In the Mix

Everybody I asked who they were hoping to see in Austin this week answered with what the hypester handling intoductions at La Zona Rosa on Friday deemed "two of the most exciting words in the English language right now": Amy Winehouse.

(Well, almost everybody. My friend Amy from Pitchfork dissented: "I HATE her," she made perfectly clear, then wished me luck getting into the Brit soul diva's showcase. "Have fun at the other Amy.")

By then, I had already tried and failed three times to see Winehouse, whose drunken escapades (chronicled extensively in the British press), devastating soul voice and impeccable songwriting chops displayed on her staggering break up record Back to Black has succeeded in getting the attnetion of the most jaded of music wags.

On Thursday morning, I interviewed Joe Boyd, famed producer of British folk-rock who's got a first rate new memoir, White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s. Afterwards we agreed there was one thing to do: cross the street to the British music barbecue, and see Amy Winehouse. Only by the time we arrived, she had just finished a 20 minute set, backed by only an acoustic guitarist. "It was amazing," witnesses assured me.

Next chance came that night at her full band showcase at Eternal but when I arrived, it turned out it had been pushed back to the same time as a show by Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las, who Winehouse regularly sites in interviews as one of the models for her updated '60s girl group. Sorry, Amy, Mary comes first.

The next afternoon, Winehouse closed the show at the Fader party over on San Jacinto, but by the time I got through with RJD2, the West Philadelphia producer and songwriter who was busily promoting his new The Third Hand down here, the line was two blocks long. Still, I was able to to stand out side the gate of the outdoor venue and make out Winehouse doing an acoustic "Rehab" over the din.

(This offers one key to how the bonfire of Winehouse buzz at SXSW spread: the music industry arrives for its annual spring break in Texas, and as it swigs Shiner Bock and throws down Tequila shots, it finds a siren who sings: "They tried to make me go to rehab - I said no, no no!")

That night, I was finally successful - though I paid a price to secure a spot at La Zona Rosa by sitting through Scott Mathews, the supremely uninvolving Nick Drake manque who opened.

Was it worth the buildup? You betcha. Winehouse, who is scheduled to play the TLA on May 6, came out in her Vampirella 'do and Cleopatra eye shadow, tattoos of a naked woman and a horseshoe on her emaciated left arm. Behind her was a smartly dressed, crack band with three horns and two shimmying male back up singers, each of whom got a solo turn on on Lauryn Hill's "That Thing."

The band was borrowed from Sharon Jones, but the songs are Winehouse's own. And the songs made the sale.

She expertly wields her smokehouse voice - she slurred her vocals for emtional effect, not because she's drinking Guinness. And in "Rehab," but also "Love Is Losing Game," the Billy Paul update "Me and Mr. Jones" and especially, "You Know I'm No Good," she displayed that rarest of knacks for writing deeply personal yet universal songs in a timeless idiom.

She savvy enough to lead you to the unmistakable conclusion that she's mad, bad and dangerous to know. And the pleasure, and conviction, with which she sang the - "I cheated myself, like I knew I would/I told you I was trouble, you know I'm no good" - makes you worry that when the train wreck comes, you're not going to be able to look away.