Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’ at 20, an Oral History: ‘It Was Just Like Magic’

Crowned by her signature, shelf-toppling beehive and a thick slash of eyeliner that she wore like warpaint, Amy Winehouse cut an unmistakable figure — a soul-obsessed, retro original whose earth-shattering voice and defiant style would leave an indelible mark on modern music.

On Oct. 27 2006, Winehouse released her sophomore LP Back to Black — a potent, unflinching collection of heartfelt songs displaying a once-in-a-generation talent — and would go on to peak at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and scoop five Grammy awards, including best new artist. The London artist’s death in 2011, aged just 27, brought a premature end to a singular career, and imbued Back to Black with a greater poignancy that has only deepened over time; its legacy is still expanding, too, having ranked No. 8 on Apple Music’s best albums of all time list in 2024.

• Assembling An All-Star Production Team

  Following the release of Frank in 2003, Winehouse had established herself as one of Britain’s most distinctive new singer-songwriters. The album peaked at No. 13 on the Official U.K. Albums Chart (later reaching No. 3 in 2011 following her passing), was shortlisted for the 2004 Mercury Prize and earned her an Ivor Novello award for album standout “Stronger Than Me.” 

  Rather than rush to follow it up, Winehouse took her time figuring out what came next, with Ronson, Beese and manager Nick Shymansky working closely with her to introduce a new circle of collaborators who could help bring her vision to life. Over the following years, those encounters helped shape Back to Black, ditching the jazzier flourishes in favour of increasingly candid songwriting and a darker, more expansive sound. 

  Neal Sugarman, tenor saxophone player (The Dap-Kings): We met Mark [Ronson] through our trumpet player, Dave Guy. We were based in Brooklyn, and he started using our horn section on his album Versions. We were doing a lot of work with him, including a couple of Daniel Merriweather tracks, and it was a great vibe. I’d often talk with him about bringing in the Dap-Kings for other projects. 

  He eventually said, “I have this project I want to talk to you guys about.” He was working extensively with Amy, and he had demos of songs like “Back to Black,” “Rehab” and “You Know I’m No Good” and we started working with him on the arrangements. From day one, Mark was hinting that this was going to be a very important record – and he was right.

  Paul O’Duffy, co-writer and producer (“Wake Up Alone”): I’d never met anyone quite like Amy. She was so completely her own person that, when we first met, she didn’t want to talk about music at all. She just wanted to talk about interiors. We were sitting around my kitchen table, and she was drawing pictures of her living room and saying what she wanted to do with it. [Her manager] Nick had to intervene and say, “Amy, we’re here to talk about music!”

  You realised that whatever she was thinking about was what you were going to talk about, or what she was going to do. Those social norms you expect most people to follow weren’t something she needed to worry about.

  John Harrison (aka P*Nut), co-writer and producer (“He Can Only Hold Her”): When we were first introduced, Amy was actually quite shy and quite reserved, but it was very clear that she knew what she wanted from the music. She seemed determined. It felt like she was waiting to see what happens, and whether I could maybe fit into her remit, or if our collaboration was going to work out. She felt totally in control of everything, basically.

  Dale Davis, musical director and bass player: Amy was such a beautiful person, a very happy person. As soon as she turned up to a session, she brought a lot of love straight away. She was extremely good in rehearsals. If she didn’t like something, she’d let you know, and if she wanted to improve, then she would. She was one of the greatest musicians I’ve worked with. 

  Early into our time working together, we did a gig at Notting Hill Carnival. She was so powerful that I thought she didn’t even need a band behind her. She was like a modern-day Bob Dylan. At that point, I realized there was a special talent here, and we had to look out for her. And as the oldest person in the band, I made that my duty from the day we started working together.

  O’Duffy: Recording “Wake Up Alone,” we thought it would be better not to be in a regular studio, somewhere that felt less pressurized. Luckily, I had a studio at home, so that seemed the right place for her. Sometimes I’d be doing something and she’d leave the room, and I’d wonder where she’d gone. When my daughters came home from school, they’d be playing The Sims, and Amy would join them and make her own family within the game. My daughters’ Sims had perfect families, with good jobs, nice cars and houses. Amy’s family was the most degenerate family, just total chaos. I’d hear them laughing together while I was working away on the song. 

  Davis: Away from our sessions, she always looked after my son, who was very young at the time. Amy wanted to be his godmother, and she used to call him her godson in the present. She’d take him away on holiday, or to the cinema and stuff like that. It was all very natural and loving, she was just a wonderful, calm, grounding presence to be around while working.

• Guided by Instinct

  During recording, Winehouse’s collaborators say they were struck by her natural feel for melody, rhythm and phrasing. She wasn’t a formally trained musician in the classical sense, but was self-taught on guitar and sang with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra as a teenager, alongside attending the world-famous Sylvia Young Theatre School in London.  

  Davis: It’s hard to describe: Amy wasn’t technical but she had a deep understanding of music. We used to sit down and listen to a lot of jazz and she’d follow everything note for note. You’d watch her and think to yourself, “Yeah, you’re really in touch with everything that’s going on.”

  She had that ability where she could hear something in her head and could translate everything instantaneously. She loved the trumpet, and you could hear that in the way she would improvise her vocals on stage night after night. She didn’t improvise to the point where an arrangement was unrecognizable; she worked within the framework of each song and made things different.

