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Amy Winehouse was a five-time Grammy Award-winning English singer-songwriter known for such hits as 'Rehab' and 'You Know I'm No Good' among her ...

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2006–2007: international success, Back to Black and touring                   In contrast to her jazz-influenced former album, Winehouse's focus shifted to the girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s. Winehouse hired New York singer Sharon Jones's longtime band, the Dap-Kings, to back her up in the studio and on tour.

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2006–2007: international success, Back to Black and touring                   In contrast to her jazz-influenced former album, Winehouse's focus shifted to the girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s. Winehouse hired New York singer Sharon Jones's longtime band, the Dap-Kings, to back her up in the studio and on tour.

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2003–2005: Debut album Frank Winehouse's debut album, Frank, was released on 20 October 2003. Produced mainly by Salaam Remi, many songs were influenced by jazz and, apart from two covers, Winehouse co-wrote every song. 

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2003–2005: Debut album Frank Winehouse's debut album, Frank, was released on 20 October 2003. Produced mainly by Salaam Remi, many songs were influenced by jazz and, apart from two covers, Winehouse co-wrote every song. 

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Amy Jade Winehouse was an English singer and songwriter. She was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul, rhythm and blues, and jazz. Winehouse has been described as "the pre-eminent vocal talent of her generation" and "the last real individualist around." Winehouse's debut album, Frank, was a critical success in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize.

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Amy Jade Winehouse was an English singer and songwriter. She was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul, rhythm and blues, and jazz. Winehouse has been described as "the pre-eminent vocal talent of her generation" and "the last real individualist around." Winehouse's debut album, Frank, was a critical success in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize.

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Amy Winehouse was a vocal powerhouse who quickly became one of the most original, gifted and edgy vocalists in the history of the British music scene.

But a life marked by talent was also marred by tragedy, and the world lost one of its most important musical voices at the age of just 27 on July 23 2011.

On what would have been her 35th birthday, we look back at her life in pictures, from her stellar on-stage performances to her tempestuous and ultimately destructive personal life.

Winehouse, unbelievably, had just two albums to her name: Frank and Back to Black.

The Camden-dwelling singer sparked critics' interest when she dropped her debut, Frank, in 2003, which went on receive a nomination for the Mercury Prize against the likes of Basement Jaxx, Franz Ferdinand, Snow Patrol, The Streets and The Zutons in 2004.

But it wasn't until the release of her follow-up, Back to Black, in 2006 that Winehouse quickly became a global sensation.

Famed for her beehive and voice to rival the jazz greats, she was honoured worldwide and picked up five Grammy Awards in 2008 including Record and Song of the Year for her hit single Rehab. The track laid bare Winehouse's public battle with alcohol addiction which fast became headline news.

Winehouse struggled to cope with the spotlight her newfound stardom and critical success brought.

Her addiction and rehab stints, as well as the breakdown of toxic relationships, notably Blake Fielder-Civil, was too much for the fragile star to cope with in the public eye. She obtained an injunction against a leading paparazzi agency in 2009 banning them from following her. Other photographers were also banned from photographing her and friends and relatives near her Camden home.

Winehouse's death from alcohol poisoning was announced on July 23, 2011. Fans went into mourning with hundreds flocking to pay their respects outside her house. After her death, she broke her second Guinness World Record for the most songs by a woman to simultaneously appear on the UK singles chart, with eight. Her album Back to Black also posthumously became, for a time, the UK's best-selling album.

Lioness: Hidden Treasures, an album of previously unreleased material, was made available to the public in December 2011 and debuted at the top of the album chart.

On 14 September 2014, which would have been her 31st birthday, a statue was unveiled of her at Stables Market in her beloved Camden Town.

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Amy Winehouse's life in pictures at 35: A look back at her career

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Amy Winehouse was a vocal powerhouse who quickly became one of the most original, gifted and edgy vocalists in the history of the British music scene. But a life marked by talent was also marred by tragedy, and the world lost one of its most important musical voices at the age of just 27 on July 23 2011.

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Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized

The Amy Winehouse Foundation store is now live.

You can access the online store and purchase some exclusive Amy Winehouse Foundation merchandise & artwork by the likes of Henry Hate, Horace Panter Art & Mr Bingo.

Visit the store online HERE.

Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized

It was 'Frank's' 10th Anniversary on Sunday.

Watch 'Stronger Than Me' here:

Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized

This September, the Amy Winehouse Foundation will be marking Amy's 30th birthday. #Amys30 is a month-long series of pop up events taking place throughout Amy's beloved Camden organised by the Amy Winehouse Foundation and supported by numerous local venues and businesses.

Click here to find out more about the events and to buy tickets.

By attending these events, buying Foundation merchandise or being a regular donor you are helping the AWF to help vulnerable young people across the UK.

Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized

You can now read the third and final excerpt from Amy, My Daughter, the official biography of Amy Winehouse here: http://bit.ly/amymydaughter3

Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized

In other news, It's now been eighteen months since the Amy Winehouse Foundation, set up in Amy's memory to prevent the effects of drug and alcohol misuse, began making a difference to the lives of young people at home and abroad.
Some of the highlights from the Foundation's first year of grant making include;

More than 30 babies and children with a life-limiting or life-threatening conditions received specialist neonatal and palliative care

4 young people with a life-limiting or life-threatening condition and their families were able to take the trip of a lifetime

Some groundbreaking research is underway into children and young people living with Multiple Sclerosis

60 young homeless people received a hot meal every day for one year

17 young people received access to abstinence based rehabilitation treatment for substance misuse

150+ young people have been provided with a safe place to sleep during the winter months since 2011

3000+ young people have received drug and alcohol awareness training via the Amy Winehouse Foundation Resilience Programme pilot

250+ young people received substance misuse training through a peer education programme

More than 250 young people have accessed music focused experiences and training opportunities

3 young people are now attending Sylvia Young Theatre School as a result of an Amy Winehouse Foundation scholarship

More than 150 children with life limiting-limiting or life-threatening conditions accessed music therapy sessions

If you would like to know more about the work of the Amy Winehouse Foundation visit the official site HERE
http://www.amywinehousefoundation.org/

Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized

Would you like to see a new London street named in memory of Amy Winehouse? As part of the redevelopment of King Cross there are new street names that you, the public, can nominate and vote for. If Winehouse Way seems a fitting tribute, click the link below to cast your vote or suggestion.
http://www.kingscross.co.uk/street-naming-competition
Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized

Amy Winehouse has been nominated for 'Best Female' at this years BRIT Awards. A further accolade in Amy's growing musical legacy, the BRITS have confirmed that this is the first ever posthumous BRIT nomination. To see the full list of nominations visit the official BRITS website HERE.

See the latest updates about the work of the Amy Winehouse Foundation - a charitable Trust set up by her family to help disadvantaged young people in the UK and abroad HERE.

Amy's Father, Mitch Winehouse said, ""The Winehouse family are delighted with this wonderful nomination for Amy. It proves that her music still has an enormous effect on the public now and for the generations to come. We are proud that her legacy will live on forever through her incredible songs and performances and the many, many young people that are being helped through the Amy Winehouse Foundation."

Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized
"Amy's performances for the BBC were always amazing, especially on Jools Holland. This is a very special collection." Tyler James "I remember the first time hearing her voice...I instantly knew she was destined to be one of the greatest." Nas
"Amy Winehouse At The BBC" is out now. Spread across three dvd's, and one CD, this comprehensive collection captures the strong and enduring relationship that Amy enjoyed with the BBC. As well as the collectors four-disc collection chronicling the many remarkable performances by arguably the greatest and most genuine talent to emerge in British music in decades, a standard two-disc set is also available, featuring the acclaimed DVD "Amy Winehouse - The Day She Came To Dingle" and the 14-song "The BBC Sessions" audio CD.

To see the full tracklisting and to buy your copy click HERE.
The Estate of Amy Winehouse is donating the record royalties it receives from the sale of this box set to the Amy Winehouse Foundation.
Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized

For everyone who's awaiting the release of Amy Winehouse Live At The BBC, here's a short preview of what's to come...

Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized

Following news of the forthcoming release, "Amy Winehouse At The BBC", a four-disc collection chronicling the many remarkable performances by arguably the greatest and most genuine talent to emerge in British music in decades, a standard two-disc set has also been confirmed.

Out on November 19th, the double disc Amy Winehouse At The BBC" will feature the hugely acclaimed DVD "Amy Winehouse - The Day She Came To Dingle" and the 14-song "The BBC Sessions" audio CD.

DISC ONE (CD) The BBC Sessions

1. KNOW YOU NOW (Leicester Summer Sundae 2004)
2. FUCK ME PUMPS (T In The Park 2004)
3. IN MY BED (T In The Park 2004)
4. OCTOBER SONG (T In The Park 2004)
5. REHAB (Pete Mitchell 2006)
6. YOU KNOW I'M NO GOOD (Jo Whiley Live Lounge 2007)
7. JUST FRIENDS (Big Band Special 2009)
8. LOVE IS A LOSING GAME (Jools Holland 2009)
9. TEARS DRY ON THEIR OWN (Jo Whiley Live Lounge 2007)
10. BEST FRIENDS, RIGHT? (Leicester Summer Sundae 2004)
11. I SHOULD CARE (The Stables 2004)
12. LULLABY OF BIRDLAND (The Stables 2004)
13. VALERIE (Jo Whiley Live Lounge 2007)
14. TO KNOW HIM IS TO LOVE HIM (Pete Mitchell 2006)

DISC TWO (DVD) Arena: Amy Winehouse- The Day She Came To Dingle*

Documentary featuring live performances of:

1. TEARS DRY ON THEIR OWN
2. YOU KNOW I'M NO GOOD
3. LOVE IS A LOSING GAME
4. BACK TO BLACK
5. REHAB
6. ME & MR JONES

*A BBC Arena/South Wind Blows Ltd co-production in association with RTÉ
Pre-order your copy HERE.
The Estate of Amy Winehouse is donating the record royalties it receives from the sale of this box set to the Amy Winehouse Foundation.

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Posted by Amy HQ | Filed under Uncategorized The Amy Winehouse Foundation store is now live. You can access the online store and purchase some exclusive Amy Winehouse Foundation merchandise & artwork by the likes of Henry Hate, Horace Panter Art & Mr Bingo. Visit the store online HERE.

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Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 - 23 July 2011) was an English singer and songwriter. She was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul, rhythm and blues, reggae and jazz.

A member of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra during her youth, Winehouse signed to Simon Fuller's 19 Management in 2002 and soon recorded a number of songs before signing a publishing deal with EMI. She also formed a working relationship with producer Salaam Remi through these record publishers. Winehouse's debut album, , was released in 2003. Many of the album's songs were influenced by jazz and, apart from two covers, were co-written by Winehouse. Frank was a critical success in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. The song " Stronger Than Me" won her the Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.

Winehouse released her follow-up album, Back to Black, in 2006, which went on to become an international success and one of the best-selling albums in UK history. At the 2007 Brit Awards it was nominated for British Album of the Year, and she received the award for British Female Solo Artist. The song " Rehab" won her a second Ivor Novello Award. At the 50th Grammy Awards in 2008, she won five awards, tying the then record for the most wins by a female artist in a single night and becoming the first British woman to win five Grammys, including three of the General Field "Big Four" Grammy Awards: Best New Artist, Record of the Year and Song of the Year (for "Rehab"), as well as Best Pop Vocal Album.

Winehouse struggled with substance abuse, mental illness, and addiction. She died of alcohol poisoning on 23 July 2011, at the age of 27. Her brother believed that bulimia was also to blame. After her death, Back to Black briefly became the UK's best-selling album of the 21st century. VH1 ranked Winehouse 26th on their list of the 100 Greatest Women in Music.

Amy Jade Winehouse was born on 14 September 1983 at Chase Farm Hospital in Gordon Hill, Enfield, to Jewish parents. Her father, Mitchell "Mitch" Winehouse, was a window panel installer and taxi driver; her mother, Janis Winehouse (née Seaton), was a pharmacist. Her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2003. Winehouse's great-great-grandfather Harris Winehouse emigrated from Minsk, Belarus, to London in 1891. She had an older brother, Alex (born 1979). The family lived in London's Southgate area, where she attended Osidge Primary School and then secondary at Ashmole School. Winehouse attended a Jewish Sunday school while she was a child. During an interview following her rise to fame, she expressed her dismissal towards the school by saying that she used to beg her father to permit her not to go and that she learned nothing about being Jewish by going anyway. In the same interview, Winehouse said she only went to a synagogue once a year on Yom Kippur "out of respect".

