Quincy Jones On Meeting Amy Winehouse

Tribute album scheduled for release

Quincy Jones has spoken about meeting Amy Winehouse for the first time, ahead of his new tribute album.

The decline of Amy Winehouse seemed to be marked by her scheduled contribution to a Quincy Jones tribute album. The singer was forced abandon initial attempts to record new material, due to her spiralling drug problems.

Recently, though, the singer has managed to get her life under control. Holding back the tribute album to ensure she was able to contribute a track, Quincy Jones was rewarded with a rendition of the classic 1963 track ‘It’s My Party’.

Given an Amy Winehouse style makeover, the track appears on the new tribute album. Set for release later this month, Quincy Jones has spoken to Billboard about meeting the London based singer for the first time.

“We were doing a concert for Mandela’s 90th birthday two years ago in London,” Jones recalled. “I was backstage and a man came over and said, ‘would you mind meeting my daughter?’ No problem. I had no idea who it was. She got on her knees and she kissed my hand and she says, ‘I’ve known your music ever since you were my age, 24 years old, when you did ‘The Swinging Miss D’ with Dinah Washington.’ I was absolutely shocked. It was Amy Winehouse!”

Continuing, Quincy Jones revealed how he had attempted to aid Amy Winehouse in her recovery from drug addiction. “I had no idea that she was that astute; she was amazing. Reminded me of Naomi a little bit, my baby. Sweet as she could be. I told her, ‘why are you treating your life like this?’ I’ve got six daughters so I can’t help but being Poppy. We bonded.”

“Everybody back here said, ‘there’s no way you’ll get Amy Winehouse on this record.’ And we just let it go. Amy did it herself. At first she was going to do ‘You Don’t Own Me.’ Then she changed her mind and wanted to do ‘It’s My Party,’ which I did with Leslie Gore in 1963. That was a long time ago. Stuff just happened and I’m glad it happened to me. (laughs) It touched me very much.”

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