The world, it seems, loves a good trainwreck and Amy Winehouse, a scant few years ago, filled that bill quite nicely. In what started off as a wildly promising career based on a great sendup of Soul from the early 60's quickly spiraled into something of a nuclear meltdown with the promising star reduced to mascara smeared hysteria and drugged out mayhem wandering in and out of rehabs on an almost hourly basis.

But before the trainwreck there was the talent, and Amy Winehouse had talent. True, her songwriting skills left something to be desired, but her voice and the immaculate production that went into the first album more than made up for any strange concoction of syllables she might have stumbled across.

So tonight's track comes by way of a live concert she did at the Hove Festival in 2007. Me And Mister Jones undoubtedly got no airplay here because of the great glowing F-bomb sung within the first few seconds. But it's still a great track and further proof trainwrecks are tragic no matter who gets involved.

The latest word on Amy is that she's been clean and sober for a while and staging a comeback (or sorts) and going on tour this summer. No new album (and it's a wonder Universal would run the risk), but first things first.

Anyway, it doesn't seem that long ago we were all a bit mesmerized. And in case you forgot . . here's a reminder.

I admit to only being slightly familiar with St. Etienne when their debut album Fox Base Alpha was released. I was preoccupied with the goings on in Madchester at the time, and the likes of Blur, The Charlatans and Stone Roses were forefront on my turntable. And so St. Etienne more or less slipped through the cracks.

Fortunately, through the good services of Soundcloud, Heavenly Recordings (St. Etienne's first label) has uploaded a bunch of tracks from Fox Base Alpha and tonight's track, Spring is one of them.

In a way, they remind me of a female version of Style Council in that blue-eyed Soul sort of way. Spring is a great track and it makes me want to go back and listen to what else of theirs I've missed all these years.

Sometimes things just get lost in the shuffle and there's no good reason for it. Thankfully, there's always someone around to remind you.

They're still very much around and very much recording, but it's interesting to listen to this sampling of what their debut album was like. Check out their site as well as Soundcloud and find a wealth of great stuff over there.

And while you're checking things out - we're knee-deep in fundraising so . . .

(Lauren Pritchard - London by way of New York, by way of L.A. by way of Memphis)

I was thinking I hadn't really played anything from the singer-songwriter sector of the Music community of late. Truths to tell, I've been more or less preoccupied listening to band demos and MySpace pages I haven't really had any time to check out the solo artists of late.

But I'm trying to catch up. And I think one of the nice discoveries of this week comes in the form of Lauren Pritchard, originally from Tennessee who landed for a while in Los Angeles and then packed and wound up in New York before moving on to London, where she's now gigging around and recording stuff like this track, When The Night Kills The Day. She looks nothing like her voice; deep low and soulful in direct contrast to the sun-washed open-eyed photos on her MySpace page. I was pretty surprised how much her voice reminded me of Carole King (from many-many years ago and another singer-songwriter), and maybe it was that little blast of retro that caught my ear.

But I heard this track a few times and I like more with each hearing and that's usually a positive sign.

Aside from her landings, I really don't know that much about her, other than she's playing in Bristol at The Louisiana in April and if you're in town you might want to fall by and check her out. All I know is, she's good and her material is well produced and her songs are nice.

A good start to the week, yes?