One Song - Amy Winehouse “Rehab”

Episode Date: July 20, 2023

On the first episode of One Song, Diallo and Luxxury break down a neo soul classic: Rehab, by Amy Winehouse. Listen along as the guys delve into the song’s recording process, Winehouse’s iconic vocal delivery, and its lasting impact on popular music. Album: Back to Black. Genre: R&B/Soul.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And I'm producer, DJ and songwriter Luxury, aka The Guy Who Whispers Interpolation on TikTok. And welcome to the first episode of One Song. The show where we deconstruct and celebrate some of your favorite songs from the past 60 years in music history and tell you why they deserve one more listen. I promise you you'll never hear these songs the same way again.

Okay, luxury. Our first episode is about the great Amy Winey. house, her sultry, soulful music, and specifically her song rehab. Before we get into that, though, I think it might be helpful to the listeners to know how we got here. Our backstory, our origin story. Yeah. Let's do it. People need to know. How did these guys come together? The backstory to our show, to our friendship, to all of it, it's kind of cool. Like, we met at a birthday party, a kid's birthday party. So it was like a Saturday at two. And we just like started talking and we were just Vibing, straight vibing, and like it didn't take long before, kind of the classic cliche of maybe our era, maybe back in 30, 40 years ago would have been like, we should write a screenplay together or whatever. We should, we should do improv together. But now it's we should do a podcast together. And boy, did we, did we follow through on that promise. Because here we are. We made it. We got our podcast. It's happening. This is the first episode. We did it. You know, one of the things that I think makes our show a bit different is the fact that you have the stems from so many songs.

in the pop music canon, including rehab. For folks unfamiliar with the word stems, can you explain what those are and how in the world did you get your hands on them? Absolutely. I mean, stems are literally just the component parts of the song. This is what they make in the studio. They lay down the drums, then someone plays bass,

and then the vocals and in between, you know, everything else. But it's all done one at a time. And when you hear the song, you're hearing it all together. So the rare thing, the special thing that I have is the step before that, where you can isolate them and listen individually. And that's where the magic happens. Because when you can just hear isolated anything, vocals, drums, you hear it in a completely new way.

And it's really inspiring as a producer and songwriter, but as a fan of the music and of the artist, it's like you're hearing the song that you maybe have heard a thousand times completely differently. And on this episode, we will hear Amy's voice, which I think you'll agree is just phenomenal. We will hear Amy's voice just the vocal. Just the vocal.

They tried to make me go to rehab. I said, no, no, no. Yes, I've been black, but when I come back, you know, no, no. Chills, chills. She has one of the most beautiful voices of modern times, if not of the pop era, altogether. Incredible. We are so excited to have you all join us for this show.

This season, we've got some real classics for you. We've got mo money, more problems by the notorious people. We'll pick apart Blue Monday by New Order. And I am stoked to dig deeper into Nirvana smells like Teen Spirit and Britney Spears toxic. And also artists like Beyonce, Stevie Wonder, artists that you know and love, but you'll never hear their music the same way. We've got a big season coming up. Okay, everybody, this is one song. Dielo, have I ever told you my Amy Winehouse introduction story?

No, you have a... I first heard about Amy Winehouse. Well, let's see. I was... This is kind of funny because it... goes back to a previous life when I was just luxury, the band. It was, we were so underground that the underground didn't even know about us. But I had somehow made our way.

I had funded a trip to Europe for the band, me and a bass player and a drummer. I had debt that I was paying to a friend who put up the money, a real estate magnate, who was very generous. We're in Europe. We have no audience, no attention at all. And that's the first time I ever heard Amy Winehouse. This is 2006 when she was blowing up there. Hey, before you go any further, like, what is that like when you're touring in a foreign country and people haven't heard the music?

Like, are you opening for bigger acts? Can I just tell you? Because it was sort of like long enough ago that I looked back on that person who did it. And I'm like, how did you do that? And why did you do that? We would play, I booked it myself. This is the Myspace era. So I would literally go online as a different MySpace persona, Victoria James.

Oh, that I was my own booking agent because I thought that sounded fancy. What is Donald Trump's name? I know, exactly. Barron something? Okay, go ahead. I was my own publicist. But I booked a tour of Europe. I got on the road.

I got us all there. All the equipment, renting cars, driving off the road. Total misery. And then we'd show up to the gig, and there'd be a handful of people, not that many, like, seven or eight. But you just reminded me of this one gig we played in Nottingham. We were playing, and people seemed to be digging it. They were kind of like, there was one girl at the side of the stage. When I came off stage, she, like, was standing there.

And I was, like, bracing myself for a compliment. And I was kind of like, you know what you, you know how that's like, it's like, okay, I'm about to be humble. I'm about to be humble. And she goes, that was appalling. I thought she's going to say, I wanted to see Victoria, who had such good things to say. Oh, my God. I'll never forget.

And then I spent the rest of the night trying to convince her, trying to say, well, what about it exactly was appalling? Because perhaps you may have missed something that was not appalling about it. My God. Luxury, that's your game. I can see. Like, you go up to them and you ask them for notes. I'd like to be better. So that next time around, that was a real moment.

So that was... That's a real moment. I would be remiss if I didn't mention, you mentioned that the girl came up to you at a 2006 concert that was appalling. Same year, I had just started posting, you know, videos on the internet for my comedy. And like, we had built up like a small following people who liked our comedy. Then I remember what I was this you and Bashir. This was me and Bashir.

And I remember one time we posted a video. And like the second comment was a person who had loved everything we had posted before. And they put, not Urbest. They put not you are best. And to this day, any time me and Bashir want to criticize each other's writing, we always say, mm, not urbest. Not urbest. That person had a lasting influence.

