Lioness: Hidden Treasures


Lioness: Hidden Treasures is a posthumous compilation album by the English singer and songwriter Amy Winehouse. It was released on 2 December 2011 by Island Records. It features unreleased songs, covers and demos selected by Mark Ronson, Salaam Remi and Winehouse's family, including the first single, "Body and Soul", with Tony Bennett. The album was released in aid of the Amy Winehouse Foundation. "Our Day Will Come" was released as the album's second and final single on 4 December, and was Winehouse's first solo single to be released since 2007.

Background

Lioness: Hidden Treasures was announced for release on 31 October 2011 via Winehouse's official website. The album is a compilation of recordings from before the release of Winehouse's debut studio album, Frank, in 2002, up to music she was working on in 2011. Island Records co-president Ted Cockle emphasised that Lioness is not in any way the planned follow-up to Winehouse's album Back to Black. Only two songs intended for the planned follow-up had been completed prior to her death.
Producers Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson compiled the album with the consent of the Winehouse family. They worked together on listening to thousands of hours of vocals by Winehouse. Remi told NME that the album would not lead to "a Tupac situation", referring to Tupac Shakur, in whose name seven posthumous studio albums have been released since his death in 1996. He stated, "A lot of people, through the other antics that were going on with her personally, didn't get that she was at the top of what she did. Coming to Miami was her escape from all of that, and her writing process could document her life, whether it was recording the pain or the loneliness or the humour. It makes no sense for these songs to be sitting on a hard drive, withering away."
Two tracks from Lioness: Hidden Treasures were premiered on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra on 3 November 2011. The Chris Moyles Show aired the first play of "Our Day Will Come", while DJ Twin B broadcast the world premiere of "Like Smoke", which features Nas. The album cover was shot by Canadian rock singer-songwriter Bryan Adams in 2007.

Singles

"Body and Soul", Winehouse's final studio recording and a duet with Tony Bennett, was released as a single on 14 September 2011, in commemoration of what would have been Winehouse's 28th birthday. It was released as the first single from Lioness: Hidden Treasures and Tony Bennett's Duets II album. Profits from the release of the single were donated to the Amy Winehouse Foundation. "Our Day Will Come" was released as the second single from the album. The song was added to the BBC Radio 1 playlist on 2 November 2011, entering the C-list. It was also named BBC Radio 2's "Record of the Week" for the week beginning 5 November.

Critical reception

Lioness: Hidden Treasures received generally mixed to positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 65, based on 28 reviews. Q called it "an admirable tribute if frequently deafened by the echo of its tragic catalyst." Jon Pareles of The New York Times commented that the album "ekes out all it can from the archives" and found it to be "just the scraps of what might have been." Andrew Ryce of Pitchfork wrote in his review, "There's little on Lioness: Hidden Treasures that sounds throwaway, or like it should have never been released; but there's equally little that sounds absolutely essential." AllMusic editor John Bush felt that "only the songwriting and prevalence of covers or 'original versions' reveal that this is a posthumous collection", crediting Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson for making the album "strikingly uniform".

Commercial performance

Lioness: Hidden Treasures debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart with 194,966 copies sold in its first week, marking the biggest first-week sales of Winehouse's career, as well as the fourth fastest-selling album of 2011. It was certified triple platinum by the British Phonographic Industry on 26 June 2020, denoting shipments in excess of 900,000 copies in the United Kingdom. The album debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 114,000 units, making it Winehouse's highest-debuting album in the United States. As of July 2012, it had sold 423,000 copies in the US.
The album topped the charts in Austria, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland, while reaching the top five in Canada, New Zealand and several European countries, including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Sweden. Lioness: Hidden Treasures had sold 2.4 million copies worldwide by the end of 2011, becoming the 11th best-selling album of 2011, as well as the fourth best-selling album by a British artist. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry certified the album platinum in late 2011, denoting sales in excess of one million copies in Europe.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Lioness: Hidden Treasures.