Many of Winehouse's maternal uncles were professional jazz musicians. Amy's paternal grandmother, Cynthia, had been a singer and had dated the English jazz saxophonist Ronnie Scott. She and Amy's parents influenced Amy's interest in jazz. Her father, Mitch, often sang Frank Sinatra songs to her, and whenever she was chastised at school, she would sing " Fly Me to the Moon" before going up to the headmistress to be told off. Winehouse's parents separated when she was nine, and she lived with her mother in Whetstone, London and stayed with her father and his girlfriend in Hatfield Heath, Essex on weekends.

In 1992, her grandmother Cynthia suggested that Amy attend the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School, where she went on Saturdays to further her vocal education and to learn to tap dance. She attended the school for four years and founded a short-lived rap group called Sweet 'n' Sour, with Juliette Ashby, her childhood friend, before seeking full-time training at Sylvia Young Theatre School. Several years later it was reported that Winehouse had been expelled at 14 for "not applying herself" and also for piercing her nose, but these claims were denied by Sylvia Young: "She changed schools at 15...I've heard it said she was expelled; she wasn't. I'd never have expelled Amy." Mitch Winehouse also denied the claims. An English teacher at the Sylvia Young Theatre School remembered Amy as a gifted writer, predicting that she would become a novelist or journalist. She attended the Mount School, Mill Hill and the BRIT School in Selhurst, Croydon, dropping out at age 16.

After toying around with her brother Alex's guitar, Winehouse bought her own guitar when she was 14 and began writing music shortly afterwards. Soon after she began working for a living, as an entertainment journalist for the World Entertainment News Network and also singing with local group the Bolsha Band. In July 2000, she became the featured female vocalist with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. She was influenced by Sarah Vaughan and Dinah Washington, the latter of whom she was already listening to at home. Winehouse's best friend, soul singer Tyler James, sent her demo tape to an A&R person.

2002-2005: Career beginnings and Frank

Winehouse performing live in July 2004

Winehouse was signed to Simon Fuller's 19 Management in 2002 and was paid £250 a week against future earnings. While being developed by the management company, Winehouse was kept as a recording industry secret, although she was a regular jazz standards singer at the Cobden Club. Her future A&R representative at Island, Darcus Beese, heard of her by chance when the manager of the Lewinson Brothers showed him some productions of his clients, which featured Winehouse as key vocalist. When he asked who the singer was, the manager told him he was not allowed to say. Having decided that he wanted to sign her, it took several months of asking around for Beese to eventually discover who the singer was. However, by that time Winehouse had already recorded a number of songs, signed a publishing deal with EMI, and formed a working relationship with producer Salaam Remi.

Beese introduced Winehouse to his boss, Island head Nick Gatfield, who shared his enthusiasm in signing the young artist. Winehouse was signed to Island while rival interest in her had started to build with representatives of EMI and Virgin starting to make moves. Beese told HitQuarters that he felt the excitement over an artist who was an atypical pop star for the time was due to a backlash against reality TV music shows, whose audiences starved for fresh, genuine young talent.

Winehouse's debut album, , was released on 20 October 2003. Produced mainly by Salaam Remi, many songs were influenced by jazz and, apart from two covers, Winehouse co-wrote every song. The album received critical acclaim with compliments given to the "cool, critical gaze" in its lyrics. Winehouse's voice was compared with those of Sarah Vaughan and Macy Gray, among others.

The album entered the upper reaches of the UK Albums Chart in 2004 when it was nominated for the Brit Awards in the categories of British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act. It went on to achieve platinum sales. Later in 2004, she and Remi won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song, for their first single together, " Stronger Than Me." The album was also shortlisted for the 2004 Mercury Music Prize. In the same year, she performed at the Glastonbury Festival - Jazzworld, the V Festival and the Montreal International Jazz Festival. After the release of the album, Winehouse commented that she was "only 80 percent behind [the] album" because Island Records had overruled her preferences for the songs and mixes to be included. The further singles from the album were " Take the Box," " In My Bed"/" You Sent Me Flying" and " Pumps"/" Help Yourself."

2006-2008: Back to Black and international success

After the release of her first jazz-influenced album, Winehouse's focus shifted to the girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s. Winehouse hired New York singer Sharon Jones's longtime band, the Dap-Kings, to back her up in the studio and on tour. Mitch Winehouse relates in Amy, My Daughter how fascinating watching her process was: her perfectionism in the studio and how she would put what she had sung on a CD and play it in his taxi outside to know how most people would hear her music. In May 2006, Winehouse's demo tracks such as " You Know I'm No Good" and " Rehab" appeared on Mark Ronson's New York radio show on East Village Radio. These were some of the first new songs played on the radio after the release of "Pumps" and both were slated to appear on her second album. The 11-track album, completed in five months, was produced entirely by Salaam Remi and Ronson, with the production credits being split between them. Ronson said in a 2010 interview that he liked working with Winehouse because she was blunt when she did not like his work. She in turn thought that when they first met, he was a sound engineer and that she was expecting an older man with a beard.

Promotion of Back to Black soon began and, in early October 2006 Winehouse's official website was relaunched with a new layout and clips of previously unreleased songs. Back to Black was released in the UK on 30 October 2006. It went to number one on the UK Albums Chart for two weeks in January 2007, dropping then climbing back for several weeks in February. In the US, it entered at number seven on the Billboard 200. It was the best-selling album in the UK of 2007, selling 1.85million copies over the course of the year. The first single released from the album was the Ronson-produced "Rehab". The song reached the top ten in the UK and the US. magazine named "Rehab" the Best Song of 2007. Writer Josh Tyrangiel praised Winehouse for her confidence, saying, "What she is is mouthy, funny, sultry, and quite possibly crazy" and "It's impossible not to be seduced by her originality. Combine it with production by Mark Ronson that references four decades worth of soul music without once ripping it off, and you've got the best song of 2007." The album's second single and lead single in the US, "You Know I'm No Good," was released in January 2007 with a remix featuring rap vocals by Ghostface Killah. It ultimately reached number 18 on the UK singles chart. The title track, " Back to Black," was released in the UK in April 2007 and peaked at number 25, but was more successful across mainland Europe. " Tears Dry on Their Own," " Love Is a Losing Game" were also released as singles, but failed to achieve the same level of success.

Winehouse with Mick Jagger at the Isle of Wight Festival on the Isle of Wight, England where she sang "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" with the Rolling Stones on 10 June 2007.[47]

A deluxe edition of Back to Black was also released on 5 November 2007 in the UK. The bonus disc features B-sides, rare, and live tracks, as well as " Valerie". Winehouse's debut DVD I Told You I Was Trouble: Live in London was released the same day in the UK and 13 November in the US. It includes a live set recorded at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire and a 50-minute documentary charting the singer's career over the previous four years. Frank was released in the United States on 20 November 2007 to positive reviews. The album debuted at number 61 on the Billboard 200 chart. In addition to her own album, she collaborated with other artists on singles. Winehouse was a vocalist on the song "Valerie" on Ronson's solo album . The song peaked at number two in the UK, upon its October single release. "Valerie" was nominated for a 2008 Brit Award for British Single of the Year. Her work with ex- Sugababe Mutya Buena, " B Boy Baby," was released on 17 December 2007. It served as the fourth single from Buena's debut album, . Winehouse was also in talks of working with Missy Elliott for her album Block Party.

Winehouse promoted the release of Back to Black with headline performances in late 2006, including a Little Noise Sessions charity concert at the Union Chapel in Islington, London. On 31 December 2006, Winehouse appeared on Jools Holland's Annual Hootenanny and performed a cover of Marvin Gaye's " I Heard It Through the Grapevine" along with Paul Weller and Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. She also performed Toots and the Maytals' " Monkey Man". At his request, actor Bruce Willis introduced Winehouse before her performance of "Rehab" at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards in Universal City, California, on 3 June 2007. During the summer of 2007, she performed at various festivals, including Glastonbury Festival and Lollapalooza in Chicago.

The rest of her tour, however, did not go as well. In November 2007, the opening night of a 17-date tour was marred by booing and walkouts at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. A critic for the Birmingham Mail said it was "one of the saddest nights of my life...I saw a supremely talented artist reduced to tears, stumbling around the stage and, unforgivably, swearing at the audience." Other concerts ended similarly, with, for example, fans at her Hammersmith Apollo performance in London saying that she "looked highly intoxicated throughout," until she announced on 27 November 2007, that her performances and public appearances were cancelled for the remainder of the year, citing her doctor's advice to take a complete rest. A statement issued by concert promoter Live Nation blamed "the rigours involved in touring and the intense emotional strain that Amy has been under in recent weeks" for the decision. Mitch Winehouse wrote about her nervousness before public performances in his 2012 book, Amy, My Daughter. On 13 January 2008, Back to Black held the number-one position on the Billboard Pan European charts for the third consecutive week.

Winehouse performing at the Virgin Festival at Pimlico in Baltimore in 2007

On 10 February 2008, Winehouse received five Grammy Awards, winning in the following categories: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the single "Rehab", and Best Pop Vocal Album. The singer also earned a Grammy as Best New Artist, earning her an entry in the 2009 edition of the Guinness Book of Records for Most Grammy Awards won by a British Female Act. Additionally, Back to Black was nominated for Album of the Year. Ronson's work with her won the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, in the non-classical category. She ended her acceptance speech for Record of the Year with, "This is for London because Camden Town ain't burning down," in reference to the 2008 Camden Market fire. Performing "You Know I'm No Good" and "Rehab" via satellite from London's Riverside Studios at 3 a.m. UK time, she couldn't be at the ceremony in Los Angeles as her visa approval had not been processed in time.

After the Grammys, the album's sales increased, catapulting Back to Black to number two on the US Billboard 200, after it initially peaked in the seventh position. On 20 February 2008, Winehouse performed at the 2008 Brit Awards at Earls Court in London, performing "Valerie" with Mark Ronson, followed by "Love Is a Losing Game". She urged the crowd to "make some noise for my Blake." A special deluxe edition of Back to Black topped the UK album charts on 2 March 2008. Meanwhile, the original edition of the album was ranked at number 30 in its 68th week on the charts, while Frank charted at number 35.

In Paris, she performed what was described as a "well-executed 40-minute" set at the opening of a Fendi boutique in early March. By 12 March, the album had sold a total of 2,467,575 copies-318,350 copies had been sold in the previous 10 weeks-putting the album on the UK's top-10 best-selling albums of the 21st century for the first time. On 7 April, Back to Black was in the top position of the pan-European charts for the sixth consecutive and thirteenth aggregate week. Amy Winehouse - The Girl Done Good: A Documentary Review, a 78-minute DVD, was released on 14 April 2008. The documentary features interviews with those who knew her at a young age, people who helped her achieve success, jazz music experts, and music and pop culture specialists.

At the 2008 Ivor Novello Awards in May, Winehouse became the first-ever artist to receive two nominations for the top award: Best Song Musically & Lyrically. She won the award for "Love Is a Losing Game" and was nominated for "You Know I'm No Good". "Rehab", a Novello winner for best contemporary song in 2006, also received a 2008 nomination for best-selling British song. Winehouse was also nominated for a 2008 MTV Europe Music Award in the Act of the Year category.

Although her father, manager and various members of her touring team reportedly tried to dissuade her, Winehouse performed at the Rock in Rio Lisboa festival in Portugal in May 2008. Although the set was plagued by a late arrival and problems with her voice, the crowd warmed to her. In addition to her own material she performed two Specials covers. Winehouse performed at Nelson Mandela's 90th Birthday Party concert at London's Hyde Park on 27 June 2008, and the next day at the Glastonbury Festival. On 12 July, at the Oxegen Festival in Ireland she performed a well-received 50-minute set which was followed the next day by a 14-song set at T in the Park.

On 16 August she played at the Staffordshire leg of the V Festival, and the following day played the Chelmsford leg of the festival. Organisers said that Winehouse attracted the biggest crowds of the festival. Audience reaction was reported as mixed. On 6 September, she was Bestival's Saturday headliner, where her performance was described as polished-terminated by a curfew as the show running overdue, after Winehouse started an hour late-and her storming off stage.

