Keith Richards says Amy Winehouse was a “sad story” who “had so much more potential”.
The Rolling Stones have covered Amy’s You Know I’m No Good on their latest album Foreign Tongues and rocker Keith called Amy – who died in 2011 of alcohol poisoning after binge drinking following a period of abstinence – “one of the best to come out of England”.
He told Billboard: “Loved the song. Always thought that Amy was a sad story in many ways, but she was one of the best to come out of England, and probably had so much more potential. I’m not sure who kicked the idea off, whether it was Mick or Andrew [Watt, producer], but we said, ‘Well, you know, we used to, we started off, we were a cover band, basically, so if there’s one you wanted to cover now, what would it be?’ And Amy came out on top.”
The Rolling Stones previously performed a cover of the Temptations’ Ain’t Too Proud to Beg with Amy on stage at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2007 and frontman Sir Mick Jagger said it felt “organic” to cover You Know I’m No Good on Foreign Tongues.
He explained: “We were looking for a good song to cover from a female vocalist, and we were thinking of early people, and then we said, ‘Let’s do something a bit more recent.’ We alighted on that song. I always liked that song. I could have written it, you know what I mean? Almost. I felt that I could have written that song, because it’s like a minor-key harmonica lead. I just copied the horn lead and played it on harmonica, so it felt very organic.”
Amy was found dead in her flat in Camden, north London, on Saturday 23 July 2011, at the age of 27.
Recording a verdict of misadventure, the St Pancras coroner, Dr Shirley Radcliffe, said: “She voluntarily consumed alcohol, a deliberate act that took an unexpected turn in that it caused her death.”
According to the Guardian newspaper, she had 416mg of alcohol per decilitre in her blood, enough to make her comatose and depress her respiratory system.
Winehouse was found dead by paramedics, in her bed with empty bottles of vodka on the floor.
