled back-up singers were far more at ease, nimbly dancing behind her. Winehouse herself was never quite ready for primetime, and yet she was embraced by the music industry and mainstream, recognized for her adenoidal voice and towering songwriting talent (and beehive) with the Mercury Prize and several Grammy Awards.

Yet Winehouse wasn’t always a “bad girl.” She once was a freshly scrubbed Jewish teen from northeast London. Back when she recorded her first album, Frank, at 19, she was curvier and wore her long dark hair in loose waves. There was nary a tattoo in sight. True, she had been kicked out of a prestigious stage school (the same one that popular British soul singer Adele attended) for getting her nose pierced, but that’s hardly scaling the mountain of teenage rebellion.

This younger Winehouse had been nurtured both artistically and religiously by her family. Her parents and paternal grandmother, Cynthia, who once dated the legendary musician Ronnie Scott, raised her on a steady diet of jazz greats and soul singers from Billie Holiday to Ella Fitzgerald to Dinah Washington. It was also Cynthia who hosted weekly Friday night dinners. Her death in 2006 is said to have precipitated her granddaughter’s downward spiral.

It was at this time that Winehouse entered the studio to record Back to Black. She changed musical course on this album, veering away from the adult contemporary jazz sounds that had dominated Frank into darker lyrical terrain set, almost paradoxically, to the sunny sound of the ’60s American girl groups that had been helmed by Spector.

Under the poppy cloak of the Ronettes’ sound from 40 years ago, Winehouse brought a thoroughly modern — and Jewish — sensibility to her lyrics and performances. She spoke not of love and romance, as her predecessors did, but of addictions, sex and every Jewish girl’s favorite emotion, guilt. Her songs and tone dripped with regret, but also the inevitability of her bad behavior. Any astute listener knew that she probably wasn’t going to change.

Yet her fans held out hope, as did her family and probably even the troubled artist herself. Ultimately, however, like an Old Testament prophet, she foretold her own fate. On the titular track of her master work, she sang, “I tread a troubled track/My odds are stacked/I go back to black.”

***

This article was adapted from a piece that first appeared in the online magazine Tablet (tabletmag.com).

Related Posts

A wedding in Hebron gets complicated
Books & Literature

A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

May 21, 2025
On trumpet, Frank London
Music

On trumpet, Frank London

May 19, 2025
Surviving the hell of death camps
Books & Literature

Surviving the hell of death camps

April 20, 2025
Kim Kivens treads the boards in CDT’s production of ‘Grease’
Theater & Performing Arts

Kim Kivens treads the boards in CDT’s production of ‘Grease’

April 20, 2025
Entering the age of invisibility
Books & Literature

Entering the age of invisibility

January 27, 2025
Jewish cast members talk about the relevance of ‘Parade’
Theater & Performing Arts

Jewish cast members talk about the relevance of ‘Parade’

January 22, 2025
Next Post

Norway’s Jews mourn amid concern about anti-Israel backlash

Comments 0

  1. Vernita Feierman says:
    14 years ago

    Such a promising life cut short through drink and drugs , We miss you Amy

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

RECENT ARTICLES

A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

A wedding in Hebron gets complicated

May 21, 2025
Editorial: Repression in the guise of fighting antisemitism

Editorial: Repression in the guise of fighting antisemitism

May 20, 2025
On trumpet, Frank London

On trumpet, Frank London

May 19, 2025
Editorial: In the ghetto

Editorial: In the ghetto

April 21, 2025
Surviving the hell of death camps

Surviving the hell of death camps

April 20, 2025

About

Since 1912 the AJW has served as an important news resource for the Jewish community. The Jewish World unites the main Jewish communities in St. Paul and Minneapolis, as well as those in Duluth, Rochester and smaller cities, and bridges the divides between the various Jewish religious streams.

Quick Links

  • About the AJW
  • Advertising Information
  • Submission Guidelines
  • Subscription Information
  • Jewish Community Directory

Contact Us

The American Jewish World
3249 Hennepin Ave., Suite 245
Minneapolis, MN 55408

Tel: 612.824.0030 / Fax: 612.823.0753
editor@ajwnews.com

  • Buy JNews
  • Landing Page
  • Documentation
  • Support Forum

© 2025 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Food
  • Health & Wellness
  • Lifestyle
  • Opinion
  • About the AJW
  • Jewish Community Directory
  • Support AJW
  • Subscription Information
  • Contact Us

© 2025 JNews - Premium WordPress news & magazine theme by Jegtheme.