A clip of Winehouse's music was included in the "Roots and Influences" area that looked at connections between different artists at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC, which opened in December 2008. One thread started with Billie Holiday, continued with Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige, and then finished with Winehouse.

Back to Black was the world's seventh-biggest-selling album of 2008. The album's sales meant that the market performance of Universal Music's recorded music division did not drop to levels experienced by the overall music market.

2009-2011: Final projects before death

In a 2009 poll of U.S. residents conducted for VisitBritain by Harris Interactive, one-fifth of the participants indicated they had listened to Winehouse's music during the previous year. She performed with Rhythms del Mundo on their cover of the Sam Cooke song, " Cupid", for an Artists Project Earth benefit album released in July that year.

Winehouse backstage with her band in March 2009

Winehouse and Ronson contributed a cover of Lesley Gore's " It's My Party" to the Quincy Jones tribute album Q Soul Bossa Nostra, released in November 2010. She had agreed to form a group with Questlove of the Roots but her problems obtaining a visa delayed their working together. Salaam Remi had already created some material with Winehouse as part of the project. According to , Universal Music pressed her for new material in 2008, but as of 2 September that year she had not been near a recording studio. In late October, Winehouse's spokesman was quoted as saying that Winehouse had not been given a deadline to complete her third album, for which she was learning to play drums.

In May 2009, Winehouse returned to performing at a jazz festival in Saint Lucia amid torrential downpours and technical difficulties. During her set, it was reported she was unsteady on her feet and had trouble remembering lyrics. She apologised to the crowd for being "bored" and ended the set in the middle of a song. During her stay in Saint Lucia, however, she worked on new music with Remi. On 23 August that year Winehouse sang with the Specials at the V Festival, on their songs "You're Wondering Now" and " Ghost Town".

Island claimed that a new album would be due for release in 2010. Island co-president Darcus Beese said, "I've heard a couple of song demos that have absolutely floored me." In July 2010, Winehouse was quoted as saying her next album would be released no later than January 2011, saying "It's going to be very much the same as my second album, where there's a lot of jukebox stuff and songs that are... just jukebox, really." Ronson, however, said at that time that he had not started to record the album. She performed "Valerie" with Ronson at a movie premiere but forgot some of the song's lyrics. In October, Winehouse performed a four-song set to promote her fashion line. In December 2010, she played a 40-minute concert at a Russian oligarch's party in Moscow, with the tycoon hand-selecting the songs.

Winehouse performing in Brazil in January 2011, one of her last concerts before her death

In January 2011, Winehouse played five dates in Brazil, with opening acts of Janelle Monáe and Mayer Hawthorne. While performing in Florianópolis, Winehouse forgot the lyrics of her songs several times and had to be aided by the public and her band. During the concert, she only drank from a water bottle, but even so, in two occasions, she left the stage in the midst of the show for a period of circa 5 minutes. Upon her return, the crowd showed strong compassion for her and praised Winehouse for continuing the performance. The following month she cut a performance in Dubai short following booing from the audience. Winehouse was reported to be tired, distracted and "tipsy" during the performance.

On 18 June 2011, Winehouse started her twelve-leg European tour in Belgrade. Local media described her performance as a scandal and disaster; she was booed off the stage due to her apparently being too drunk to perform. Serbian defence minister Dragan Šutanovac called Winehouse's performances "a huge shame and a disappointment". It was reported that she was unable to remember the city she was in, the lyrics of her songs or the names of the members of her band. The local press also claimed that Winehouse was forced to perform by her bodyguards, who did not allow her to leave the stage when she tried to do so. She then pulled out of performances in Istanbul and Athens, which had been scheduled for the following week. On 21 June, it was announced that she had cancelled all shows of her tour and would be given "as long as it takes" to sort herself out.

Winehouse's last public appearance took place at Camden's Roundhouse on 20 July 2011, when she made a surprise appearance on stage to support her goddaughter, Dionne Bromfield, who was singing " Mama Said" with the Wanted. Winehouse died three days later. Her last recording was a duet with American singer Tony Bennett for his album, , released on 20 September 2011. Their single from the album, " Body and Soul", was released on 14 September 2011 on MTV and VH1 to commemorate what would have been her 28th birthday.

Other ventures

Winehouse joined a campaign to stop a block of flats being built beside the George Tavern, a famous London East End music venue. Campaign supporters feared the residential development would end the spot's lucrative sideline as a film and photo location, on which it relies to survive. As part of a breast cancer awareness campaign, Winehouse appeared in a revealing photograph for the April 2008 issue of Easy Living magazine. Winehouse had an estimated £10m fortune, tying her for tenth place in the 2008 The Sunday Times listing of the wealth of musicians under age 30. The following year her fortune had dropped to an estimated £5m. Her finances are run by Mitch and Janis Winehouse. It was reported she earned about £1m singing at two private parties during Paris Fashion Week. as well as another £1m to perform at a Moscow Art Gallery for Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich. Winehouse loaned a vintage dress used in her video for "Tears Dry on Their Own" as well as a DVD to the British Music Experience, a new museum dedicated to the history of British pop music. The museum, located at the O₂ Arena in London, opened on 9 March 2009.

In January 2009, Winehouse announced that she was launching her own record label. The first act on her Lioness Records is Winehouse's 13-year-old goddaughter, Dionne Bromfield. Her first album, featuring covers of classic soul records, was released on 12 October 2009. Winehouse is the backing singer on several tracks on the album and she performed backing vocals for Bromfield on the BBC's television programme Strictly Come Dancing on 10 October.

Winehouse and her family are the subject of a 2009 documentary shot by Daphne Barak titled Saving Amy. Winehouse entered into a joint venture in 2009 with EMI to launch a range of wrapping paper and gift cards containing song lyrics from her album Back to Black. On 8 January 2010, a television documentary, My Daughter Amy, aired on Channel 4. Saving Amy was released as a paperback book in January 2010.

Winehouse collaborated on a 17-piece fashion collection with the Fred Perry label. It was released for sale in October 2010. According to Fred Perry's marketing director "We had three major design meetings where she was closely involved in product style selection and the application of fabric, colour and styling details," and gave "crucial input on proportion, colour and fit." The collection consists of "vintage-inspired looks including Capri pants, a bowling dress, a trench coat, pencil skirts, a longline argyle sweater and a pink-and-black checkerboard-printed collared shirt." At the behest of her family, three forthcoming collections up to and including autumn/winter 2012 that she had designed prior to her death were released.

Awards and nominations

Among the awards and recognition for her debut album Frank, Winehouse earned an Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters for Best Contemporary Song (" Stronger Than Me"), a Brit Award nomination for Best British Female Solo Artist, and an inclusion in Robert Dimery's 2006 book, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Her second studio album, Back to Black, produced numerous nominations, including two Brit Awards (Best British Album, and won her Best British Female Solo Artist), six Grammy Awards (including five wins), four Ivor Novello Awards, four MTV Europe Music Awards, three MTV Video Music Awards, three World Music Awards, and it was nominated for the Mercury Prize (Album of the Year) and a MOBO Awards (Best UK Female). During her career, Winehouse received 23 awards from 60 nominations.

Critical appraisal

Winehouse was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul, (sometimes labelled as blue-eyed soul and neo soul), rhythm and blues, and jazz. The BBC's Garry Mulholland called Winehouse "the pre-eminent vocal talent of her generation". According to AllMusic's Cyril Cordor, she was one of the UK's premier singers during the 2000s; "fans and critics alike embraced her rugged charm, brash sense of humor, and distinctively soulful and jazzy vocals". In The Guardian, Caroline Sullivan later wrote that "her idolisation of Dinah Washington and the Ronettes distinguished her from almost all newly minted pop singers of the early 2000s; her exceptionally-susceptible-to-heartbreak voice did the rest". Soon after Winehouse's death, a number of prominent critics assessed the singer's legacy: Maura Johnston from The Village Voice said, "When she was on, Winehouse had few peers-she wasn't an octave-jumper like other big divas of the moment, but her contralto had a snap to it that enriched even the simplest syllables with a full spectrum of emotion"; Sasha Frere-Jones of The New Yorker proclaimed, "Nobody can match Winehouse's unique transitions or her utterly weird phrasings. She sounded like an original sixties soul star, developed when the landscape had no rules. But now untrammeled traditionalism is in the lead and her beautiful footnote has been cut short. American soul-through visionaries like Erykah Badu and Janelle Monáe and Jill Scott -had moved on. But Winehouse was a fine shepherd of the past."

By contrast, Robert Christgau dismissed Winehouse as "a self-aggrandizing self-abuser who's taken seriously because she makes a show of soul". In his opinion, the singer "simulated gravitas by running her suicidal tendencies through an amalgam of 20th-century African-American vocal stylings-the slides, growls, and melismatic outcries that for many matures are now the only reliable signifiers of pop substance".

On 13 February 2012, Winehouse was ranked 26th on VH1's 100 Greatest Women in Music list. In March 2017, singer-songwriter Bob Dylan said he was enjoying listening to Winehouse's last record ( Back to Black), and called her "the last real individualist around". In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Winehouse at number 83 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time.

Winehouse was influenced by soul girl groups such as the Ronettes, whose look she imitated.

Winehouse's greatest love was 1960s girl groups. Her hairdresser, Alex Foden, borrowed her "instantly recognisable" beehive hairdo (a weave) and she borrowed her Cleopatra makeup from the Ronettes. Her imitation was so successful, as The Village Voice reports: " Ronnie Spector-who, it could be argued, all but invented Winehouse's style in the first place when she took the stage at the Brooklyn Fox Theater with her fellow Ronettes more than 40 years ago-was so taken aback at a picture of Winehouse in the New York Post that she exclaimed, "I don't know her, I never met her, and when I saw that pic, I thought, 'That's me!' But then I found out, no, it's Amy! I didn't have on my glasses."

The New York Times style reporter, Guy Trebay, discussed the multiplicity of influences on Winehouse's style after her death. Trebay noted, "her stylish husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, may have influenced her look." Additionally, Trebay observed:

She was a 5-foot-3 almanac of visual reference, most famously to Ronnie Spector of The Ronettes, but also to the white British soul singer Mari Wilson, less famous for her sound than her beehive; to the punk god Johnny Thunders...; to the fierce council-house chicks... (see: Dior and Chanel runways, 2007 and 2008) ... to a lineage of bad girls, extending from Cleopatra to Louise Brooks's Lulu and including Salt-n-Pepa, to irresistible man traps that always seemed to come to the same unfortunate end.

Former Rolling Stone editor Joe Levy, who had put her on the magazine's cover, broke her look down this way:

Just as her best music drew on sampling - assembling sonic licks and stylistic fragments borrowed from Motown, Stax, punk and early hip-hop - her personal style was also a knowing collage. There was a certain moment in the '90s when, if you were headed downtown and turned left, every girl looked like Bettie Page. But they did not do what Winehouse did, mixing Bettie Page with Brigitte Bardot and adding that little bit of Ronnie Spector.

Winehouse's use of bold red lipstick, thick eyebrows and heavy eyeliner came from Latinas she saw in Miami, on her trip there to work with Salaam Remi on Back to Black. Her look was repeatedly denigrated by the British press. At the same time that the NME Awards nominated Winehouse in the categories of "Best Solo Artist" and "Best Music DVD" in 2008, they awarded her "Worst Dressed Performer". Winehouse was also ranked number two on Richard Blackwell's 48th annual "Ten Worst Dressed Women" list, behind Victoria Beckham.

Controversies

Winehouse's dichotomous public image of critical and commercial success versus personal turmoil prompted significant media comment. The New Statesman called Winehouse "a filthy-mouthed, down-to-earth diva", while called her "a perfect storm of sex kitten, raw talent and poor impulse control". Karen Heller with The Philadelphia Inquirer summarised the maelstrom this way:

She's only 24 with six Grammy nominations, crashing headfirst into success and despair, with a codependent husband in jail, exhibitionist parents with questionable judgement, and the paparazzi documenting her emotional and physical distress. Meanwhile, a haute designer Karl Lagerfeld appropriates her dishevelled style and eating issues to market to the elite while proclaiming her the new Bardot.