Comments were really honest. That's funny too, because that's also the era where we are hearing for the first time, maybe some of these, like, internet, like you are. Absolutely. So the first time you see it written down, you're like, you're pronouncing it er, er, like, not out of irony, just out of like, that's what it looks like, not ur-best. Not ur-er-best. Yeah, I know.

This is the world of 2006. though, by the way. And what's funny if you kind of look back on that era with some of the footage of like Amy Winehouse, like I was just watching the documentary the other night and the fashion, that blog house moment was really infiltrating everywhere. And that's relevant. Bloghouse being that moment

in the mid-2000s where the blogs were how we were getting our music, right? Were you getting your music around that era? I absolutely was. I kind of missed that period. I kind of missed that period a lot. Wait, so you were opening for her? I wasn't opening for Amy Winehouse. My point is that with the blogs, the way I heard Amy Winehouse. It wasn't on the radio.

It was because of a remix. Absolutely. I had a blog at the time, too. I don't know if you know this. Did you know that I had a blog, Diallo? I had a blog. No, but now I'm your biggest fan. It was kind of decently known. It was called disco workout.

And that was... I think I might have known disco workout, actually. Were you guys ever on a hype machine? Definitely on hype machine. Okay, so I was all over hype machine back in those days. And years later, I would meet people and I'd be like, I do music as luxury because I can never heard of you. And I'd be like, I have a blog called Disco Workup.

Oh, yeah. love that. I'm glad you like what I do. I was all over disco workout. In fact, I probably have some MP3s on my laptop. Here's the story of my life. The album is listed as disco workout. That's me.

That was me. That was me and my buddy John Atron and Sarah. So that's where I heard Amy Winehouse was on a blog where it was the hot chip remix. One cool thing about that remix is that it's super reverential to the original. Like it really isn't. It's actually kind of doing the repetition thing, which is a remixy thing, which would happen in the original. And then the beat is more of a solid forward of the floor. and we'll get into more of the micro and needy, greedy of the drums in a minute.

But aside from that, it's kind of like true to the original sound. It's true to the original sound. That is interesting. There's a whole genre of remixes that barely changes. Like the Daft Punk remix to get lucky is almost the exact same song, except that it's about 18 minutes long, and there is a part that's kind of cool towards the end. I think Daft Punk enjoys doing that to us. There are other people who've done that, though.

It's just like, that's the remix. That's the remix, in quotes. I wonder how much it checks you all collected. I'll get into why Amy's voice has such a deep impact on me in a second. But first, what was going on in your life when rehab first came out? What was going on in your life in that era? In the Blog House era. It's funny that you say that because, like I said, I knew Hot Chip and I knew Amy Winehouse.

I did not know that remix. I was DJing all the time. Like three or four times a week. I was the director of music and talent for Andre Belage. at his standard hotels here in Los Angeles. I did not know that's how you pronounce his name. I was. Andre Beards.

Interesting. You know, I was doing the Chateau Marmont and Bar Marmont, but basically I had a lot of access to music. I was also hiring the other DJs. So, like, you know, when I wasn't DJing, I was still going in on my off nights and listening to other DJs play sets. And Amy Winehouse just kind of like, I feel like we discovered her, I might have come across her a couple of years before you because I was really big on her album.

Frank. Big ballers. Don't do nothing for you. What you'd love of rich man, six foot two or taller. Which was Salam Remy's... It was a jazz album. Right. You know, what was cool was like a jazz album that went well with Angie Stone and Jill Scott.

Right. And if you were into like that kind of sound... Kind of a neo-Soul jazz hip-hop. Absolutely. Soul Quarian. Shout out to Questlove and Victor DuPlay and all those guys. it absolutely fit into that same kind of set. And so when I wasn't hiring, you know, as the director of music and talent, I waited in,

I was a part of the design department. I weighed in on napkins and the aprons that the chef wore, you know, back of house. I also hired the box models that went into the, so if you were in Hollywood at a certain time, you would go into the standard hotel, there was always like a living person behind the front desk in the box. It was like sometimes we addressed them as a mermaid. Sometimes it was just as a student reading in her dorm room. After a while, we had men doing it too. That was so of an era, wasn't it?

Yeah, we wouldn't do that now, would we? And tourists were always like, oh my God, there's a live person behind the front desk. It was crazy. But I feel like, you know, between the DJs and just being like around a lot of hipsters at that time, we sort of got that this was sort of an alternative to the hits of the day. And like, looking back, like, this is to say nothing against the hits of the day. I love the fact you can look back on an era and the pop songs or everything from Missy Elliott to, you know, I mean, like rappers like T.I. Anything with Neptune's production was big. Like, it was a, like, hip hop and urban music at that time was like a hit factory. It's incredible to me that as a DJ, I never had to worry about what to play at midnight in a nightclub because there was always a big, danceable hit that was coming out, like every year and every month. And it was just cyclical. And it just kept going.

But there was still a need for the alternative scene. You know, I'm thinking now about that David Byrne of talking his line, where it's like, you know, for there to be a true underground, a true alternative, it has to kind of go against the prevailing music. And for a lot of us, that was that, you know, Neil's Soul sound. Because that stuff, you could dance to it. You know, you could dance to Sunshine Anderson, her big song. But like, that wasn't what was getting played on pop,

on pop or even hip-hop radio. and Amy was a part of that. And I think that that was like a really cool thing about that period because you had stuff like Amy Winehouse. You had Peter Bjorn and John, you know. Right. We don't care about the... Young folks.

Yes, exactly. We don't care of... It was a fun... I can whistle. It was a fun time of... That was excellent. I don't whistle. It was a fun time for catchy songs that weren't on the radio.

