CD Review: Amy Winehouse LIONESS: HIDDEN TREASURES

This first posthumous release by Amy Winehouse is an interesting little collection of 12 demos, unfinished songs and other left over items, packaged together as a compilation. "Body And Soul", a duet with Tony Bennett was the first single off the album, released back in September 14. It was her final recording before her death. Her very decent cover version of the old Ruby And The Romantics hit, "Our Day Will Come" was released as a single in December. It was a very fine remake of this old classic, with some fine sultry vocals by Winehouse along with some slightly reggae tinged music. This single peaked at #29 on the UK charts. Some sources indicate a third single from the album might be released in March. "Like Smoke" has been added to BBC radio play recently, and might well become a third single for the album making the 12th single released by Amy Winehouse. Tracks on the album were recorded between 2002 and 2011, however "Our Day Will Come" is actually Amy Winehouse's first solo single to released since 2007, because of the long drought in her career as her life fell into disarray and she just couldn't manage to get on track and record very much new music other than her duet with Tony Bennett which made it to his own album.

Despite being a collection of loose end songs, LIONESS: HIDDEN TREASURES is a very fine and listenable collection of songs that makes you feel very sad at the death of this young star at the age of 27. She only issued just two s studio albums in her short career, which was unfortunately too much characterized by drugs and other problems rather than settling down to record music. Not only could Amy Winehouse have achieved so much more than she did, but she would still be alive if her life would have been more together. She was mostly a great untapped talent although she managed to win top top Grammy honors with her BACK TO BLACK being nominated for six top Grammy honors, helping Amy Winehouse to win five Grammy awards. She was considered to be the best white R&B singer since Dusty Springfield. With her young life cut short by alcohol poisoning, you only could have wondered "what if" if her life could have been better and she could have only fulfilled her potential for greatness. Leaving her massive audience of fans with only two studio albums, FRANK and BACK TO BLACK, plus this compilation of great little odds and ends seems hardly enough for this great voice.

LIONESS:HIDDEN TREASURES almost seems to be her most listenable project for me. Filled with a few great cover versions of classic songs, songs like "Our Day Will Come" deserved to be remade in modern digital sound by a modern singer. And Amy Winehouse carries out a great haunting version of this song since she is now gone. First hearing this song, my heart was struck with great sadness. I enjoyed this album far more than I ever expected. What a great talent she was.

The Bottom Line: LIONESS: HIDDEN TREASURES is a great collection of some pretty fair, but mostly unfinished songs. Only two songs were actually finished on this album, so apparently some additional music or other production work was required to finish this album. ***(Three Stars, Good. You need to add this to your well stocked cd library).