By 2008, her drug problems threatened her career. As Nick Gatfield, the president of Island Records, toyed with the idea of releasing Winehouse "to deal with her problems", he said, "It's a reflection of her status [in the US] that when you flick through the TV coverage [of the Grammys] it's her image they use." Post-Grammys, some questioned whether Winehouse should have been honoured with the awards given her recent personal and drug problems, including Natalie Cole, who introduced Winehouse at the ceremony and who herself battled substance-abuse problems while winning a Grammy for Best New Artist in 1975. (Winehouse was prevented from travelling to and performing at the Grammy Awards ceremony in the US due to failing a drug test.) In a newspaper commentary, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said that the alleged drug habits of Winehouse and other celebrities sent a bad message "to others who are vulnerable to addiction" and undermine the efforts of other celebrities trying to raise awareness of problems in Africa, now that more cocaine used in Europe passes through that continent. Winehouse's spokesperson noted that "Amy has never given a quote about drugs or flaunted it in any way. She's had some problems and is trying to get better. The U.N. should get its own house in order."

In January 2008, her record label stated it believed the extensive media coverage she had received increased record sales. In an April 2008 poll conducted by Sky News, Winehouse was named the second-greatest "ultimate heroine" by the UK population at large, topping the voting for that category of those polled under 25 years old. Psychologist Donna Dawson commented that the results demonstrated that women like Winehouse who had "a certain sense of vulnerability or have had to fight against some adversity in their lives" received recognition.

In July 2008, BBC Radio Scotland's head, Jeff Zycinski, stated that the BBC, and media in general, were complicit in undermining celebrities, including Winehouse. He said that public interest in the singer's lifestyle did not make her lifestyle newsworthy. Rod McKenzie, editor of the BBC Radio One programme , replied: "If you play [Amy Winehouse's] music to a certain demographic, those same people want to know what's happening in her private life. If you don't cover it, you're insulting young licence fee payers." In The Scotsman, British singer and songwriter Lily Allen was quoted to have said - "I know Amy Winehouse very well. And she is very different to what people portray her as being. Yes, she does get out of her mind on drugs sometimes, but she is also a very clever, intelligent, witty, funny person who can hold it together. You just don't see that side."

Charity work

Throughout her life Winehouse donated her money, music and time to many charities, particularly those concerned with children. She was once named "the most charitable act" by . While this side of her personality was never well known to the general public, throughout both the arts community and the charity community she was known for her generosity.

In 2008, Winehouse appeared naked in an issue of Easy Living Magazine to raise awareness of breast cancer. In 2009, she appeared on a CD called Classics alongside musicians such as the Rolling Stones, the Killers and many Cuban musicians to raise awareness of climate change. In March 2011, Winehouse donated over £20,000 worth of clothes to a local charity shop in London.

A Caribbean man Julian Jean DeBaptiste revealed that Winehouse had paid for his urgent surgery costing £4,000 during her stay in Saint Lucia in 2009. "I had surgery on 1 July 2009... it cost a fortune and Amy paid for the whole thing. I tried to thank her but she just hugged me and told me not to say anything. Her generosity gave me my life back."

Personal life

Winehouse with her Star of David medallion in 2008

Winehouse was raised Jewish and expressed pride in being Jewish, although she was not religious. During one interview, Winehouse said "being Jewish to me is about being together as a real family. It's not about lighting candles and saying a bracha." Winehouse also frequently performed with a large Star of David medallion.

In 2013, in memory of Winehouse, the Jewish Museum London ran an exhibition titled "Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait". The museum researched her paternal great-great-grandfather's arrival from Minsk in 1890, and how the family finally settled in London, starting out in working-class jobs before gradually moving to middle-class jobs.

Winehouse had 14 known tattoos, including "Daddy's Girl" on her left arm for her father and a pin-up girl with the name "Cynthia" on her right arm in memory of her Jewish grandmother.

Relationships

Winehouse dated chef-musician Alex Clare in 2006, while on a break from her on-off boyfriend and future husband, Blake Fielder-Civil. She and Clare lived together briefly, and in a pattern that Fielder-Civil would later repeat, Clare sold his story to the News of the World, which published it under the headline "Bondage Crazed Amy Just Can't Beehive in Bed."

Fielder-Civil, a former video production assistant, had dropped out of Bourne Grammar School and, aged 16, moved to London from his native Lincolnshire. He married Winehouse on 18 May 2007, in Miami Beach, Florida. In a June 2007 interview, Winehouse admitted she could sometimes be violent toward him after she had been drinking, saying: "If he says one thing I don't like, then I'll chin him." In August 2007, they were photographed, bloodied and bruised, in the streets of London after an alleged fight, although she contended her injuries were self-inflicted. Winehouse's parents and in-laws publicly reported their numerous concerns, the latter citing fears that the two might commit suicide. Fielder-Civil's father encouraged fans to boycott Winehouse's music, and Mitch Winehouse said this would not help. Fielder-Civil was quoted in a British tabloid as saying he introduced Winehouse to crack cocaine and heroin. During a visit with Mitch Winehouse at the prison in July 2008, Fielder-Civil reportedly said that he and Winehouse would cut themselves to ease the pain of withdrawal.

From 21 July 2008 to 25 February 2009, Fielder-Civil was imprisoned following his guilty plea on charges of trying to pervert the course of justice and of grievous bodily harm with intent. The incident, in July 2007, involved his assault of a pub landlord that broke the victim's cheek. According to the prosecution, the landlord accepted £200,000 as part of a deal to "effectively throw the [court] case and not turn up", and he testified that the money belonged to Winehouse, but she pulled out of a meeting with the men involved in the plot, to attend an awards ceremony. Mitch Winehouse, as manager of his daughter's money, has denied the payoff came from her.

When Winehouse was spotted with aspiring actor Josh Bowman on holiday in Saint Lucia, in early January 2009, she said she was "in love again, and I don't need drugs." She commented that her "whole marriage was based on doing drugs" and that "for the time being I've just forgotten I'm even married." On 12 January, Winehouse's spokesman confirmed that "papers have been received" for what Fielder-Civil's solicitor said were divorce proceedings based on a claim of adultery. In March, Winehouse was quoted in a magazine as saying, "I still love Blake and I want him to move into my new house with me-that was my plan all along ... I won't let him divorce me. He's the male version of me and we're perfect for each other." Nonetheless, an uncontested divorce was granted on 16 July 2009 and became final on 28 August 2009. Fielder-Civil received no money in the settlement.

She was in a relationship with a British writer and director of films, Reg Traviss, from early 2010 until she died. According to media reports and a biography written by Winehouse's father, Traviss and Winehouse had planned to marry and intended to have children.

After Winehouse's death, Pete Doherty said that he and Winehouse had been lovers at one point. However, in July 2008, when Rolling Stone reporter Claire Hoffman asked Winehouse about her relationship with Doherty, Winehouse replied: "We're just good friends", and added: "I asked Pete to do a concept EP, and he made this face, he looked at me like I'd pooed on the floor. He wouldn't do it. We're just really close".

Substance abuse and mental illness

Winehouse's battles with substance abuse were the subject of much media attention. In 2005, she went through a period of drinking, heavy drug use, and weight loss. People who saw her during the end of that year and early 2006 reported a rebound that coincided with the writing of Back to Black. Her family believes that the mid-2006 death of her grandmother, who was a stabilising influence, set her off into addiction. In August 2007, Winehouse cancelled a number of shows in the UK and Europe, citing exhaustion and ill health. She was hospitalised during this period for what was reported as an overdose of heroin, ecstasy, cocaine, ketamine and alcohol. In various interviews, she admitted to having problems with self-harm, depression, and eating disorders.

Winehouse told a magazine that the drugs were to blame for her hospitalisation and that "I really thought that it was over for me then." Soon afterwards, Winehouse's father commented that when he had made public statements regarding her problems he was using the media because it seemed the only way to get through to her. In an interview with The Album Chart Show on British television, Winehouse said she was manic depressive and not alcoholic, adding that that sounded like "an alcoholic in denial". A US reporter writes that Winehouse was a "victim of mental illness in a society that doesn't understand or respond to mental illness with great effectiveness." According to Forensic physician Dr Jason Payne-James, Winehouse may have been suffered borderline personality disorder. He explained she shows some symptoms for disorder such as extreme reactions to trauma like abandonment (when described as a symptom "frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment"), impulsive or reckless behaviors like substance use disorders, binge eating, recurrent suicidal ideation, self cutting or self harm, rapidly shifting intense emotional dysregulation, chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom, unstable and chaotic interpersonal relationships, often characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation, also known as "splitting", inappropriate, intense anger that can be difficult to control. Before her death Winehouse had been examined by a psychiatrist and psychologist and doctors recommended that she undergo dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT). DBT is based upon the biosocial theory of mental illness and is the first therapy that has been experimentally demonstrated to be generally effective in treating borderline personality disorder (BPD).

In December 2007, Winehouse's spokesman reported that the singer was in a physician-supervised programme and was channelling her difficulties by writing a lot of music. The British tabloid posted a video of a woman, alleged to be Winehouse, apparently smoking crack cocaine and speaking of having taken ecstasy and valium. Winehouse's father moved in with her, and Island Records, her record label, announced the abandonment of plans for an American promotion campaign on her behalf. On 23 January 2008, the video was passed on to the Metropolitan Police, who questioned her on 5 February. No charges were brought. In late January, Winehouse reportedly entered a rehabilitation facility for a two-week treatment program. On 26 March, Winehouse's spokesman said she was "doing well". Her record company reportedly believed that her recovery remained fragile. By late April 2008, her erratic behaviour-including an allegation of assault-caused fear that her drug rehabilitation efforts had been unsuccessful. Winehouse's father and manager then sought to have her detained under the Mental Health Act of 1983. Her dishevelled appearance during and after a scheduled club night in September 2008 prompted new rumours of a relapse. Photographers were quoted as saying she appeared to have cuts on her arms and legs.

According to her physician, Winehouse quit using illegal substances in 2008. In an October 2010 interview, speaking of her decision to quit drugs, Winehouse said, "I literally woke up one day and was like, 'I don't want to do this any more.'" However, alcohol emerged as a problem, with Winehouse abstaining for a few weeks and then lapsing into alcohol abuse. Her physician said that Winehouse was treated with Librium for alcohol withdrawal and anxiety and underwent psychological and psychiatric evaluations in 2010, but refused psychological therapy.

Violence and legal difficulties

In 2006, Winehouse admitted to punching a female fan in the face for criticising her having taken Blake Fielder-Civil as a husband. She then attacked her own spouse as he attempted to calm her down, kneeing him in the crotch. In October 2007, Winehouse and Fielder-Civil were arrested in Bergen, Norway, for possession of seven grams of cannabis. The couple were later released and fined 3850 kroner (around £350). Winehouse first appealed the fines, but later dropped the appeal.

On 26 April 2008, Winehouse was cautioned after she admitted to police she slapped a 38-year-old man in the face, a " common assault" offence, her first of two. She voluntarily turned herself in and was held overnight. Police said, at her arrival she was "in no fit state" to be interviewed. Ten days later, Winehouse was arrested on suspicion of possessing drugs after a video of her apparently smoking crack cocaine was passed to the police in January, but was released on bail a few hours later because they could not confirm, from the video, what she was smoking. The Crown Prosecution Service considered charging her, but cleared her when it could not establish that the substance in the video was a controlled drug. Some members of Parliament reacted negatively. Two London residents were subsequently charged with conspiracy to supply cocaine and ecstasy to Winehouse. One of the pair was sentenced to two years in prison on 13 December 2008, while the other received a two-year community order.

On 5 March 2009, Winehouse was arrested and charged with common assault following a claim by dancer Sherene Flash that Winehouse hit her in the eye at the September 2008 Prince's Trust charity ball. Winehouse's spokesperson announced the cancellation of the singer's US Coachella Festival appearance in light of the new legal issue, and Winehouse appeared in court on 17 March to enter her plea of not guilty. On 23 July, her trial began with prosecutor Lyall Thompson charging that Winehouse acted with "deliberate and unjustifiable violence" while appearing to be under the influence of alcohol or another substance. She testified that she did not punch Flash, but tried to push her away because she was scared of her; she cited her worry that Flash would sell her story to a tabloid, Flash's height advantage, and Flash's "rude" behaviour. On 24 July, District Judge Timothy Workman ruled that Winehouse was not guilty, citing the facts that all but two of the witnesses were intoxicated at the time of the incident and that medical evidence did not show "the sort of injury that often occurs when there is a forceful punch to the eye."