And I think about Amy and ballet-drawn boy and Freeform Five and Interpol. I mean, like, you know, Tori Mois, who's still out there producing. You know, these were some of like the first generation of Coachella artists. Yeah, and I think the bloghausness of it all shouldn't be like discounted as being a factor in it. I think there's a lot of cross-pollination of genres and artists and styles is happening in this moment. And literally what's being DJed if it's trash, Errol Alkins night in London, but all the way to like the Steve Aoki stuff before he became an EDM star.

Remember Steve Aoki? I used to, you know, Steve knows this. I played his Tuesday night. What was that called again in Hollywood? I don't think you can actually say the official name on the radio. Oh, my God. You had a fucking awesome. Okay.

It was the fucking awesome party. But, you know, here's the thing about Steve Yoki and all that. And I'm going to date myself. But, like, when I was hiring the DJs at the standard, I was like, Steve, you and Frankie Chan have this great thing going on Coanga Boulevard. It's bringing out hipsters from different, you know, black hipsters. Like, everybody who's listening to everything that's on their, you know, MacBook now, we're buying the records.

Mark Ronson is spinning the records. like bring that vibe to the standard. And you could book Steve Ayoki back then for like $150,200, just like all of us. It can't be done now. I offered him $150,200 recently. And I got a cease and desist. I got a cease and desist. But let's get into Amy.

Let's get into Amy's voice, why it's so powerful and unique and beautiful and why it resonates so much, at least with me, emotionally. I have something I want to play for you that may not have ever heard before quite in this way. Okay. They tried to make me go to rehab I said no, no, no Yes, I've been black But when I come back

You know, no, no I ain't got the time And if my daddy thinks I'll fine It's tried to make me go to rehab I won't go, go, go My God, listening to that, I don't know about you But it gives me kind of chills It's so good. Is Sharon from the Dap King? Is she doing backup vocals on that?

I don't think she's a part of this. I think there was actually a little bit of like tension. Not tension, tension, but from what I understand, the Dap King's working with Amy Winehouse and it being their big breakthrough ended up being a thing that they worked out eventually. But Sharon wasn't on board on day one. Let's put it that way. But you are absolutely right to point out that the Dap Kings, that's the group that Mark Ronson hired the production team and band. to replicate the sound he had in his head. They absolutely nailed it. One of the reasons is because they used all of the techniques and styles and equipment from vintage, late 50s, early 60s recording

for soul, for vintage soul in R&B tracks. Yeah, so, like, 50s, 60s girl groups. So you're hearing the reverb that you'd hear in a girl group. And reverb, kind of, that's the sound of like you're in a, like in the stairwell, that's what you're hearing. That's very 60s. The modern version of that might be delay or even just dry vocals, but that big sound, you're absolutely right to,

you're nailing it with it being a girl group thing. And we'll get into more of the instruments in a minute, but they're recording techniques, recording to tape, the band recording all in one room instead of doing the drums and then laying down the bass on top. And then all of that was very much coming right out of the playbook of 60s recording techniques. Yeah, very cool.

You know, there's a lot going on with her vocals that I want to talk about. And one thing, and she's talked very openly and often about giving credit to her influences. And, you know, she loves, adores, I should say, from some of the things I've read. She loves Diana Washington. Yes. She actually, she's got a great anecdote about how, like, her brother was playing Ray Charles. And she walked in the room and she's like, what is this? And that's all she listened to for three months was Ray Charles.

We'll get into Ray in just a moment, too, because he makes an appearance in this song. But one thing I want to talk about first is, to me, I hear an awful lot of Billy Holiday. in her intonation, in the richness of her tambra, which is a fancy way of saying like the actual the way her voice sounds is very specific. Shout out to all the women named Tambra out there. I love you, Tambra, my first loving, I'll ever forget. And yeah, so here, let's listen to some, Billy.

This is her 1941 rendition of the classic All of Me, and see if you can hear some of the similarities that I'm hearing. Wow, I love it. Chills. I get chills with Billy as well. She's one of my favorite artists, favorite singers, songstresses. Seamstress? Songstress? I said songstress and it didn't feel like a whirl all of a sudden. I think I've seen it. Maybe I've made it up just now. Let's make it a thing. One thing that I hear in common with Billy and Amy is besides again sort of the resonance of their vocal tone, just the sound of their voice is their rhythmic choices, how it's a very jazz thing. The syncopation. They're kind of behind the. it's a little bit lazy. There are some sounds that are... Timberlin to Jay Dilla, they really know how to ride that beat

this just behind the beat. It's so funny. This is not the beat that you can create. You know, okay, so there's a, there's an app in Teslas where you can create a beat while you're sitting in parking lots. There's an app in the Tesla where you can make beats.

My friends who own Teslas have told me this. And you can't find that beat in there. That beat is not, there. Thank God. You're not able to get that lazy a little behind. Yes, exactly. Just that little bit behind the beat. Yeah, it makes a big difference. You know, it's funny. You mentioned some of those artists. We'll get to that in a minute. But you're dead on. I think we're both hearing the same things, which is that rhythm is being played with, placement of the sound, placement of the notes. And I think, obviously, Amy's first love was jazz.

100%. You know, again, you know, I was a DJ, and I remember that first album. That first album was so jazz. It had and it sounds like Take the Box. It had in my bed. In my bed actually samples Nause as

they shooting. They're shooting. Made you look. Okay, all the hip-hop fans out there were like, that's not the name of the song. Okay, you know what? It's called Major Look. Okay, get off. Turn down the volume in your car for a little bit. You know, like she was a jazz artist and we loved it because she allowed

modern listeners to have like slightly less crackly recordings to enjoy the sounds of a Billy Holiday and an Ella Fitzgerald. And also like Edda James and just these artists that you just don't, you know, if you like that type of singing and voice, it takes me back to when I first heard Eric Badu. And to a certain extent, I feel like Amy Winehouse is like a, is, I have the same reaction the first time I heard her. First time I heard Eric Badu, I was working at, um, the radio gestation for my college, Kadar Madsenberg and his eminent brilliance record label exec, sent out these 12 inches that had a piece of incense taped to the 12 inch.

