To anyone who loves jazz, the sultry sounds of soul or the infusion of the 'Motown Sound' in their music, the news of Amy Winehouse dying today can only come as an enormous loss.
Greedily, I wish she would have out-lived me. I wanted to listen to her when she was middle-aged, knew her body and her soul, and knew her music could get her through anything.
She was fresh, she was different, she was once in a lifetime. Her influences in the music that survives her by other artists is so apparent, and yet Amy is now gone and those who mimicked her sound will go on.
I think she must have been an old soul; who else sings like that? Who else lives that hard and rushes that headlong into the night? How ever tortured and lost she seemed to have been, we are so lucky that Amy found her voice.
I hope she's at peace now.
You no longer have to wrestle with the cage, Amy.
You are free.
