100-Proof Voice

So I always keep a bottle near . . .

I don't ever want to drink again

I just, ooh I need a friend

In the three years between her two albums, pain seasoned her voice, deepening it until it took on the husky timbre of a much older and sadder woman.

"You can hear the torment in her voice," says the Roots' ?uestlove. "Clearly you can see this person is living the blues."

Despite her bitter blue-collar persona, Winehouse grew up middle class in northern London. Her mother, Janis, is a pharmacist; her father, Mitch, a London cabbie. They split when she was 10.

Around that time she formed a rap group, Sweet 'n' Sour -- she was Sour -- with her best friend, performing in school assemblies. At 12 she picked up the guitar. School never quite stuck with her; she entered and quickly exited posh private schools, including the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School, often, she has said, booted out for bad behavior.

As a kid jazz was all around her, from her mother's musician brothers to her grandmother's Sinatra CDs. Winehouse recalls that Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and Carole King sang backup to her formative years.

She remembers hanging out with her grandmother, her "Nan," knocking back pints. Nan was a "real Sinatra girl," but Amy went for Tony Bennett. For whatever reason, she recalls the exact night -- Dec. 7, 2000 -- when they put aside their differences and found common ground in a Bennett album.

"For her to put on Tony Bennett in her house, for me is a big deal," Winehouse says. "I was listening to Tony Bennett, drinking. You know how when you're drinking, you're emotional? I'm like, ' Toooooony.' "

A demo she made ended up with Universal Island Records and at 19 she released "Frank," to instant praise and a whole lot of attention she wasn't exactly prepared for. She inserted stiletto into mouth with regular frequency, insulting both her record label and her management company, Brilliant/19, headed by Simon Fuller, the force behind the Spice Girls and "American Idol." (Of her label she once said: "The marketing was [expletive], the promotion was terrible, everything was a shambles.")

"I try to think about things before I say them nowadays," she admits. "I'm a lot less defensive with this record. . . . I'm just so proud of it. I think the record speaks louder than any of my stupid actions or things that I say."