It’s not just her own affairs that trouble her either, as “F_k Me Pumps,” aimed at a female player, make plain.

But Amy did it in blunt contemporary terms, and the uncompromising words and feelings were her own. Hence we get a fairly straight version of “There Is No Greater Love,” associated with Dinah Washington and Billie Holiday – brave company to keep for a youthful North Londoner – and a revision of “Moody’s Mood For Love.” Just like her jazz idols delivered in lyrics that were mostly written for them, Amy expressed her dissatisfaction with romance.

For Amy, this is a romantic song with reality, but who else would tackle the subject this way? As she sings in the matter-of-fact tale of male violence “You Sent Me Flying,” the “message was brutal but the delivery was kind” the gentle samba Amy is singing over on “I Heard Love Is Blind” could easily lure the unwary.Īt this point Amy was more in thrall to the jazz she grew up with than the broken-hearted girl-group and 60s soul material that would soon grip her. If “I Heard Love Is Blind” was at the start of the album, some listeners might have been so alarmed as to stop right there. The title tells us all we need to know: the music might be sweet and tender, easy to listen to, but we are not to be spared Amy’s truth. But Frank does not entirely present the Amy Winehouse of legend despite confronting emotional issues, love pains, dissatisfaction and a worldview that was sometimes shockingly blunt, Frank is clearly optimistic and powerful: the work of a woman growing and expanding, not flogged by tending the wounds of a fast-lived life. That would change, eventually, but only for the saddest of reasons. 13 in the UK album chart before it slipped down again. Frank attracted attention – some diverse – but the album was not a sensation when it was released, on October 20, 2003. Not that the world was quite ready for it. The opening few notes of jazzy improvisation tell the world that this album was different.

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