I first heard Amy Whinehouse a few years ago at a Queen’s Jubilee Concert. This drugged out rag doll of a woman appeared and sang and I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

Fast forward to July 2015. I went to see the documentary AMY and heard her sing …again.

Now I understand.

The woman has a voice. It has that has the smooth silky lilting sound of Streisand, and the phrasing of  Sinatra. The “pre-eminent vocal talent of her generation” as the BBC says.  Let me say that I am a classical music and opera buff. But I have never heard anything like this. The tension, its sensual sexiness and  honesty make it to one of the great voices of the last fifty years. That she achieved multi grammy award winning fame in spite of her  extreme drug and alcohol addiction is a testament to the power of her talent.

Throughout it all she remained human and unpretentious. Her death at the age of 28 moved  less a musical giant than Tony Bennett to tears and distraction.

If you liked Edith Piaf and her songs that ram themselves into your consciousness, go and see this movie for an entirely different take on one of the great  female artistic personas of our time.

To me Piaf was the night.

Whinehouse is the world with all its pain and complexity laid bare.

The story of her rise from working class roots in London to one of legendary status and then her ultimate tragic demise makes for compelling cinema.