Amy Winehouse Returns to the Stage With the Specials at V Fest

Amy Winehouse made a surprise appearance at this weekend's V Festival in the U.K., taking the stage with ska legends the Specials during their set to perform a medley of the band's hits. Winehouse's performance at V marked the first time the troubled "Rehab" singer has appeared onstage in the U.K. since last year's V Festival, where the crowd booed Winehouse after a poor, problem-plagued performance. Winehouse had much better results this weekend, however, joining the Specials on their debut album closer "You're Wondering Now" and "Ghost Town." (Watch footage below.)

Winehouse has spent a large portion of the last year rehabilitating on the island of St. Lucia. "While living in St Lucia, Amy missed the band's reunion tour and decided to head to V to catch her favorite artists," Winehouse's spokesperson told the BBC. "Meeting them backstage, they invited her to guest for them and made her dream come true." Earlier in the day at the V Fest, Winehouse also appeared onstage while Pete Doherty was performing, but she did not sing with him.

Winehouse has long professed her love of the Specials, recording a pair of songs made famous by the ska band, "Monkey Man" and "Hey Little Rich Girl," during the Back to Black sessions. After winning multiple Grammys for Back to Black, drug problems and a troubled marriage made Winehouse a tabloid staple. Last summer, Rolling Stone's Claire Hoffman tracked Winehouse to her London apartment and scored an exclusive interview — watch Hoffman discuss the unusual experience here.

Check out Amy Winehouse's wildest year, in photos.

As Rock Daily previously reported, however, the singer's first comeback concert in St. Lucia in May ended with boos after "technical difficulties," bad weather and an admittedly "bored" Winehouse abruptly ended the performance six songs into her set at the St. Lucia Jazz Festival. Winehouse was also scheduled to perform May 31st at an Island Records party on the U.K. but ultimately canceled that appearance.

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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