Incense? It was a one stick of incense. I don't know if it was frankincense and mer or Egyptian musk, but I know that it came with a free stick of incense. And when you're a college student, you're broke, you're like, ah, free incense from my dorm. And I was like, all right, I'll put it on the record.

You know, it might be cool. and here comes this woman who like Amy Winehouse, Erica Badu. She sounds like she's singing from another era. You know what I mean? And so the instance is flowing and you have this song. You know, I really appreciate that about Amy because it's like she's singing like Ella and Etta over Phil Specter 1960s songs. And her voice had, you know, she was tying into black singers of an earlier era. Era, I will have to admit something at this point before I forget to say it.

Speaking of 12 inches, I had the 12 inch to rehab. Oh, you did. What were the remixes on it, but not the hot chip on? We can talk about the remixes on it, but I want to talk about the cover art. Because on the cover art, I didn't know, I liked Frank, but it never had occurred to me. The songs off of Frank. It never occurred. I wasn't like an Amy Stan at this point.

Yeah. Okay, so I think if you're like viewing this online, we'll probably throw up a picture of it. if you're driving, just Google Amy Winehouse rehab, single. She's darker than me on the cover of the city. She's very, very dark. I don't know what bronzer she had used that day, but she's a sis.

And, you know, she doesn't have the pompadoo. She doesn't have like the Phil's, the Ronnie Specter. She has the, oh, she doesn't have it yet? No, that hair is down and it is matted and is very, from a distance you think that you're looking at a black woman with dreads. Like, you know, and I'm just saying that it's almost like the flip of like in the early, in the 50s and 60s, once again, when like soul groups would have like a picture

of two, a white couple walking along the sand. It would be like, I'll always think of you by the spinners, you know, like, whatever that was, this was the flip of that because I was just like, oh, the sister could say, I didn't. Of course, Salam, Remy's working with this Nubian princess. But then, of course, As we learned. I was actually shocked. So you did not know.

When did you find out she was not a Nubian princess? 2015. I don't know. Four years after her death. No, I found out obviously at some point. I was like, hey, this is Amy Winehouse. I was like, oh, that's not what I imagined at all. I love that.

I thought she looked like Merlot. But no, but seriously, it is interesting to me that I do feel like in the beginning, she was marketed to us as that woman. And I was going back and looking at some of her earlier videos from the Frank era. Like she always had a black love interest in those viz. Always like a dude, you know, kind of looked like me if I worked out, you know, like that guy. And I do think she was to a certain extent, you know, there's some, there's some blue-eyed soul going on here that we do have to acknowledge. To your point, jazz is her first love. And all of these singers,

all of these R&B and blues and jazz singers, she grew up like listening to obsessing over, wanting to be like out of absolute purity because that is not the path to riches and stardom. This is just her love was the music. Yeah, now she was man cool. And I will say that like as somebody who was into music at the time in DJing, like this was a song that did hit with, you know, people from all over, you know, like it was everybody's cool song, you know, it wasn't my Humps by the Black IP. Shout out to Taboo, you know. But it wasn't that thought. It was a cool saw that everybody could get into you. Go on, sorry.

No, what was it? I was just saying, that should be a thing. Always giving a shout out to Taboo every episode. I'm only going to, not Appleby, dab, not Will I am. Just Tabu is a forgotten member. Not forgotten. You remember it? Just now.

Live on Sirius XM. But I think that was one thing. At the end of the day, like, there's Amy. Yeah. And there is a person who seems really approachable, really real and like connected to the culture. And you feel like you just want to be a part of that. Right. It's so funny you said that because what Mark Ronson says when he

talks about their first meeting is that because what happens when you're a producer and you're working with a lot of people, you get set up on these blind dates with artists. And so he talks about how he was-op-per first dates over Froya. Absolutely. Lots of Froyo involved. So he talks about how before they met for the first time, he was sort of not sure what to anticipate because there was some tabloid stuff already and there was the previous record. He didn't know what was going to happen with their chemistry. And he says that immediately they hit it off. First of all, they're both Russian Jews in the music industry, which was something that apparently connected them.

And frankly, I'm also a Russian Jew in the music industry. And that's part of the story for me with the connection, I think, that I later figured out is there. But more specifically, when they first met and they first sat down, and in fact, they didn't sat down, they went for a walk. And one of their first conversations was Amy talking about her rehab experience. And she said it kind of as a joke. She was like, yeah, they tried to make me go to rehab.

And people, this is almost too good to be true. But I've heard this story so many times. What happened, Amy was saying, they tried to make me go to rehab. I said, no, no, no. Ronson's like, wait a second, that is a song. Clear the rest of the afternoon. We are going back to the studio. And that's exactly what they did.

That's exactly what they did. Amy was a little bit like, I was just joking. Are you serious? And he's like, no, that's a real hook right there. Now her dad says, have you heard this? I probably have heard of deny. Her dad says that she had those words written in her song book. Oh, really?

and that she had intended on writing a song to that point. You know, that could very well be because she wrote it that night, apparently rather quickly, because she went back and had the basic chords and the melody in the words in enough time that she left, and Ronson stays up all night in the studio, crafting a demo, which I'd like to play for you right now, because what's incredible about it is remembering this story.

The next morning, this exists, and 24 hours prior, it didn't exist. And listen to how close to the final this demo. ends up being. Yes, I've been black, but when I come back to no, no, no. I can't get the time. And if my daddy thinks I'm fine, just try to make me go to rehab. I say no, no, no.