On 19 December 2009, Winehouse was arrested for a third time on charges of common assault, plus another charge of public order offence after assaulting the front-of-house manager of the Milton Keynes Theatre after he asked her to move from her seat. Winehouse pled guilty to the charges and was given a conditional discharge.

With the paparazzi taking photographs of her wherever they could, Winehouse obtained an injunction against a leading paparazzi agency, Big Pictures, under the Protection from Harassment Act 1997; the resultant court order issued by the High Court in 2009 banned them from following her. Photographers were also banned from following her within 100 metres of her London home and photographing Winehouse in her home or the homes of her friends and relatives. According to a newspaper report, sources close to the singer said legal action was taken out of concern for the safety of Winehouse and those close to her.

Respiratory and other health problems

On 23 June 2008, Winehouse's publicist corrected earlier misstatements by Mitch Winehouse that his daughter had early stage emphysema, instead claiming she had signs of what could lead to early-stage emphysema. Mitch Winehouse had also stated that his daughter's lungs were operating at 70 percent capacity and that she had an irregular heartbeat. He said that these problems had been caused by her chain smoking crack cocaine. The singer's father also reported that doctors had warned Winehouse that, if she continued smoking crack cocaine, she would have to wear an oxygen mask and would eventually die. In a radio interview, Mitch Winehouse said the singer was responding "fabulously" to treatment, which included being covered with nicotine patches. British Lung Foundation spokesman Keith Prowse noted this type of condition could be managed with treatment. Prowse also said the condition was not normal for a person her age but "heavy smoking and inhaling other substances like drugs can age the lungs prematurely." Norman H. Edelman of the American Lung Association explained that if she stopped smoking, her lung functions would decline at the rate of a normal person, but continued smoking would lead to a more rapid decline in lung function.

Winehouse was released from the London Clinic 24 hours after returning from a temporary leave to perform at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday and at a concert in Glastonbury, and continued receiving treatment as an outpatient. In July 2008, Winehouse stated that she had been diagnosed with "some areas of emphysema" and said she was getting herself together by "eating loads of healthy food, sleeping loads, playing my guitar, making music and writing letters to my husband every day." She also kept a vertical tanning bed in her flat. Winehouse began precautionary testing on her lungs and chest on 25 October 2008 at the London Clinic for what was reported as a chest infection. Winehouse was in and out of the facility and was granted permission to set her own schedule regarding home leave. She returned to the hospital on 23 November 2008 for a reported reaction to her medication.

Winehouse's bodyguard said that he had arrived at her residence three days before her death and felt she had been somewhat intoxicated. He observed moderate drinking over the next few days, and said she had been "laughing, listening to music and watching TV at 2 a.m. the day of her death". At 10 a.m. BST on 23 July 2011, he observed her lying on her bed and tried (unsuccessfully) to rouse her. This did not raise much suspicion because she usually slept late after a night out. According to the bodyguard, shortly after 3p.m., he checked on her again and observed her lying in the same position as before, leading to a further check, in which he concluded that she was not breathing and had no pulse; he said he called emergency services. At 3:54p.m., two ambulances reached Winehouse's home in Camden, London. Winehouse was pronounced dead at the scene. Shortly afterwards, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that she had died. Her death at age 27 prompted media comparisons to other musician deaths at the same age, collectively named the 27 Club.

After her death was announced, media and camera crews appeared near Winehouse's residence to pay their respects. Forensic investigators entered the flat as police cordoned off the street outside; they recovered one small and two large bottles of vodka from her room. After her death, the singer broke her second Guinness World Record: for the most songs by a woman to simultaneously appear on the UK singles chart, with eight.

A coroner's inquest reached a verdict of misadventure. The report released on 26 October 2011 explained that Winehouse's blood alcohol content was 416 per 100 (0.416%) at the time of her death, more than five times the legal drink-drive limit. According to the coroner, "The unintended consequences of such potentially fatal levels was her sudden death."

Romanian singers Rona Hartner, Paula Seling, Nico and Maria Radu performing at a memorial Amy Winehouse concert in Bucharest on 23 October 2011

Winehouse's record label, Universal Republic, released a statement that read in part: "We are deeply saddened at the sudden loss of such a gifted musician, artist and performer." Many musical artists have since paid tribute to Winehouse including U2, M.I.A., Lady Gaga, Marianne Faithfull, Ronnie Spector, Bruno Mars, Nicki Minaj, Keisha Buchanan, Rihanna, George Michael, Adele, Kelly Clarkson, Courtney Love, and the rock band Green Day, who wrote a song in her tribute titled " Amy". In her 2012 album , singer Patti Smith released "This Is the Girl", written as an homage to Winehouse. Mark Ronson dedicated his UK number-one album Uptown Special to Winehouse, stating: "I'm always thinking of you and inspired by you." Winehouse did not leave a will; her estate was inherited by her parents. Winehouse's parents set up the Amy Winehouse Foundation to prevent harm from drug misuse among young people; her brother Alex is an employee.

On 17 December 2012, British authorities reopened the probe into Winehouse's death. On 8 January 2013, a second inquest confirmed that Winehouse died of an accidental alcohol overdose. In a June 2013 interview, Alex Winehouse revealed his belief that his sister's eating disorder, and the consequent physical weakness, was the primary cause of her death:

She suffered from bulimia very badly. That's not, like, a revelation - you knew just by looking at her... She would have died eventually, the way she was going, but what really killed her was the bulimia... I think that it left her weaker and more susceptible. Had she not had an eating disorder, she would have been physically stronger.

Family and friends attended Winehouse's private funeral on 26 July 2011 at Edgwarebury Lane Cemetery in North London. Her mother and father, Janis and Mitch Winehouse, close friends Nick Grimshaw and Kelly Osbourne, producer Mark Ronson, goddaughter Dionne Bromfield and her boyfriend Reg Traviss were among those in attendance at the private service led by Rabbi Frank Hellner. Her father delivered the eulogy, saying "Goodnight, my angel, sleep tight. Mummy and Daddy love you ever so much." Carole King's " So Far Away" closed the service with mourners singing along. She was later cremated at Golders Green Crematorium. The family planned to sit a two-day shiva. On 16 September 2012, Winehouse's ashes were buried alongside her grandmother's, Cynthia Levy at Edgwarebury Lane Cemetery.

Legacy and honours

Artwork and tributes

London's Mall Galleries opened an exhibition in May 2008 that included a sculpture of Winehouse, titled Excess. The piece, created by Guy Portelli, had a miniature of the singer lying on top of a cracked champagne bottle, with a pool of spilled liquid underneath. The body was covered with what appeared to be tiny pills, while one outstretched hand held a glass. Another piece, a print titled Celebrity 1 by artist Charlotte Suckling, was shown in the same exhibition.

A wax sculpture of Winehouse went on display at the London Madame Tussauds on 23 July 2008. The singer did not attend the unveiling, although her parents did. A sculpture by Marco Perego, titled The Only Good Rock Star Is a Dead Rock Star, that depicts Winehouse lying in a pool of blood with an apple and a bullet hole in her head after being shot by American novelist and Beat poet William S. Burroughs (in a recreation of the accidental killing of his wife Joan Vollmer), was scheduled to go on display in New York's Half Gallery on 14 November 2008 with a sale price of US$100,000. Perego said of the sculpture: "Rock stars are the sacrificial animals of society." Winehouse's spokesperson stated: "It's a funny kind of tribute. The artist seems in thrall to a tabloid persona that is not the real Amy. People often use her image to sell their work."

In 2012, Winehouse was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Sir Peter Blake to appear in a new version of his most famous artwork - the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover - to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life that he most admires.

On 14 September 2014 (which would have been Winehouse's 31st birthday), a statue was unveiled of her, which was created by sculptor Scott Eaton, at Stables Market in Camden Town, north London. Fans and relatives gathered for the unveiling in Camden's Stable Market, where it will be a permanent memorial to her. London-based Eaton, who sculpted the piece after being introduced to Winehouse's father Mitch, said the statue was meant to capture her "attitude and strength, but also give subtle hints of insecurity." Her father Mitch said of the statue: "Now Amy will oversee the comings and goings of her home town forever... Amy was in love with Camden and it is the place her fans from all over the world associate her with."

In 2018 the artist Dan Llywelyn Hall's portrait of the singer 'Amy's Glance' was exhibited at The London Art Fair

In March 2020, Winehouse's name on a stone was unveiled on the new Music Walk of Fame in Camden, with her parents Mitch and Janis in attendance at the ceremony.

Adele has credited Winehouse's success in making her and fellow British singer Duffy's journey to the United States "a bit smoother." Lady Gaga credited Winehouse with paving the way for her rise to the top of the charts, explaining that Winehouse made it easier for unconventional women to have mainstream pop success. Raphael Saadiq, Anthony Hamilton and John Legend said "Amy Winehouse was produced by people who wanted to create a marketing coup. The positive side is that it reacquainted an audience with this music and played an introductory role for others. This reinvigorated the genre by overcoming the vintage aspect."

After the release of Back to Black, record companies sought out female artists with a similar sound and fearless and experimental female musicians in general. Adele and Duffy were the second wave of artists with a sound similar to Winehouse's. A third wave of female musicians that has emerged since the album was released are led by V V Brown, Florence and the Machine, La Roux and Little Boots. In March 2011, the New York Daily News ran an article attributing the continuing wave of British female artists that have been successful in the United States to Winehouse and her absence. magazine music editor Charles Aaron was quoted as saying "Amy Winehouse was the Nirvana moment for all these women," "They can all be traced back to her in terms of attitude, musical styles or fashion." According to Keith Caulfield, chart manager for Billboard, "Because of Amy, or the lack thereof, the marketplace was able to get singers like Adele, Estelle and Duffy," "Now those ladies have brought on the new ones, like Eliza Doolittle, Rumer and Ellie."

Amy Winehouse Foundation

After the singer's death by alcohol intoxication in July 2011, the Amy Winehouse Foundation was set up by Winehouse's family and launched on 14 September 2011 (which would have been Winehouse's 28th birthday). Its aim is to help vulnerable or disadvantaged young people, and it works with other charitable organisations to provide frontline support. Its central office is in North London, but it also has an office in New York (operating under the name 'The Amy Winehouse Foundation US'). Jon Snow is a patron for the charity, with Barbara Windsor also before she died in 2020, and ambassadors include Jess Glynne, Patsy Palmer, Jessie Wallace, Keira Chaplin and Mica Paris. In October 2015 Mark Ronson became a patron. Amy's brother Alex works full-time for the foundation, having given up his career as an online music journalist.

The charity itself works to prevent the effects of drug and alcohol misuse on young people and it also aims to support, inform and inspire vulnerable and disadvantaged young people to help them reach their full potential. On 12 March 2013, with the help of ex-addict Russell Brand, the Foundation launched the Amy Winehouse Foundation Resilience Programme For Schools across the UK which aims to provide effective education around drugs, alcohol and dealing with emotional issues.

Documentary film

A documentary film, (2015), directed by Asif Kapadia and produced by James Gay-Rees was released on 3 July 2015. The film covers Winehouse's life, her relationships, her struggles with substance abuse both before and after her career blossomed, and which eventually caused her death. The film received its première at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival on 16 May and has been reviewed as "a tragic masterpiece", "brilliant", "heartbreaking" and "unmissable". The soundtrack of the same name was released on 30 October 2015, along with the DVD that includes music featured in the documentary by film composer Antônio Pinto and classic and some unreleased tracks by Winehouse. The film was highly acclaimed and received various accolades, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature at the 2016 Oscars, Best Music Film at the 2016 Grammy Awards, the BAFTA for Best Documentary, the MTV Movie Award for Best Documentary, in addition to a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best British Film.

Biopic film

In October 2018, it was announced that Winehouse's estate had signed a deal to make a biopic about her life and career.

In July 2022, it was reported that the feature film entitled Back To Black will be produced by StudioCanal UK, distributed by Focus Features and directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson who previously created a biopic based on The Beatles star John Lennon, Nowhere Boy (2009) and Fifty Shades of Grey (2015). The script was written by Matt Greenhalgh and the release date is yet to be announced. In January 2023, it was revealed that British actress Marisa Abela would play the leading role of Winehouse and filming commenced later that month in London.

