After several years honing her craft in the US and Amsterdam, South London Singer-Songwriter Ellie Lawson returns home to release her phenomenal ‘Lost Without You EP’ on 15th November 2011.

Ellie’s story can be seen as a modern tale of overwhelming talent being discovered while travelling America. This led to a whirlwind courtship by the US entertainment industry including being signed by Atlantic Records, taking meetings with Rap mogul Russell Simmons, Billboard Magazine describing her music as “the perfect marriage of melody, rhythm and words” and appearing on Ellen DeGeneres’ hugely popular TV show where she explained, “I play her music over and over again in my house…I predict she will be the hugest, hugest star.”

Ellie Lawson – Lost Without You by Cannonball_PR

The tide turned, the industry changed and Ellie decided to respond to a call to work with leading trance DJs like Richard Durand and Ferry Corsten in Holland by co-writing and adding her vocals to some of 2010/11s biggest European dance tunes, including ‘Safe From Harm’ with 4 Strings which was #1 on Beatport for 5 weeks consecutively and ‘Wide Awake’ with Richard Durand which was #1 in Music Week’s Cool Cuts Chart in January 2011.

Ellie has decided that now is her time to come into her own and enjoy the sort of success in the UK she undoubtedly deserves. This self released EP is a great place to hear what all the fuss is about and with another EP planned for next year with acclaimed Communion Records co-founder and super producer Ian Grimble (Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Everything But The Girl, Manic Street Preachers) Ellie clearly has a big year ahead of her.

At about 5:30 on Saturday afternoon, I opened a text from one of my oldest friends which told me that Amy Winehouse had been found dead at her home.  A quick check on the BBC website confirmed the news that one of Britain’s most troubled performers was finally at peace.  The headline which, unsurprisingly, focussed on her age also confirmed that she had joined what Kurt Cobain’s  mother, Wendy, called “that stupid club” of stars who died at the age of 27.  It’s a nice convenient piece of pigeonholing, but it’s lazy because it misses the point by a long way.

The rock stars referred to by Wendy O’Connor (Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin) died in a short period of time in the late 60s, and Cobain died in 1994.  Amy Winehouse confronted her demons in the glare of the ubiquitous and unforgiving instant news culture of the new millennium, where any dodgy performance is only a smartphone away from worldwide exposure.  Even Cobain’s death was pre-internet; we all knew it was going to happen, but our updates only came every 7 days in the music press.  The 60s deaths came as a complete surprise, because drug habits were kept within the performer’s inner circle and only became public property when the performer died.

Amy Winehouse’s problems were probably with her from the start of her performing career at stage school, but became increasingly public as she became more successful.  Her first album “Frank” was critically and commercially acclaimed, but the problems really started with the success of “Back to Black”.  The album was hailed, quite rightly, as a modern classic and Amy Winehouse was thrust into a spotlight which she found increasingly difficult to deal with.  The pressure came not only from the music press but from every imaginable direction; television, radio, newspapers (tabloid and broadsheet) and of course the internet.  Any step out of line immediately became public property and each exposure seemed to raise the stakes.

This isn’t an attempt to sanctify to Amy Winehouse but it’s time to stop the demonization process which the British media launched after the success of “Back to Black” in 2006.  She made the same mistakes that people everywhere make every day; she listened to the wrong people, she got romantically involved with the wrong people and she thought that she could find the answers to her problems in drugs and alcohol.  Unfortunately, she made those mistakes very publicly and in the spotlight of a censorious, prurient and unforgiving media circus.

In the light of all of her long-standing problems, it wasn’t surprising to hear of Amy’s untimely death on Saturday, particularly after the ill-advised European tour which ended with the much-publicised recent appearance in Belgrade.  She should have been one of the UK’s greatest ever jazz and soul singers but she only leaves a legacy of 2 albums released so far.  Stick “Back to Black” in your CD player or find it in your media player and listen to it.  That’s how you should remember Amy Winehouse.

UPDATE 4th August – Due to unforseen circumstances this gig has been cancelled.

Onyx are here playing Fabric Aug 4th with special guests and DJs for what will be a very special night for Hip Hop in London.
 
Considered to be one of the greatest hip hop acts of all time from their explosive entrance onto the rap scene in the early 90s on Def Jam with tracks like ‘Slam’ through helping launch the career of 50 Cent, Onyx are an act that need to be seen if you like your rap real and dirty.
 
This will be a rare treat for all fans as Onyx have not played in the UK for several years.
 
Tickets are on sale and more details on Facebook here.

I woke up today to the sad news that Clarence Clemons,  saxophone player in Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band had died at the age of 69 after suffering a stroke last week.

Only 2 members of Springsteen’s E Street Band were there from the start; bass player Garry Tallent and Clarence Clemons.  They both played on “Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ” and both were still around when the line-up crystallised around the time of “Darkness on the Edge of Town”.  Clarence Clemons was never a bit-part player in the E Street Band; he was always right up-front as the Boss’s right-hand man and he even got a mention in the lyrics of “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out” on “Born to Run”, where he featured in the cover shot.

The “Born to Run” album cover is one of the most iconic in rock history.  The album was intended to be the breakthrough for Springsteen and no detail was overlooked in producing the perfect packaging.  The black and white photo which spread over both sides of the gatefold sleeve showed 2 musicians with different skin colours but with an obvious bond which transcended these differences.  It could only work with the Big Man in the picture.

Clarence Clemons wasn’t always involved in Springsteen’s studio work because, like Neil Young, the Boss needed to do things differently sometimes; there isn’t a lot of scope for happy horn parts on “Nebraska” or “The Ghost of Tom Joad” but the E Street Band live would always need the Big Man and he would always be there.  Springsteen has played shows (the Super Bowl for example) where he uses a 4-piece horn section, but the Big Man was always there on his right side.

Most of Clemons’ work with the E Street Band was in competition with a standard rock line-up plus 2 keyboards, an extra guitar (or 2) and the drumming of Max Weinberg which meant that at times he seemed to be trying to blow the keys off his saxophone to cut through the wall of sound with his solos but there was much more than that to his playing.  On “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out”, he slotted in perfectly well to a brass quintet while on “Spirit in the Night” on the first album, he carried the main riff of the song with a very gentle delivery.  If you want to hear the best of the Big Man, you should really listen to the “Hammersmith Odeon 1975″ album.  It sounds like a bunch of musicians at the top of their game playing for fun and having a great time.

Clarence Clemons suffered from a variety of serious health problems involving major spinal and knee surgery over the last 2 years but none of these setbacks stopped him from turning up to the day job (even, at the Super Bowl show in a wheelchair).  It’s a tribute to the man’s presence to say that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to imagine the E Street Band without him.

RIP Big Man.