Woo! Mark is clean. Yeah. You know, it's easy to hate on a dude pulling on so many decades of pop music and black music, but I, you know, he doesn't, I'll tell you what he's not guilty of. He's not guilty of like wholesale copy. Yeah. You know, and I think that you got to get, because it's, I mean, it's hard to like pull in these influences and not make the drum be like, do, do, do, do, do, you know, like going straight towards one song. The Be My Baby. Yeah. Special shout out to one song.

It's the best show on the radio. But like, it's very easy to like, you know, when you're trying to do an homage to a period, sort of latch on a. one song. He doesn't really do that. By the way, rehab success also made Ronsa the go-to guy for retro sounds. I, you know, people, you know, I've already mentioned Salam was going for jazz. Raphael Sadiq has a whole period of his career from House of Music by Tony, Tony, Tony through instant vintage where he's trying to capture like this classic soul sound. And, you know, in that way, Mark Ronson is like the white Raphael Sadiq. And I'm sure Mark considers that a huge compliment because he loves black music.

And I'm a little bit mixed about it because, listen, white artists tend to make more money over time than black artists, you know, look up rock and roll, you know, when you have a second. But, I mean, like, I can't take anything away from Ronson. Like, I feel like, you know, he listens to the right records. He knows how to extrapolate without even interpolating, you know, heavily. And, you know, shout out to him, man. I mean, like, this, Amy's record is just one of those great iconic records. Right, right. I don't want to be too contrarian, but with that beat, I actually have a couple of examples that where I do think he was inspired pretty directly, but not in a illegal sort of way. He's not a crook. How dare you make me look like an idiot and still from black artists.

So what's incredible about what you just heard is that that's actually all Ronson. He went in there, laid down the drums, played guitar, played bass, did the whorlitzer. He did all of that that night. So when Amy returned to the studio the next day, she heard basically what you just heard. So this is just me theorizing here. But when I hear the beat that Ronson laid down, I'm pretty sure he was pulling from one of these songs as inspiration. He went away and you hung around and bothered me every night. And when I wouldn't go out.

with you. You said things that weren't very nice. My boyfriend's back and you're going to be in trouble. Right now, I'm sorry. Is that the version of my boyfriend's back that we've always heard our entire lives? Although there are several different re-recordings of it. That's the angels. Because I don't remember that intro to the song. I just remember it coming in. My boyfriend's back and you're going to be in trouble. Well, that's not the only one that has that beat. And here's another track from a couple years earlier, probably the original version of that. This is the Marvettes with their track, Please, Mr. Postman. By the way, incidentally, the first Motown number one. So we may have a lineage

there where the Marvettes version, which lays down the boom, I've heard that, I've heard that Postman's back. The opening of my boyfriend's back. Yeah. By the way, it seems like everybody's back in those early songs. If I wrote a song today, I'd just be like, people are back. People are back. We're back. Backstreet's back. You get to at least top 40, apparently. But besides everybody being back, I got to say that intro to my boyfriend's back. How did I never, I've never noticed it having an intro before. That's, that's right. That's interesting. Well, no, there are, you know, back then with the girl groups, you've got like a handful of songwriting teams that want to have the song get cut as many times as possible. So I definitely have an Angels version of my boyfriend's back. And I think I have a Marvelettes. I might even have a Ronnette's version. What was the biggest version? The Ronette? The Ronet. The Rone. On it? The Angels, I think, is the big. Is the one you know, yeah. But it's possible that you've heard one of the others.

I just don't, I feel like I've never heard of the angels. You know? Yeah. Do they have any other hits that I know of? A lot of these girl groups were one and done. That's definitely their big, that is their big track. Okay, okay. Fair enough.

Fair enough. Yeah. By the way, I'm still learning stuff about you. I didn't know you and Amy have some shared background going on. Right. It's true. I mean, between their Jewishness, but also specifically their Ashkenazi Jewish, and Russian Jewishness.

You know, one thing about being a Jew in the music industry is people are often not aware of the fact that there are literally 14 million Jews on planet Earth. There's not that many. We're a little bit overrepresented in certain industries. So the fact of the matter is sometimes I'll kind of go about by business and kind of notice somebody or somebody's art and feel a certain connection. And then only later notice that it might be, oh, wait, they're Jewish. I don't know why that would be relevant.

but I kind of feel like it is. And for me, my experience in kind of hearing her music and learning about her and especially watching some of the documentaries about her, which are very poignant, I feel this kind of older brotherness towards her, which may or may not be connected to our being of shared heritage, but there's a lot about her that feels very like,

that moves me in a very deep way. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why, but then it all comes through that voice and you hear her singing and you hear her struggle. And of course she passes away in 2011 at age 27 and the whole thing is very, you know, it's a sad... She was a 27 too, huh? She was a 27 club, I hate saying 27 club, but that's what it is, along with Brian Jones and

Jimmy Hendricks and Jim Morrison, Jim Morrison and Janice Joplin and I think, Kurt Cobain, I think, pretty sure, but yeah, too many, way too many. I mean, to be honest, the more I think about it, that connection that I have is pretty universal. I think everyone was rooting for Amy. I think watching her decline into drugs and the horrible paparazzi situation she was constantly surrounded by and the bulimia. It's like there's thing after thing after thing that she was suffering through in public as a very young person. And I think all, and it comes out in the music. We hear it in the music. Rehab of all the songs, to be honest, is maybe the most humorous because it does sort of stem from that lightheartedness.

And yet the subject matter is very dark. Yeah. She should have gone to rehab. She shouldn't have said no, no, no. It is funny because when I heard the song at the time, I thought that was just the coolest song. And, you know, obviously we didn't know the extent of her problems at that point. But it is funny because you and I are both dads.

Yes. And the story about her... Different children, but yes. We think. But, you know, when I hear that, you know, that conversation... You know, that's basically her dad saying, I want you to go to rehab. She's saying, no, I hear that differently now that I'm a father.