On 9 October 2017, it was announced by Winehouse's father Mitch that a West End/ Broadway musical on Amy is in the works. Mitch Winehouse revealed the news at the Amy Winehouse Foundation Gala event in London.

Posthumous retrospectives

Winehouse's parents have each written memoirs about their daughter and donated the proceeds from both books to the Amy Winehouse Foundation. In the introduction to Mitch Winehouse's biography, entitled Amy: My Daughter (2012), he explained: "Apart from being her father, I was also her friend, confidant and adviser-not that she always took my advice, but she always heard me out." Her mother Janis published Loving Amy: A Mother's Story, in 2014.

An exhibit of Winehouse's personal items, co-curated by her brother and sister-in-law, entitled Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait, was on display at the Jewish Museum London from 3 July 2013 until 15 September 2013, and later exhibited in San Francisco, 23 July 2015 to 1 November 2015. Display items, such as books and music, were featured together with captions written by Winehouse's brother.

In late 2011, there were reports that Winehouse's former boyfriend, Reg Traviss, was developing a film about her. Winehouse's father Mitch Winehouse, who owns the copyright to his daughter's music, said he would not authorise the use of her music for the film.

Winehouse is the subject of (2015), a documentary directed by Asif Kapadia and produced by James Gay-Rees, Kapadia, and Universal Music. Kapadia and Gay-Rees introduced the project at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. The film debuted at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival and won the 2016 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 2018, a documentary film based on Winehouse's albumBack to Black, Amy Winehouse - Back to Black was released. It contains new interviews as well as archival footage. It was made by Eagle Vision and produced by Gil Cang. Released on DVD on 2 November 2018, the film features interviews by producers Ronson & Remi, who worked half and half on the album, along with the Dap Kings, Remi's music team, Ronnie Spector from the Ronettes and close ones to Winehouse, including Nick Shymansky, Juliette Ashby and Dionne Bromfield. The film is accompanied by An Intimate Evening in London, footage of a show Winehouse gave at Riverside Studios, London in 2008. In February 2019, Salaam Remi released a compilation album including the song "Find My Love" which is a posthumous collaboration between Winehouse and rapper Nas.

In 2020, an exhibition entitled Beyond Black - The Style of Amy Winehouse opened at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles. The exhibit mainly explores Winehouse's style and fashion, displaying her outfits such as her iconic dresses, shoes, hair accessories, her makeup bag as well as Winehouse's personal belongings including her Grammy awards from 2008, handwritten lyrics, records and unseen home videos. The exhibition went on display in the U.S. from 17 January 2020 until 13 April 2020. In November 2021, various of Winehouse's personal items and famous dresses would later be auctioned at Julien's Auctions in Los Angeles and made more than £3m, 30% going to the Amy Winehouse Foundation. A follow-up exhibition Amy: Beyond the Stage opened on 26 November 2021 until 10 April 2022 at the Design Museum in Kensington, London which also presented some of Winehouse's personal belongings and focus on her fashion sense, as well as paying homage to her musical career.

In July 2021, a new documentary entitled Reclaiming Amy aired on BBC Two to mark the 10th anniversary of Winehouse's death. The film was primarily based on the perspective and narrated by her mother Janis Winehouse-Collins and included intimate stories of those who were close to Winehouse until the end of her life, including close friends Naomi Parry (Winehouse's stylist), Catriona Gourlay and Chantelle Dusette.

Discography

Filmography

References

Further reading

External links

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Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 - 23 July 2011) was an English singer and songwriter. She was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul, rhythm and blues, reggae and jazz.

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Asif Kapadia is a British filmmaker. His early award-winning films include The Sheep Thief, winner of the 2nd Prize Cinéfondation for Short Film at the Canne...

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Find out everything Empire knows about Asif Kapadia. Discover the latest Asif Kapadia news.

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Asif Kapadia, Director: The Warrior. Academy award and four time BAFTA award winning Director / Writer / Producer Asif Kapadia is known for his visually striking films exploring characters living in timeless, extreme and unforgiving landscapes. His films have been box office successes around the world as well as being critically lauded and awarded internationally.

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Editor Chris King & Producer James Gay-Rees Interview - 'Amy' (Amy Winehouse Documentary)

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Editor Chris King - Amy (Winehouse) Premiere

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Chris King · BIFA · British Independent Film Awards

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Chris King is a film editor known for his work on Banksy documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop and Asif Kapadia's Senna and Amy, for which he was nominated for an Outstanding Achievement in Craft...

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Chris King, Editor: Senna. Chris King is known for his work on Senna (2010), Amy (2015) and Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010).

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According to Chris King 90% of all the footage used on the film is digital with a considerable amount of that amateur recording in a variety of differing file types. In order to create a unified image King and Kapadia manipulated the digital images by adding layers of effects in order to create something “that felt like a single film, rather than a collection of random clips.” (King BFI online 14 th of July 2015)

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Gay-Rees was first approached about making a documentary about Amy Winehouse by Winehouse’s record company Universal Records in 2012. In 2013 a press release from Universal announced that there was to be a film about Winehouse to be realised in 2015 and that the team responsible for Senna (2010) will be involved in its production. For Kapadia this meant he was able to work with the same producer (James Gay-Rees) and editor (Chris King) as he had previously worked with on Senna.

Gay-Rees and Kapadia were able to get access to several of Winehouse’s family members, friends, producers and musicians who had worked with the singer. These were combined with both amateur and professional videos and photographs to give a in-depth and candid account of all aspects of Winehouse’s life.

The film was a co-produced by Krishwerkz Entertainment, On The Corner Films, Playmaker Films, and Universal Music, in association with Film 4. The total budget for the film was $3.4 Million.

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Won 1 Oscar. Another 50 wins & 44 nominations. See more awards "

Storyline

A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs. Written by grantss

Taglines:

The girl behind the name.

Details

Release Date:

3 July 2015 (USA)

Also Known As:

Amy (la chica detrás del nombre)

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,780,000, 10 July 2015, Limited Release

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$23,778,585

Company Credits

Technical Specs

See full technical specs "

Did You Know?

Trivia

After watching this film, James Hetfield of Metallica was inspired to write a song called "Moth into Flame". See more "

Goofs

Instead of putting Amy's Belgrade concert, filmmakers made mistake and the big zoom out was concert of Jelena Karleusa, Serbian pop/folk singer and not Amy's. See more "

Quotes

: She had one of the most pure relationships to music. Such an emotional relationship to music. It's like she needed music, as if it was a person, and that she would die for it.
See more "

Soundtracks

Detachment
Written by Amy Winehouse, Pete Lewinson, Steve Lewinson
Performed by Amy Winehouse
Published by EMI Music Publshing Ltd / Copyright Control
Licensed courtesy of Steve & Pete Lewinson
See more "

User Reviews

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Won 1 Oscar. Another 50 wins & 44 nominations. See more awards " A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.

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Interview With Asif Kapadai, Director of 2015 Amy Winehouse Documentary "Amy"

Kapadai's Amy Winehouse Documentary Was Recently Nominated for a 2016 Academy Award

Web Exclusive

While researching his intimately haunting documentary about Amy Winehouse, Asif Kapadia's editing suite looked more like the workplace of a detective than that of a director. The 43-year-old documentarian, lauded for his work on the film Senna about the titular Brazilian motor-racing champion, was taking an equally exhaustive approach with Amy, his new project, devoting an entire wall of the studio to photos and Post-it notes that outlined the Grammy winning singer's rise to fame and tragic descent into addiction and overdose. While he meant for that timeline to help him forge the film's plot, it eventually became far more indispensable than that.

"We invited anyone from Amy's life that I wanted to interview to the studio to meet the research team, my editor, to see my editing suite, to help ease the tension," Kapadia says, during a recent interview with Under the Radar, of the loved ones who'd grown deeply wary of journalists because so many had exploited Winehouse during her most debaucherous, vulnerable moments. However, those doubts were quelled for Nick Shymansky, the singer's first manager when he saw the detailed timeline Kapadia had pieced together on the suite's wall. Kapadia says the chart was "a visual way for me to look at the story, with a list of names, my way of working things out. But it also looked like a bad cop movie, where they are trying to connect all the dots. But Nick told me afterwards that was a big turning point for him, when he realised the proper time we were putting into it."
Tell us more about why Amy's family and friends were so reluctant to speak with you initially.
Below, Kapadia tells us more about encouraging Winehouse's loved ones to open up, how telling her story wore on his psyche, and more, on the film recently and rightly nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2016 Academy Awards.
That degree of patience and meticulousness is pretty unique. But what else sets Amy apart, aside from the arduous process it took to get it made? How does the final product stand out?
Because the press had hounded her before she died. And her loved ones just assumed I was another one of those people, coming along and trying to exploit her. It was a really long journey to earn people's trust and explain to them "I'm not here to take anyone's side, I'm not here with an agenda." I had an opportunity to make this film and it intrigued me. There's a story there that hasn't been told properly, so I wanted to get into it. But going into it I didn't know anything. It took a long time, some people took a year to speak to me, others a year and a half. I'd made it clear the film would not be complete until they had spoken to me.

Well, I used what I call a true fiction structural style for both Amy and Senna. That's because, for me, making films is about being as cinematic and visual as possible. So you don't take the audience out of the movie. Anything that's done that makes you aware you're watching a film, or feels fake, takes me out of the film. And I feel like documentaries are the same as fiction in that way. So cutting to a talking head, during this amazing achieve footage I've found, is problematic. I couldn't talk to Senna, in the same way i couldn't interview Amy. So everyone I interview will be speaking about her, whereas I want to make the film from the lead character's point of view, looking out so you see what they see and feel what they feel. Other people may add to it, but it's not about them. Also, I don't want the audience to think about anything but the present, particularly with a story like Senna or Amy, where the story ended tragically, some people might know the end, but I don't want people to think about that, I want them to enjoy the high points and the lows, and if you don't know the ending I don't want to give it away. It's about what's the best way to tell this story, and if the best way is from archive footage, that's what i'm going to use.
Once you convinced them to take part, you wound up doing 100 interviews, and editing them for 20 months. You've said before that, after awhile, you were almost correcting interviewees and realising they had been lying or misremembering things.
With Amy, this was a slightly different process than Senna. Nobody wanted to be part of the film, so I decided only to do audio interviews at first, because I wanted them to trust me. And once they trusted me they'd understand that actually this film could be something quite positive. It was a way of getting all the pain out. Because her loved ones are carrying all this anger and guilt and frustration about what happened. So this is a way to talk about it, once they feel safe about it. So once they trusted me, they let me know: "You know what, I got some home videos, some photos," and other material that had been very personal to them. They'd been protecting it from anyone else's eyes, and only after they'd spoken to me over a long period were they happy to share it. I didn't even know it existed when I first interviewed them.

Yes, that happened with both Amy and Senna. I'd think: "Ok, I now find myself listening to someone and they are talking about a person or event, and they have their wires crossed a bit." I'd trust them that they're not doing it on purpose. Some people might have. But most of the time it's jus that your memory gets fuzzy, you remember something and it doesn't add up with what the other nine people told me about that event, or what the footage tells me. So I would find myself correcting them.
Is that part of what made the story so compelling for you?
But, with the people that knew Amy, there'd be people I trusted who had a massive distrust of somebody else I'd met, they just assumed they were the bad guys enabling Amy and giving her the bad stuff. Then I'd meet this other person and realize they all had so much in common, they all cared about her, they all wanted to do the best for her. But for whatever reason, at no point was there a proper intervention that brought everyone together. They were all too busy fighting amongst one another, and Amy was in the middle. And maybe that's something Amy facilitated. The nature of it was that she kept everyone apart, she had lots of different compartments that she had everyone in. And in each compartment everyone felt they were her best friend. In the end, people were arguing amongst themselves so much they forgot to help the person who needed it in the middle.