Musicians

  • Amy Winehouse – vocals ; guitar ; acoustic guitar
  • Salaam Remi – arrangements ; bass, drums ; guitar ; piano ; organ, Rhodes ; bells ; background vocals
  • Mark Ronson – arrangements ; orchestra arrangements
  • Zalon – backing vocals arrangements ; background vocals ; additional vocals
  • Heshima Thompson – backing vocals arrangements ; background vocals ; additional vocals
  • Vincent Henry – horns ; horn arrangements ; flutes ; guitar ; saxophone ; clarinet
  • Bruce Purse – shotgun ; trumpet
  • Troy Auxilly-Wilson – drums
  • Glen Lewis – background vocals
  • John Adams – Wurly ; Rhodes ; organ, piano ; synths ; vibraphone
  • Stephen Coleman – string arrangements
  • Tim Davies – string arrangements
  • Homer Steinweiss – drums
  • Nick Movshon – bass
  • Binky Griptite – guitar
  • Thomas Brenneck – guitar
  • Dave Guy – trumpet
  • Ian Hendrickson-Smith – tenor saxophone ; baritone saxophone
  • Cochemea Gastelum – baritone saxophone
  • Victor Axelrod – piano
  • Kevin C. Keys – background vocals
  • Saundra Williams – background vocals
  • Angela "AnGee" Blake – background vocals
  • Perry Montague-Mason – orchestra leader
  • Chris Elliott – orchestra arrangements
  • Nas – featured vocals
  • Dale Davies – bass, guitar
  • James Poyser – keyboards ; synths, flutes
  • Czech Film Orchestra – strings
  • Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson – percussion ; drums
  • Neal Sugarman – tenor saxophone
  • Paul O'Duffy – arrangements, bass, vibes, rhythm
  • Tony Bennett – vocals
  • Jorge Calandrelli – arrangements, conducting
  • Lee Musiker – piano
  • Marshall Wood – bass
  • Tim Cobb – bass
  • David Finck – bass
  • Harold Jones – drums
  • Gray Sargent – guitar
  • Elena Barere – concertmaster
  • Avril Brown, Sean Carney, Jonathan Dinklage, Cornelius Dufallo, Sanguen Eanet, Katherine Fong, Ming Feng Hsin, Karen Karlsrud, Yoon Kwon, Ann Leathers, Matthew Lehmann, Liz Lim Dutton, Katherine Livolsi, Laura McGinnis, Yurika Mok, Lorenza Ponce, Carol Pool, Wen Qian, Catherine Sim, Shirien Taylor Donahue, Entcho Todorov, Una Tone, Yuri Vodovoz, Xiao-Dong Wang, Nancy Wu – violin
  • Vincent Lionti, Adria Benjamin, Karen Dreyfus, Desiree Elsevier, Monica Gerard, David Gold, Todd Low, Craig Mumm, Alissa Smith, Judy Witmer – viola
  • Richard Locker, Diane Barere, Stephanie Cummins, David Eggar, Jeanne Leblanc, Ellen Westermann – cello
  • Grace Paradise – harp
  • Pamela Sklar – flute, piccolo
  • Katherine Fink – flute, piccolo
  • Diane Lesser – oboe, English horn
  • Charles Pillow – clarinet, bass clarinet
  • Marc Goldberg – bassoon
  • Philip Myers, Thomas Jöstlein, Bob Carlisle, Barbara Jöstlein Currie, Ann Scherer – French horn
  • Mike Davis – trombone
  • George Flynn – bass trombone
  • Gordon Gottlieb – percussion
  • Erik Charlston – percussion
  • Ben Herman – percussion

    Technical

  • Salaam Remi – production
  • Gary Noble – mixing ; recording
  • Xavier Stephenson – mixing assistance
  • Mark Ronson – production
  • Gabriel Roth – engineering
  • Wayne Gordon – additional engineering, tape operation
  • Tom Elmhirst – mixing
  • Ben Baptie – mixing assistance
  • Stuart Hawkes – mastering
  • Gleyder "Gee" Disla – recording
  • Shomari Dillon – engineering assistance
  • Neil Dyer – engineering assistance
  • Greg Freeman – engineering assistance
  • Franklin Socorro – recording
  • Vaughan Merrick – Pro-Tools editing and engineering
  • Ben Jackson – recording
  • Scott McCormick – recording
  • Steven Mandel – recording
  • Paul O'Duffy – production, recording
  • Danny Bennett – executive production
  • Phil Ramone – production
  • Dae Bennett – production, recording, mixing
  • Alessandro Perrotta – mixing assistance
  • Brian Chirlo – mixing assistance
  • Adam Bancroft – mixing assistance
  • Nicolas Essig – mixing assistance
  • Bob Ludwig – mastering
  • Lee Musiker – music direction for Tony Bennett
  • Jill Dell'Abate – production management, contractor
  • Vance Anderson – production coordination

    Artwork

  • Mark Ronson – liner notes
  • Salaam Remi – liner notes
  • Mitch Winehouse – liner notes
  • Janis Winehouse – liner notes
  • Bryan Adams – front cover and all booklet photography
  • Ross Halfin – back cover photograph
  • Alex Hutchinson – design

    Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Chart Position
Australian Urban Albums 19
Austrian Albums 29
Belgian Albums 38
Belgian Albums 64
Canadian Albums 20
Dutch Albums 42
French Albums 54
German Albums 83
Hungarian Albums 64
Italian Albums 38
New Zealand Albums 32
Russian Albums 23
Spanish Albums 24
Swedish Albums 99
Swiss Albums 17
UK Albums 66
US Billboard 20065
US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums 9

Chart Position
Australian Urban Albums 48

Chart Position
Australian Urban Albums 47