You know, I hear through her anecdote of father's desperation. He knows that there's something going on here. And he wants her to make a change. And so that story, which, you know, I would have probably thought at the time was like cool and radical and push against, you know, authority. Now I hear it. And I'm like, oh, God, please listen to parents. Sometimes they know what they're talking about. It is funny how that kind of thing can affect you differently.

You know, my reading at the line is that, and from what I understand of the story, watching the documentaries, is that the dad was saying my daddy says it's fine that maybe i'm misreading the line but like as i understood the anecdote the the line was originally he tried to make me go to rehab and i said no no no and so i maybe we're saying the same thing but yeah you know i do think that we can also just not talk shit about Mitch on the air it's fair i am curious i think he was i think there was some concern there for for his daughter but i think it's important to point out that like you know we we know that the artists have, you know, issues with substances. But the same way I feel about Charlie Parker, like, not everybody who took heroin was as dope as Charlie Parker. Like, you know, not everybody

who has Amy issues was as dope as Amy. Amy was dope because she was just a dope human being. She had an amazing voice, an amazing talent. And she was an amazing student of like all these old art forms. Yeah, she was. She loved jazz. She was an aficionado. It was very innate to her. In fact, she didn't pay attention to pop music. She was a hard, practitioner of the art and songwriter in that form. She was as legit as it gets. In fact, here's Questlove of the Roots talking about Amy's appreciation of that genre. I really missed not having her here to school me on jazz.

I mean, I thought I was a music stunt, and I thought I had my doctrine in jazz, but no, like, there was so much more I could have learned. And, you know, she's a... A teacher more than like, oh, my Skype buddy, she taught me a lot. Well, according to Questlove before her death, Amy had expressed wanting to start a supergroup, including him as well as Yassine Bay and Raphael Sadiq. Two out of three of those are good choices. Two of those, two out of three.

Shout to Raphael and Yassine. All right. Yeah. I'll just leave it at that. Okay. I think it's a good lineup, but you know, I will say in all seriously, Quest knows how I feel about him. In all seriousness, this song has such longevity.

because Amy has so much respect for the genres that she's paying homage to, you know, like, when you think about the, you know, this is, this is traditionally black music, but Amy is like, in a way she's like, you know, just bringing it back to the forefront. You know, the proximity of Amy Whitehouse to black music and artists. Black music was always, you know, it was really becoming pop during this time. I just want to put it back into context. Like, black music was pop music. We had finally supplanted rock music, like, some 42, and even Fall Out Boy and Good Charlotte, like, they were playing second fiddle by this point. There's a moment right around this time when literally hip hop takes over as the number one genre, right?

As the driver of youth culture in this country. It's so funny. And it's easy to forget how, and by the way, it's about to get supplanted again just a couple of years later by EDM. I think EDM comes in and all of a sudden that takes over it. But like, Jay-Z played Redding and, you know, Liam Gallagher of Oasis had a big problem with it. and Jay Z gets up there and performs Wonderwall, and somehow the lyrics are a perfect troll of Oasis. It's incredible.

I love that. But it's like on the one hand, you've got all these... It's easy. Forget there's that moment where that transition's happening because we're just living in that era now. We're living in the after of that era. Yeah, we're living in the...

I mean, like, now, I mean, like, who... It's also blended now. Like, Lo, Lou Uzi Verde has, like, a huge song, you know, this year, and it's basically Baltimore club music. Lil Yadi sounds like... Timpala, right? The last Little Yadi record sounds like Tame and Paul. Yes, Lil Yadi is trying to sound like Jimmy Hendricks.

I mean, like, we're still figuring out what the sound of this decade is going to be. But looking back, you know, some 15 years to the period that Amy Winehouse is in, she's literally giving us an alternative to, you know, all the black artists who are literally like, you know, crossing over with this mass appeal. And yet she's able to bring us this music that's influenced by all these cool, cool genres of the past. Well said. Yeah. Speaking of Jay-Z.

Let's speak about Jay-Z. I mean, like, I bring up Jay-Z to talk about this transition to pop culture, when, in fact, who should happen to appear on the remix of rehab? Man, Jay-Z used to come with some savage lines, yo. How funny that was. Like, you don't give him problems. Like, he did a whole, he did the HOV-O-D flow. You know what I mean?

All overdoses, all famous overdoses. And that Anna Nicole thing was not, you know, it's usually time, plus, Tragedy. He was just like, tragedy. Cold. But, you know, I will say Justin Timberlake took a similar route with his multiple collaborations with producer and artist Timberlin. You know, but Amy was just, she was just more of an outsider, you know, than them. I mean, like, Timberlake, he was making forays.

I love suit and tie just for the sample of, I think the song is sly and wicked or something like that. You'll have to, you know, Timbalin is also a student of just really cool music, and he would pass these out to Timberlake. but that was like a safe play. I mean, like, no diss to them. That was safe because you've got one of the most successful hip-hop producers

of all time, one of the most successful pop artists. She's coming out of nowhere. Right. You know, about the time in sync and saying, bye, bye, bye, she's nowhere to be found on the zeitgeist map. So I just think that they, it was a wild and rambunctious time.

I'm so happy they took the chances they took. You know, D'all, I think you called it perfectly earlier. We've been talking about a lot of the influences, Amy's voice, the production style, what Ronson brought to it. We've got the girl groups. We've got the Dap Kings. We've got 50s and 60th soul.

There's one other point, though, that I think often gets overlooked. You kind of alluded to it earlier, and I want to go a little deeper into the J. Dilla connection. Oh, nice. Because I think there really is one going on here. Okay. The jazz and the reverb in the 60s soul are usually kind of top of mind. So let's get into that. But first, let's have a little break, and we'll get into it right after.

