Amy's Party: Winehouse Comeback with Lesley Gore Cover This November

Amy Winehouse will be singing the No. 1 Lesley Gore hit "It's My Party" for Q: Soul Bossa Nostra, a compilation of hit songs celebrating Quincy Jones' hits. The track is due out this November. "It's My Party" was Quincy's first success as a music producer.

Quincy Jones tells "Rolling Stone" that he has complete confidence in Amy Winehouse, who has not had a record out since 2006 due to her various addiction and legal problems. "Amy's talent as an artist is undisputable," Jones said, "I absolutely love what she did to make the song her own."

The connection may be to Quincy Jones, but if you think about the main theme of most of Lesley Gore's songs, it's pretty interesting. Lesley Gore had a string of hits in 1963 and 1964 beginning with "It's My Party." With the exception of one, "You Don't Own Me," they were all co-dependent, victim type songs.

"It's My Party" is about a girl whose boyfriend, Johnny, hooks up with a chick named Judy at her birthday party. All she can do about it is cry and she whines: "You would cry to if it happened to you." Well, we've come a long way since then, baby. Judy might be getting her hair extensions jacked nowadays.

I also like to think of "It's My Party" as a "Johnny" song, because there were a lot of songs in the early 60s where the guy's name was John or Johnny. Lesley's follow-up hit was "It's Judy's Turn to Cry" when Johnny comes back. The message in most Lesley Gore songs was you needed "Johnny" no matter what he did. So, as we can see now in light of modern psychology, there were some low self-esteem issues going on in these 1960s songs.

You could say there were some self-esteem issues going on in Amy Winehouse's blockbuster 2006-07 hit, "You Know I'm No Good," too, but OMG - I love that song. "I told you I was trouble, you know that I'm no good." I like to look at it like "well, at least she warned him."

After "It's My Party" and "Judy's Turn to Cry," Lesley Gore came out with "You Don't Own Me," presumably trying to set limits with a possessive male chauvinist. Then she went right back to being a doormat with "That's the Way Boys Are."

I can't wait to hear Amy's version of "It's My Party" Quincy Jones also collaborated with Usher, Ludacris, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Hudson, Mary J. Blige and many other singers on the project. Akon's cover of "Strawberry Letter 23" by the Brothers Johnson was already released in March. I wish Quincy would get someone to do "Killer Joe" on there too.

Amy Winehouse and producer, Mark Ronson are also supposed to have a new album out in January 2011.

Sources:
Rolling Stone Magazine: October 2010
Quincy Jones.com
Wikipedia: Lesley Gore