It's what made it so stressful. It was really, a quite tough and very psychologically difficult film to be making, because of all the pain people were under. It's a pretty dark story, the film's pretty heavy. The highs are really high and the dark stuff is really dark. But, for the people I spoke to, the experience was like therapy. I could see when I met them that they were really in trouble, and their lives were getting ruined. They're all quite young still, only hitting 30 now. And they all said just the experience of meeting someone who let them say their peace and talk to them, meeting someone who wanted to reveal who the real Amy was and what had actually gone on, suddenly meant they felt free to come to terms with what had happened.
If the film was so psychologically taxing to make, then how did you cope?
I also met with, and have been interviewed by, a lot of journalists that had covered her at the time. They're a bit older now, and they look back and say: "I can't believe we acted like that, we got caught up in this stupid machine." They felt bad about their part in pushing that paparazzi lifestyle which, ultimately in her case, lead to her dying.

I'm a bit older than most of the people I was talking to for the film. A lot of people told me "The movie will never come out, they'll never let you release it." I kept thinking: "That might be true, but I know the people I'm talking to look better when they walk out of the room. And maybe that'll just be my role."

It felt important, the more I heard the more I thought this was an important film that should be made because it's about my city. I live around there. I've been there all my life and that particular part of north London, Camden, I know really well, I know every street. This is a film about my hometown, about a person from my area who became famous and was destroyed, and I'm not cool with that. I wanted to make a film that talked about: "Are we happy with the way we were? And why didn't we stop it?" We may not feel like we made it worse, but you know, when we listened to those comedians that made fun of her, when we watched Youtube videos that showed her in a really bad way, I even met people on Halloween who went out dressed up as Amy Winehouse, it all became part of this idea: she's not human. She deceivers it, she's rich and famous so you can treat her like crap. And I just wanted people to think a bit: "What are we doing?" Next time this happens, will we act the same way?
Has one of the toughest aspects been how Mitchell Winehouse, Amy's father, has objected to the film?
So yes, it was tough, but i don't think there's any easy film out there to make. They're always tough in one way or another. this one was tough, but it felt like we should do it because we have the opportunity, we've got access to the music and the publishing, I've now spoken to all these people, I now know too much to not make the film. Once you get to a certain point you feel like you have to get it out there.
Have the challenges involved in working on this film made you a better artist?
We knew that as we were making the film, as we were hearing everything people were telling us, and from what we saw in the footage, we knew that was one of the challenges that was going to happen. A lot of people had experienced things and heard things and seen things but didn't feel strong enough to talk, or didn't feel like anyone would listen. So, in a way, our film is as much about just showing you who Amy really was. But it's also showing the kind of people around her, who from time to time making decisions that were not great for her. They made choices to keep the band wagon going, thinking all the publicity was good when in reality it wasn't. As you watch, you keep thinking: "Why don't people around her just give her a proper break from the business, rather than doing something that lead to the next performance? Get out of town, get out of London, out of Camden." That was my thing as well. You can't be in the middle of that and feel like you'll have a normal life. I'm a big one for travelling and actually getting away, and seeing how we are all tiny, how no one cares much who you are in most of the world, there's so much more going on. And I think that would have been a healthy thing for her.

I don't know if anything makes me a better filmmaker, but you learn by doing. People can talk about filmmaking, they can write and read books, but in the end you just have to do it. And you have to realize that each film is a big gamble. Each film should be pushing you into a world where you have no idea if it's going to work or not. You're walking a tightrope every time, and you might fall off. And what was interesting, making this film, was there was no document, no script, no treatment or pitch. I had the opportunity to make a film, and thought: "Ok, I'm just going to start interviewing people. I'll make the film out of what I hear and what I see."

It was a bit of an experimental film on my part, I thought it was a bit heavy and wasn't sure how the audience would go for it. So it's been a pretty pleasant surprise, how well it's done, it's high box office around the world. It's touched people, because it's about Amy, about this singer and what happened to her. But what I found is that, during the film, it's more about us and our part in this story, and our complicity in what happened. It's about our part in this business, how we got most of our information about her from tabloids, how we judged her, and thought we knew her when really we didn't. And the film is just trying to address that balance, I suppose.

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Interview With Asif Kapadai, Director of 2015 Amy Winehouse Documentary "Amy"

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Kapadai's Amy Winehouse Documentary Was Recently Nominated for a 2016 Academy Award Web Exclusive While researching his intimately haunting documentary about Amy Winehouse, Asif Kapadia's editing suite looked more like the workplace of a detective than that of a director.

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Tell us more about why Amy's family and friends were so reluctant to speak with you initially.

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Tell us more about why Amy's family and friends were so reluctant to speak with you initially.

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Because the press had hounded her before she died. And her loved ones just assumed I was another one of those people, coming along and trying to exploit her. It was a really long journey to earn people's trust and explain to them "I'm not here to take anyone's side, I'm not here with an agenda." I had an opportunity to make this film and it intrigued me. There's a story there that hasn't been told properly, so I wanted to get into it. But going into it I didn't know anything. It took a long time, some people took a year to speak to me, others a year and a half. I'd made it clear the film would not be complete until they had spoken to me.

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Talking to Asif Kapadia can feel like talking to an obsessive; someone so fascinated by one thing that they have not only consumed all they could about their subject, but sworn to preserve the truth about them, too. That subject is Amy Winehouse. That truth is the complicated conjunction of circumstance and agency that led the singer to die from alcohol intoxication at the age of 27.

"There's a point in the process where you can start correcting your interviewees because you know the story now. I know it," he says. "I know when someone's telling me something true and when they're making it up. I know when they're putting themselves in her life. Or, I'll start saying to people who say they met Amy: 'I don't think you really met Amy. The person you describe, that's not Amy, by that point she'd changed and I don't know what you're talking about.'"

A 43-year-old Londoner, Kapadia is the man behind Amy, a documentary that chronicles Winehouse's tragic decline from bright-eyed prodigy to doomed tabloid obsession. Assembled from 100 interviews and incorporating 20 months of editing in a process that took three years in total, the film presents what feels like a true version of events. It is also incredibly moving.

The film has already been the subject of controversy, particularly with Winehouse's father, Mitch, who told the film-makers they were "a disgrace" and believes the film is "trying to portray me in the worst possible light". He also claims that interviews he gave for the film were edited, specifically those regarding what is now perceived as a turning point in Amy's life - an attempt to send her to rehab in 2005 to deal with her drinking. The attempt failed and became the material for Amy's biggest song. The film claims, like the song, that Amy didn't go to rehab only on the say-so of her father. Mitch says he only thought Amy shouldn't go to rehab "at that time". He claims that those three words were edited from his interview.

"He says that quite a lot, I think," sighs Kapadia, who doesn't use Mitch's name once during our interview. "I interviewed him twice. The first time he didn't say 'at the time'. But the story is in the present. The lyrics of her song don't say 'at the time': 'Daddy says I'm fine, at the time,' it doesn't say that. When Amy writes something down [in song] it's based on a real experience. That whole incident happened exactly the way [it's described in the song]. Everyone involved admits that's exactly how it happened."

Kapadia came to fame as the director of Senna, another study of a talented but tragic figure, the racing driver Ayrton Senna. The film used an innovative style Kapadia sometimes likes to call "true fiction". Constructed almost entirely from archive footage, the story was told without any guiding voiceover, a weirdly unheard-of break with convention in the documentary format. Senna was also edited to feel like a drama, every moment put in service to the story. As it unfolded, the film grew from a chronicle of a sporting life into a study in ambition, bravery and - again - obsession. It went on to become a touchstone for other film-makers and a driver of the boom in cinematic documentary. For a while, conversations across the country began: 'I'm not into motor racing but..."

The success of Senna led directly into Amy, thanks in part to Nick Shymansky, who had been having just that conversation with his girlfriend. It was the summer of 2011, it was raining, so the couple had ducked into a west London cinema. They loved the film they saw, despite not loving motor racing, and the format also inspired an idea in Shymansky. He had been Amy Winehouse's first manager and was very much of the mind that someone should tell her story. Then, a few weeks later, Amy died.

By 2012, Kapadia had been approached by Universal, Winehouse's label, and invited to make a "warts and all" documentary, with full access to her back catalogue. Getting people to open up about her life, however, was to prove a different challenge. "There was no go-to person who knew Amy's story, that's what I found very early on," he says. "There's no definitive book. She just seemed to have a lot of people in different compartments. That's what I started to find with the people I spoke to. And no one liked each other, they were all arguing, there was a lot of tension around her, always." The first door that opened was with Nick. "When I called him, he said it was too soon, to leave her alone, let her rest in peace. But he told me the story [about Senna]. He said: 'I'll meet you, but I'm not interested.'"

The pair eventually met in a Soho editing suite. On the wall, Kapadia and his editor Chris King had assembled a collage that resembled something from CSI or Homeland; a massive, interlocking mural telling the story of Amy's life as they knew it. It struck Nick as being more effort than anyone had previously made in understanding what had happened to her. And so he began to talk.

"I had no idea what this film was..." says Kapadia. "I had no thesis, I had no plan. I had the idea of doing a documentary but it's all controlled, because I know what the beginning and the middle and the end is but if it changes I'm going to go with it and find a way to rewrite it. This was my research. But Nick just started to talk and talk. He spoke for five hours without thinking about it. He then said that wasn't the half of it and we talked again. I probably recorded 15 hours but we would speak non-stop off the record and on email. No one had ever heard of this guy, but he had this huge story. Then he opened his laptop and said, 'I've got these videos that I shot,' and there's all of the opening of the film."

The first section of Amy shows her as a teenager. Someone at once both precocious and diffident, she is eager to please but also to subvert. Shymansky's footage was shot on a Mini DV camera and usually involves him cajoling Amy into playing up. She doesn't want to perform, she hides her face behind a pillow, she's trying to sleep. But when she's eventually persuaded to play, she looks down the camera and you feel the charisma burn its way right through you.

As Amy's story develops, so the audience watching her grows larger. From Shymansky talking one-to-one to the global audience that pored over YouTube footage of Amy's final, chaotic concert in Belgrade, Serbia. Amy, says Kapadia, was born at the wrong time, caught on the cusp of an analogue and a digital world where notions of privacy were changing rapidly. "So there's Nick talking to her and she's looking straight into the camera. She's talking to us, obviously, we become Nick. Then it goes on to TV cameras and we're the audience. Then it gets darker and darker and it's the paparazzi footage, and then there's a point in St Lucia [in 2011] where she literally points at the camera and we're caught out, we look away. I thought that was the most interesting thing, how the audience changed from Nick saying, 'Go on give us a little flash it's only us' in the car to the paps going, 'Come on, cheer up...'"

The idea of Amy as the object of our attention is central to the film. It's difficult to watch without feeling in some way guilty, responsible in however small a way, for helping to push a vulnerable person into a spiral that ultimately claimed her life. Kapadia says many Londoners drifted in and out of Amy's world, drinking in the boozy culture of Camden Town, assuming a vicarious glamour, then going home (this includes Kapadia himself: "I keep on expecting to pop up in the background", he says).

Then there's the journalists, like me, who spent the years of 2007-9 writing up every drunken fight she got involved in, every bizarre late-night trip to the newsagents. After watching Amy, the first thing I did was to Google my name and hers looking to see if I'd indulged in the mockery that is caught in the film; Graham Norton explaining to Jackie Chan in 2008, "Amy Winehouse, now she's a mad person." I found that I had not, that I was mocking the mockery. "A number of journalists have said that," Kapadia smiles. "They say: 'It's fine, I was just commenting on everyone else.' No one's sure, and not just journalists. It's interesting, isn't it, because everyone did it. Everyone's seen [the concert in] Serbia. How did we see Serbia? We looked it up, we shared it."

Amy is a film that makes you feel culpable, but it also stirs up waves of sympathy, of a desire to protect her and, also, an anger at those in her life who - you feel - could have done so much more to save her. This extends to pretty much everyone with whom she had a professional relationship (oh yes, and Blake Fielder-Civil). "It brought out the worst of a lot of people in her life," says Kapadia. "If one looks carefully, there are lots of people who make lots of decisions or who were aware of one thing - whether it was the drinking, the bulimia, or the drugs - and nobody stopped it. That's what the film is really about. It's pretty heavy. You can't quite imagine what it's like when they're in the film. To go through it all again, it's really tough. There's certain people who just can't watch the second half.

"But the second half is where most of the audience come on board," he continues. "It's not just about her any more, it's about us. It's about the city, it's about the media, it's about everything, people who have taken this in, enjoying, laughing at her. There's a line I get a lot now when a certain person keeps saying stuff about me: 'Well, it's all right, isn't it? All publicity is good publicity.' Well, I'm not sure it is..."