Sometimes you've got to pay the bills. All right, luxury. before the break, you told me you had discovered a connection between Amy Winehouse and Jay Della. I got to hear what this is. I think there's something about this track in particular that's very Dilla. And part of it

comes from how Amy is approaching her vocal, her top line with, as we alluded to before, with the jazz kind of behind the beat. Syllables are lagging. She's doing that it's swinging. It's not landing exactly where the beat is. But the band is

playing funk with a pretty strict, tight rhythm. It's not swinging. Very distinctively. And that combination, where the band is straight up funk, and she's singing on top, her vocal line has got that swing,

that little lag, that jazz swing feel to it. That combination, when I heard it on my most recent listen, I'm thinking, oh, there's a little Dilla going on here. There's something happening. Oh, I see. Just the fact that it doesn't. There are two different rhythms happening simultaneously.

If you listen to these old jazz records, When Dina is swinging, the band is swinging too. The drummer is swinging too. When you hear James Brown, he is not swinging when the band is not swinging. They're doing their strict funk. And of course, there's still a pocket thing. There's still maybe a groove that's a little bit behind. But there is a matching of the top line of the vocal and the instrument.

So it's really interesting when you start to think about this happening in the Dilla era, I would argue. Dilla has just come out of going from not existing to being everywhere, to being like everyone's Quest's favorite. Because I think he dies in like 2006. This is Q-Tips favorite producer. It's Questlove's favorite producer. It's maybe even Ronsen's favorite producer.

It's many people's favorite producer. And I mean, like, you know, to a certain extent, it's so unfortunate that he was not with us longer. And there's also the story about him producing beats in his hospital bit. I know. I think Donuts came out of that, right? Yeah, Donuts is just a beautiful album.

And if you, you know, just don't know donuts by Jay Dilla. Just go out and listen. It's actually all instrumental. Like there's almost no rapping on it, but it's production in the purest form. Anyway, please continue. No, that's exactly it. I think that there's a lot of DILA influence going on in rehab specifically. And I don't know how much of that was intentional or how much was just kind of,

as we've been talking about, feeling what the moment was culturally. Can you think of any other artists where the singer is swinging and the band is not or the band is swinging? We can probably think of plenty of examples where the band is swinging and the singer is not. Pat Boone. But you can probably think, I can't think of too many where the singer is swinging and the band is not. That does seem pretty interesting. Yeah, no, that's a great question. I think we can probably come up with a few more.

We'll check some out. But certainly Dilla, especially like the Slum Village stuff, there's a lot of cool stuff that I think if we listen to some examples, you'll hear what I'm talking about. Yeah, let's listen to some. So in that example, as you can hear, that drumbeat, that looped breakbeat is strict. It's on the one, it's on the downbeat. The hi-hats, because sometimes he'll do it with different instruments. Sometimes the hi-hats are kind of funky. In this case, Dilla just took a strict breakbeat.

But that sample that's on top of it is a little woozy and a little behind. Absolutely. It's behind the beat. It's behind. And the vocals come in and they're like, it's surprising, even as the loop goes on and it's the same, every time. Every single repetition of it seems a little bit surprising. Like every single time, you're like, where am I? It's like the drums are Prometheus and everything else on that song is wrapped around his ankles. Took the words out of my mouth. Prevent him from walking forward.

That's a beautiful analogy. Thank you. I was sitting on that Prometheus. I was like, I will bring this up on today's show. Right. So Rehab has a little less of a crazy version of that. She's swinging on top vocally. The band is mostly straight up. Drummers giving us funk. But this is just another example of how Amy was not just a singer and not just a songwriter. That would be plenty given her voice. But she's also a musician. She's a gifted songwriter and guitar player. And in this instance in rehab, she's using her voice like a tool in the same way that Dilla was making beats. That's great. I can't got the time. And if my daddy thinks so far, just try to to make me go to rehab.

I want to go, go, go. We've talked a lot about the artists who influenced Amy, but let's talk a little bit about the artist that Amy influenced, because let's be honest, the second anybody makes a dollar in this business, a bunch of imitators show up. And some imitators are great, you know? Some of them are great, some of them less so.

Listen, the rapper nine came out, and I thought he was dope, but then DMX came out, copied nine. I was like, oh, DMX, that's just a poor man's nine. Now nobody remembers nine Saddy I mean like shout out to nine If you listen

Man call us What's the expression? There's an expression Devo has a record called this The pioneers with arrows in their back Yeah First mouse First mouse

Second rat gets the cheese Isn't that way of putting it Second rat gets the cheese That only makes sense All I'm saying is that there were people Both good and bad Who came out And it was clear that the Amy Winehouse

It started a trend like you're saying It started a trend absolutely I mean I feel like Amy Open the door For a lot of British soul singers I mean, if you think back, in addition to just the big one, Adele. And when you say British soul singers, like, what do they look like some of these British soul singers? Well, a lot of them are white people.

Interesting. Yeah. But, you know, you've got to Del. Duffy, I don't know, people got to remember Duffy. Like, Duffy was just like, hey, this. She was there too. This bandwagon looks awfully spacious, y'all. I'm going to hop on in.

