album.
Eventually Amy signed a publishing deal with EMI Music Publishing Ltd, and with the advance from that agreement moved into a flat in Camden, North London, with her old friend Juliette Ashby, where Amy cooked, wrote and the girls both smoked dope. By December 2002, shortly after her 19th birthday, Amy’s luck – or talent –resulted in her being a fully contracted member of the Universal–Island Records stable.
In the end, only ‘October Song’, a track apparently inspired by the death of the pet canary that Amy had forgotten to feed when she went away for a weekend, and ‘Amy, Amy, Amy’ made it onto Frank from the sessions with Skarbek and Rowe.
Co-produced by the brilliant Miami-based Salaam Remi 2 and New Jersey-based Commissioner Gordon, most of the songs on Frank are inspired by the heartache and pain caused by the break-up of Amy’s relationship with Chris Taylor.
‘I constantly want to look after people’, she said later, ‘but I’ve only met a couple of men in my life who deserved or appreciated it. My first proper long-term boyfriend Chris (he’s the fella that I wrote my first album about) was lovely, but he didn’t really appreciate it.’
‘Did you like Chris?’
Mitch replies, ‘Well, I didn’t really know him. He was a decent enough guy from what I can remember of him, but she is writing [in Frank ] about … her first love. It is pretty innocent. Things go a bit wrong. She tries to put it back on track. He tries to get it back on track … He should have been more of a man and she writes about this.
‘She call[s] him a “lady boy”, or “are you a lady boy” 3 ? But … he understood the situation. He understood that there wasn’t any malice in what Amy did and they still have got a pretty good relationship now.
‘It’s not everybody who can say they have had an album written about them, can they? … But this boy can.’
‘I really enjoy that album,’ Mitch says. ‘I think it’s good … the songs are great, although it didn’t sell that many.’
Frank was actually a platinum-selling album. It was nominated for two BRIT Awards for British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act, and ‘Stronger Than Me’ also won Amy the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song.
‘It got to No. 7 in the British Charts [ Frank actually reached No. 13 in the UK Charts]. It wasn’t released in America … it’s a well thought of, very critically acclaimed album. But it didn’t sell because Amy wasn’t as well known … Back To Black sold 10 million copies, so that’s a serious piece of work. I still prefer the first one.
‘I feel more comfortable with [ Frank ] more because I know what went into it. … That is why she is never going to be an Irving Berlin 4 … [He] wrote 4,000 songs in his life. He wrote about one song every week and that is what he was able to do. … Some of them … we know (‘White Christmas’), but some of them you wouldn’t know and some … are not very good at all. … But Amy will never be able to do that … Any song that she writes is like cutting an arm off. Every song is like pulling her heart out.’
‘Why “cutting her arm off”?’ I interject, ‘I would say, like “giving birth”.’
‘Yeah, you are right,’ he agrees. ‘That is a much better way of putting it … giving birth. Each song is a creation, which has come out of painful memories and painful experiences. It is not going to be a song about “how lovely the moon looks tonight” … It’s not going to be about thatkind of stuff. So, that’s why she really probably needs two to three years to write an album.’
In the lead-up to Frank’s release, Amy performed live three times at the 4 Sticks Live nights at the Cobden, a private members club in West London, where many live bands have performed. Acclaimed musician Annie Lennox caught one of Amy’s performances. She told The Times, ‘I saw her at the Cobden Club when she was 18, and I was
Eventually Amy signed a publishing deal with EMI Music Publishing Ltd, and with the advance from that agreement moved into a flat in Camden, North London, with her old friend Juliette Ashby, where Amy cooked, wrote and the girls both smoked dope. By December 2002, shortly after her 19th birthday, Amy’s luck – or talent –resulted in her being a fully contracted member of the Universal–Island Records stable.
In the end, only ‘October Song’, a track apparently inspired by the death of the pet canary that Amy had forgotten to feed when she went away for a weekend, and ‘Amy, Amy, Amy’ made it onto Frank from the sessions with Skarbek and Rowe.
Co-produced by the brilliant Miami-based Salaam Remi 2 and New Jersey-based Commissioner Gordon, most of the songs on Frank are inspired by the heartache and pain caused by the break-up of Amy’s relationship with Chris Taylor.
‘I constantly want to look after people’, she said later, ‘but I’ve only met a couple of men in my life who deserved or appreciated it. My first proper long-term boyfriend Chris (he’s the fella that I wrote my first album about) was lovely, but he didn’t really appreciate it.’
‘Did you like Chris?’
Mitch replies, ‘Well, I didn’t really know him. He was a decent enough guy from what I can remember of him, but she is writing [in Frank ] about … her first love. It is pretty innocent. Things go a bit wrong. She tries to put it back on track. He tries to get it back on track … He should have been more of a man and she writes about this.
‘She call[s] him a “lady boy”, or “are you a lady boy” 3 ? But … he understood the situation. He understood that there wasn’t any malice in what Amy did and they still have got a pretty good relationship now.
‘It’s not everybody who can say they have had an album written about them, can they? … But this boy can.’
‘I really enjoy that album,’ Mitch says. ‘I think it’s good … the songs are great, although it didn’t sell that many.’
Frank was actually a platinum-selling album. It was nominated for two BRIT Awards for British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act, and ‘Stronger Than Me’ also won Amy the prestigious Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song.
‘It got to No. 7 in the British Charts [ Frank actually reached No. 13 in the UK Charts]. It wasn’t released in America … it’s a well thought of, very critically acclaimed album. But it didn’t sell because Amy wasn’t as well known … Back To Black sold 10 million copies, so that’s a serious piece of work. I still prefer the first one.
‘I feel more comfortable with [ Frank ] more because I know what went into it. … That is why she is never going to be an Irving Berlin 4 … [He] wrote 4,000 songs in his life. He wrote about one song every week and that is what he was able to do. … Some of them … we know (‘White Christmas’), but some of them you wouldn’t know and some … are not very good at all. … But Amy will never be able to do that … Any song that she writes is like cutting an arm off. Every song is like pulling her heart out.’
‘Why “cutting her arm off”?’ I interject, ‘I would say, like “giving birth”.’
‘Yeah, you are right,’ he agrees. ‘That is a much better way of putting it … giving birth. Each song is a creation, which has come out of painful memories and painful experiences. It is not going to be a song about “how lovely the moon looks tonight” … It’s not going to be about thatkind of stuff. So, that’s why she really probably needs two to three years to write an album.’
In the lead-up to Frank’s release, Amy performed live three times at the 4 Sticks Live nights at the Cobden, a private members club in West London, where many live bands have performed. Acclaimed musician Annie Lennox caught one of Amy’s performances. She told The Times, ‘I saw her at the Cobden Club when she was 18, and I was
Similar Books
Five Classic Spenser Mysteries
Robert B. Parker
The Phantom of Black's Cove
Jan Hambright
What Became of the White Savage
Francois Garde
Bearly In Control
Kim Fox
A Midsummer's Nightmare
Kody Keplinger
The Dirty Secret
Kira A. Gold
Devious
Lisa Jackson
Spotless
Camilla Monk
Ghost Country
Sara Paretsky