This article was amended on 27 June and 29 June 2015. An earlier version said Amy Winehouse's final concert was in Sarajevo, Serbia; the location was Belgrade, Serbia. The article was also amended to correct a reference to Nick Shymansky's "new wife"; the marriage took place after Amy Winehouse died.

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Asif Kapadia on Amy: 'The drinking, the bulimia, the drugs - nobody stopped it'

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Talking to Asif Kapadia can feel like talking to an obsessive; someone so fascinated by one thing that they have not only consumed all they could about their subject, but sworn to preserve the truth about them, too. That subject is Amy Winehouse.

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Interview with Asif Kapadia and Nick Shymansksy about Amy The Movie

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A Most Modern Tragedy: Why We’re All To Blame For The Death Of Amy Winehouse

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It’s impossible to walk away from Amy, director Asif Kapadia’s controversial documentary about the life and death of Amy Winehouse, and not feel the urge to apportion blame. Much of the film is comprised of candid camera-phone footage shot by the singer’s close friends and family, and it provides a new lens through which we […]

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•To you as the spectator, does this style work, explain your reasons?

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•To you as the spectator, does this style work, explain your reasons?

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To me, this style of documentary works because it mirrors the manner in which we live our lives in the modern world, for many of us social media has become an extension of what we know as reality - we use ‘stories’ and ‘live recordings’ such as FaceTime to connect ourselves amongst our friends, to show what we are doing in our lives. These ‘stories’ mirror the aesthetic of Amy because the footage in the doc is also shot and composed on mobile devices and the more we watch these stories (whether it be on Instagram, Snapchat or Facebook Live) the more ‘normal’ we see them and the more connected we become to the people who share them, this new way of telling people about our life and what we do is to me why Amy is so memorable, yes the content is compelling – the story of addiction and the rise and fall of a musician is a story that has been told again and again but it is a story that has not been told in this new virtual social media type of way – a style choice that we do not question because we are so familiar with it and a style choice that I suggest we become more absorbed into rather than conventional ‘talking heads’ type of documentary.

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•Kapadia uses an innovative documentary style called “true fiction” where the documentary is constructed almost entirely from archive footage (in the case of Amy, 90% of the footage is archive) and the story is told without any guiding voiceover, a weirdly unheard-of break with convention in the documentary format

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Senna and Amy film director Asif Kapadia on his creative process

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We promise it takes less than 2 minutes! Let us get to know you better. Once registered, you can read a limited number of articles free, submit your work to us, and receive our daily newsletter if you choose to. Register now +44 (0)2072923703 or customerservices@creativereview.co.uk Every month, hundreds of thousands of people visit us here on our website.

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Were there any particular challenges in this film that you hadn’t come across before?
I think 90% of our rushes were digital files and in the most dizzying array of formats. The majority of them were amateur so on a technical level it was more complicated. At the back end, both Asif and I added layer after layer of effects, so [the challenge was] to try and unite it all and create something that felt like a single film, rather than a collection of random clips.

Were there many different versions of the film?
There were rough cut screenings where we’d been cutting together a new section which could be another two years [of her life], and that was sometimes 2008 and 2009, when things were particularly bad in terms of her addictions.

We’d invite the guys from Universal to watch it and the lights would go up afterwards and we’d see ashen faces. We realised we have an ethical and a moral responsibility to make sure it isn’t just misery porn. That was our biggest challenge, to stop it becoming overwhelming.

We were absorbing it over two years bit by bit, and we know there’s an audience out there that are going to go into a cinema and get it all in two hours. If that was too harrowing, they would forget the lovely, brilliant, bright woman we were trying to exemplify and just be browbeaten by how awful addiction is. We want people to come out of the film thinking, “Wasn’t she amazing?” and I hope we’ve achieved that.

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Some 20 million people own a copy of Amy Winehouse 's second and final studio album, Back to Black. Aside from its incredible commercial success, the record marked the creative zenith for the north London singer with the staggering jazz-soul voice and hilarious, yet often searingly honest, lyrics. Listeners can hear one of their own and respond to the truth. When Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning in July 2011 at the tragically premature age of 27, a gnawing, helpless and frustrated wave of sadness washed over fans, from outside her home in Camden Square and right across the world.

Now Asif Kapadia, the Hackney-born director who lived in and around Camden for 10 years, brings us Amy (2015), a documentary about the woman whose blend of talent and troubles seduced so many of us. The film is by turns as honest, heartbreaking and amusing as the singer's best work and is certain to elicit many tears, thoughts of contemplative regret and laughs from its audience. Within the picture, recording studio scenes show how some of her greatest songs were created, while elsewhere the scars of alcohol, crack and heroin abuse are laid bare. The paparazzi, meanwhile, are shown to be as ghoulishly unscrupulous as they are in Nightcrawler (2014).

Producer James Gay-Rees and editor Chris King have reunited with Kapadia for Amy, having worked together on Senna (2010), the poignant documentary about Formula 1 racing driver Aryton Senna. For Amy they have assembled a comprehensive range of new audio interviews from key figures, including Amy's mum, Janis, and dad, Mitch, and musicians who worked with her, including producer Mark Ronson, Tony Bennett and Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def). Candid testimonies about all aspects and stages of Amy's life are coupled with archive interviews with the singer herself. Visually, the story is told with a broad selection of professional and amateur video and photographs, which include everything from Amy's hilarious responses to banal interview questions to never-seen-before shots of her wedding day. Arranging such a wealth of material into a coherent narrative must have been no mean feat. Kapadia, Gay-Rees and King take up the story.

Asif Kapadia, director
Was anyone reluctant to take part?
They were all reluctant at the beginning. One person I wasn't able to get to was her brother. She had a brother who was a bit older, but the only way through to him was via the father, but the father said, "He doesn't want to meet and he doesn't want to speak." I really felt he would've been an important person and would have had a lot to say but for whatever reason I wasn't allowed to meet him.

The thing about doing the film quite soon after Amy had died was that none of them had spoken to people outside of their inner circle, so it really is the first time they're speaking to strangers. The interesting thing about doing it as a doc instead of as a drama is that it would have taken years to get a script together. So it was interesting not to have a script, not to have to worry about financing, to just go off and interview people. You get that raw reaction which you hear in the finished film. One of the things I find frustrating about drama is that the process can somehow kill spontaneity.
Do you think there's anything particularly "London" about Amy's story?
I do. There's something about her style visually. The fact that she looked original and that her writing style really stands out. It's full of humour and twists and feels very much of the place. It's not trying to copy American-style writing, all of the lingo she slips in there. It's a bit hip-hop, it's a bit jazz, it's a bit soul, but it's very Londony. She is a girl from the suburbs who moved to Camden and she's a bit of a chameleon. And all of that gang, none of them are actually from London, they're all from outside of London. Blake's [Fielder-Civil, Amy's husband from 2007-2009] not from London. They all put on this accent, and they want to be something. There's a lot of that going on in the story as well, people from outside of town wanting to be more Londony than the Londoners.
I'm sure it's always been like that.
But that scene at the time, Camden was the particular place. It was really edgy, There were lots of bands, there were lots of drugs going around it was just very happening and cool but dark. I used to live there at the time and it was the place to be.
Amy was constructed in a similar way to your last film, Senna. Is this method something you think you'll pursue?
It suited these two films. I like the process but it's quite frustrating at times. I think I'll probably do a variation of it. It just depends on the subject. Senna was a particular guy, he was not around to interview and he happened to be in a sport where there was a hell of a lot of material. I just thought, 'this is nuts, it's all here, why has no one thought of it?'. It was the most obvious thing in the world: just cut the footage together and there's a great movie. Amy came out of the audio interviews. The first thing was really doing these hundred audio interviews and then figuring out what we're going to show, so it was actually the other way round.
Do you have a filmmaking philosophy that links your work?
One of my tutors at film school looked at some of my shorts I made years ago and said they were all about outsiders and I've continued to be about outsiders who are taking on a system or being pushed out by a society around them, which, weirdly enough, seems to be a theme that runs though a lot of the films. Even Senna - he felt like an outsider, and Amy became something like that.

When I'm doing a film I quite like to find some way of pushing myself, whether or not there is some kind of stylistic thing to push the medium or to do something different. Senna was the whole idea of not having talking heads and this is my musical, which is somehow making the songs come out of the narrative.

James Gay-Rees, producer
Amy's father Mitch was in the news earlier this month threatening legal action because of his portrayal in the film. Do you have any comment?
It's unfortunate that our end product doesn't necessarily match up to what he was anticipating or expecting. But there are a number of reasons for that. One - which is really significant but is not political at all - it's a sheer logistical thing. When you're trying to collapse 10 years of a life into two hours you have to make big editorial decisions. I think he would have liked it to have been an extended montage of all the fun times they had together, of which I'm sure they had many. We do allude to that, and we do imply that they were very close, but we have to look at the bigger picture.
Did you have any moral dilemmas about what you kept in?
I had a few dilemmas about the film, full stop. There was a point when Asif and I were in New York and interviewing people. It was quite early on and I remember thinking that all the interviews we were doing there were just incessantly heavy. I think the scale of the heaviness dawned on us. I think the actual reality of what was going on was much darker than what we put in the film. I think if you put it in the movie it would be too unwatchable.
Is there a message to the film?
For me, the media forgot about the talent and just focused on the downfall, and the dysfunctionality became this very easy gag and punchline. So what's really pleasing about the movie and the reaction we've had so far is that people feel that they've seen a different side to her and they are re-evaluating her. She deserves that re-evaluation because she was a world-class talent and a unique human being. I think the tragedy is when these people are gone, that's it. 27 is way too young. If, in some small way, people think of her in a different light, that's good enough for me.

Chris King, editor
Were there any particular challenges in this film that you hadn't come across before?
I think 90% of our rushes were digital files and in the most dizzying array of formats. The majority of them were amateur so on a technical level it was more complicated. At the back end, both Asif and I added layer after layer of effects, so [the challenge was] to try and unite it all and create something that felt like a single film, rather than a collection of random clips.
Were there many different versions of the film?
There were rough cut screenings where we'd been cutting together a new section which could be another two years [of her life], and that was sometimes 2008 and 2009, when things were particularly bad in terms of her addictions.

We'd invite the guys from Universal to watch it and the lights would go up afterwards and we'd see ashen faces. We realised we have an ethical and a moral responsibility to make sure it isn't just misery porn. That was our biggest challenge, to stop it becoming overwhelming.

We were absorbing it over two years bit by bit, and we know there's an audience out there that are going to go into a cinema and get it all in two hours. If that was too harrowing, they would forget the lovely, brilliant, bright woman we were trying to exemplify and just be browbeaten by how awful addiction is. We want people to come out of the film thinking, "Wasn't she amazing?" and I hope we've achieved that.

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Making Amy: how we created our Winehouse documentary

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Some 20 million people own a copy of Amy Winehouse 's second and final studio album, Back to Black. Aside from its incredible commercial success, the record marked the creative zenith for the north London singer with the staggering jazz-soul voice and hilarious, yet often searingly honest, lyrics.

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The following heavily contributed to the documentary through recorded interviews and archive footage: 

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The following heavily contributed to the documentary through recorded interviews and archive footage: 

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Amy Winehouse

Mitchell Winehouse, father

Janis Winehouse, mother

Raye Cosbert, manager and promoter

Nick Shymanksy, ex-manager and friend

Blake Fielder-Civil (credited as Blake Fielder), ex-husband

Tyler James, friend and flatmate

Juliette Ashby, friend and flatmate

Lauren Gilbert, friend

Blake Wood, friend

Mos Def (credited as Yasiin Bey), musician

Pete Doherty, musician

Tony Bennett, musician

Mark Ronson, producer

Salaam Remi, producer

Andrew Morris, bodyguard

Cristina Romete, doctor

Chip Somers, drug counsellor

Sam Beste, pianist

Dale Davis, musical director and bass guitarist

Shomari Dilon, sound engineer

'Spiky' Phil Meynell, promoter of Trash Club

Monte Lipman, chairman & CEO of Republic Records

Lucian Grainge, head of Universal Music Group

Guy Moot, UK President of Sony/ATV Music Publishing

Nick Gatfield, president of Island Records

Darcus Beese, A&R of Island Records