You had Ellie Goulding. You know, the thing about Ellie Goulding and Lily Allen is that I feel like Lily Allen might have come about the same time. I mean, there's always been these British pop songstresses, as you might put it. But at the same time, like, I feel like after Amy was in there, like a lot of them were like, this is our time. You know what I mean? And it was, you know, it produced music both good and derivative. And I'd also point out,

like, you have Estelle, you know, who was big out there. She did American Boy with Kanye West and you had Corinne Bailey Ray. I mean, like, there were just a lot of British, you know, songbirds that came out around the time that Amy had blown up. And of course, Amy was having some personal issues at that time. So someone had to carry the torch. And obviously, Adel was the most successful. I was just going to say, you totally teed it up. But Adele clearly, when you think about it, that's maybe what Amy's career might have been or should have been in a way. It could have been. I mean, like, you know, of course, Adele came through their, you know, a reality pop,

you know, talent show. But I feel like, you know, with that voice and with those pipes, Amy had opened doors for her that may not have been as open here. Definitely. People's ears were ready for it. Warriors were ready for that sound to come back. Our ears were ready for them to belt out these, you know, Ele Fitzgerald classics and then be like, oh, thank you. Yeah, but it's not unimportant to point out, as you already have in this, in this hour of our discussion, how, you know, Amy wasn't the first to be doing the Neo-Soul sound in the most recent past. She put a new spin on it.

Like, Jess Stone is a sort of. of a forgotten artist, and Jess Stone had some great songs. But she was, like, in the immediate wake of Jill and Angie and some of those singers. So Nica Costa was Mark Gras says first, white girl singing black, sounding songs, and she did like a feather, which I first discovered, like, many people in a Gap commercial. But it was a, but that was like when Gap commercials could break songs. Like, I'll never forget the Gap commercial that had a lovely day by Bill Withers. and it had all those cool dancers on

and all of a sudden all DJs were getting requests for Bill Withers all of a sudden. And it wasn't just the two of us. It was lovely day, which is to this day one of his most lovely songs. It is a lovely song. You know, so that was when Gap was breaking songs like TikTok and Mark Ronson had like a feather

with Nika Costa. And it was a great song. But for whatever reason, Nika didn't blow up, you know, and while we're on the subject, you know, because we're going to talk about him in a future episode, Robin Thick. also from this sort of like... Glashadowing.

Very early 2000s Blue-Eyed Soul movement just right here in sort of like the New York tri-state area. So he had Mark Ronson, you had Robin Thick, you had Nick Acosta,

and they were all making music at a time when there was just a little bit of a window of an opening for that type of music. Amy opened the door for all these singers, both good and bad. And I mean, let's be honest,

not all of them are great. I still remember Megan Trainers' first song, all about that bass. it sounds like it's like the pop version of Amy Winehouse I sort of consider it a poor man's Amy Winehouse song

And you're right to consider it that I will not defend no no shade But like you know I'm not doing a shade of Megan Traynor She didn't write it Part of the problem But you know it's all good Shout out to Megan Tray

If you ever want to come on the show And fit yourself Right now she's like We can connect I hear some of the unwashed mass She senses her spide senses All right anyway So that was rehab

by Amy Winehouse, a worthy song to kick off the show. Hey, luxury. Let's play one song category. I love that game. How do we play it again? Oh, that's right. I'm glad you asked. Okay, the rules are simple.

We'll each have 30 seconds. To name as many people as we can who are connected to Amy Winehouse. It could be another artist. It could be a producer. It could be a wild car. The only thing it can't be. My palms are sweaty. It's a name.

The other person already said. Oh, Jesus. Hey, listen, these are the state. the winner gets to pick the next song. And a double bag filled with Renaissance tickets, no questions asked. A Duffy bag. You can't say another name.

We already broke the rules. Come on. Okay, I am ready, and that prize sounds really sassy. Oh, I'm into it. Before the show, we flipped a coin to determine who goes first, and guess what? It's me. It's you.

All right, great. Producer Jordan, please put 30 seconds on the clock. Mark Ronson. Rafael Sadiq The time is going Questlove Q-tip Jill Scott

Erica Badoo Jay Dilla Dilla pressure of time Brain not working Duffy Adele and also

Homer Steinweiss and then again there is That's it Oh my God I'm so relieved it's over That was very stressful No, that was super stressful.

But you know, you named a lot of good ones. I feel kind of bad for you, but I also have faith in you. I mean, I will say, whoever goes sick is. This is a great disadvantage. This is a tricky spot. Everyone's rooting for you, though. No, they're not. I didn't get any sympathy for that.

I was so whiny. Well, I'm ready to go. Let's go. Let's get it. Do this. As soon as you say, hey, go, I'm ready to go. Phil Specter. Ron Specter.

Barry Gordy. Ella Fitzgerald. Oh, this is good. Billy Holiday. Smart. Edda James. Good track. Keep going. Benny Goodman.

Proud of you. Charlie Parker. A little jealous. John Coltrane. Amazing. Jay Z. No duds. Farrow Munch.

What? Left field. Oasis. Shocking. Beyonce. Obvious. Time's up. Pencils down.

Who won? Who won? You deserved it. You earned that. Man, that was hard as hell. You got the Renaissance doubleback. I panicked at about 20 seconds. Fun fact, the remix to rehab that I owned was actually featured Jay-Z and Farrow Munch.

Okay. Yeah, so there you go. That's where Farrow Munch. Shout to Farrow Munch. That was where I lost it. That's where you won in my heart. That was beautiful. I'm very impressed.

Well, luxury, I'm so glad I got to hear your Amy Winehouse story on our very first episode of One song. I know. I'm so glad we got to have this conversation. So glad the audience could join us for the ride. We really hope you all enjoyed the episode, and we really enjoyed sharing it with you. So that's one for the history books. Luxury, help me in this thing.

I am producer, DJ, and songwriter, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this is One Song. Until next time. One Song is a Sirius XM and Kevin Hart's LOL radio production. It's hosted by me, luxury, and my friend Diallo Riddle. This episode was produced by Matthew Nelson and Jordan Colling with engineering, from Marcus Homme. Additional production support from Leslie Guam, Charles Childers, and Alicia

Shimada. The show is executive produced by Kevin Hart, Ty Randolph, Mike Stein, Brian Smiley, Eric Eddings, and Eric Weil.