  Sugarman: We connected with Amy on a musical level, which was what she was 100% about. When we recorded “Valerie,” we did a couple of different versions, which was really fun. She wanted to make soul records, so it was really easy. The same was true of touring and being on stage with her. We did a bunch of U.S. touring with her and she was super gracious, thanked us for the work we’d done on her record, and was interested in what we thought about different approaches while we were making the songs. She trusted us, and we had a great time together.

  O’Duffy: The first time we recorded “Wake Up Alone,” Amy sang it from beginning to end in one take, and it was just like magic. It was the most amazing thing. The only person I’d experienced who could do that before was Dusty Springfield. The producer in you thinks, “Let’s do another take,” but the truth is, I just wanted to hear and watch Amy sing it again.

  Harrison: I think she was just so knowledgeable and really trusting, and as a producer, it was liberating because she just allowed me to do what I wanted to do, and do what I thought was right for the song. I felt like she would call me out if there was anything she didn’t like. But she wasn’t saying, ‘Do this, do that.’ She allowed the creative expression to just flow in the room. 

  Each day I’d add some new guitars to the song [“He Can Only Hold Her”] and we’d listen back to it. What I realised was happening by the end of our week together was that she’d been collating ideas, and working out the melody in her head as we went along. It was such a buzz. At the time I remember thinking, “I need to make this song happen because I love her voice.” All I wanted was to get it to a point where she felt she could cut her vocal on it, because I wanted to hear it go out into the world.

  O’Duffy: Crucially, with Amy, she was so passionate that you just couldn’t push anything [she didn’t like] at all. You’d look for a way in and say, “Let’s listen to the Shangri-Las,” or talk about the lyricism of other people. She’d have an opinion, but she wouldn’t necessarily say, “I like it” or “I don’t like it” about a section of a song – she just wouldn’t react. Then you’d look over and she’d be drawing, and she’d say, “Let’s go and play pool.” That was the code for, “This isn’t working!”

  Harrison: It felt like there was quite a lot of mutual respect and trust, even if we didn’t always agree on the direction of things. During recording, we spent a lot of time hanging out and going to play pool, or talking about what was going on in the world at the time. It was a secure space to be creative in. And you know, I never beat her at the pool! I just watched her win over and over.

  O’Duffy: When there’s a major record company involved, there can be so much pressure to make something that fits into the existing market. This album didn’t quite come from there: Back to Black was coming from the ’60s, but Amy’s ability as a lyricist and a singer made it sound modern.

• Going Stateside

  As Back to Black propelled Winehouse to international phenomenon, the demands of touring became an increasingly turbulent counterpoint to her rise. A relentless schedule of live dates, compounded by mounting personal struggles, made life on the road difficult and resulted in a flurry of show cancellations in the U.K. Yet by the time she arrived at Coachella in April 2007, having already won over fans at Texas’ South by Southwest Festival, the month prior, her formidable live presence proved undiminished – making for a brief but brilliant moment in her career.

  Sugarman: Amy’s first trip to the U.S. was amazing. The album had already been a hit in the U.K. and was starting to catch on in the States. Her first gigs were at places like Joe’s Pub in New York, and plenty more industry showcases like SXSW in Austin, Texas. It was a bit of a whirlwind. We did Coachella with Amy, which was super fun because she was absolutely the toast of the festival that year. Everyone wanted to see her! 

  I remember being in L.A. for a show and getting to meet Courtney Love in the dressing room, who had come backstage to try and meet Amy. Bruce Willis joined us another time, and we met Danny DeVito backstage at Coachella. It was just so much fun; you always felt like something really special was happening, and as a band, we were so proud to be involved in Amy’s world.

  Davis: As a musician, particularly live, Amy could make everything sound like herself. No matter what you gave Amy – a reggae song, a hip-hop song, a jazz song, a pop song, anything – she would always make it sound like herself.

  We were in a hotel room once playing some music, and a Busta Rhymes and Mariah Carey song [2002’s “I Know What You Want”] came on. When it comes to Mariah’s part, if someone tries to sing it, they’ll try to sound like her. But when it came to that part, Amy sang it, and it sounded exactly like Amy. There were many things that made me realize how great a musician Amy was, but when you get someone who can be just as powerful as someone as great as Mariah and still be yourself, you’re untouchable at that point.

  Sugarman: With Back to Black, the songs would sometimes write themselves when you went on stage, as Amy loved to improvise. As a band, we just had to play the songs, but within playing them, we knew we had a certain freedom to let loose. Amy never, ever sang the same thing twice, so we knew that we weren’t going to play the songs the same way night after night. 

  One of my favorite moments of being on stage with her was when she wanted a note from us to know where she was within a song. Singers often ask for a starting note, but I remember the guitar player giving her some fancy chord, and she said, “I don’t need the seventh and the ninth – just give me the regular triad!” That showed how musically aware she was, and I had tremendous respect for her as a singer. She was a true and honest jazz singer.

  Davis: While touring, I remember speaking to one of the backing singers and I said, “Look, just be prepared that this is going to get busy very, very quickly.” This was in September 2006. We went from September to March straight through, and the tour would have gone on longer had Amy not cancelled certain shows. She would have had to go right through the whole year, and I think at that point it would have been too much for anyone to cope with.

  Amy wasn’t necessarily a person who would conserve herself and look after herself. Amy wanted to give her all, all the time. She was generous to her fault in that way. It’s a hard thing to compromise between doing the shows and satisfying yourself as a person, because she made everything look easy. Performing looked effortless, and it probably was to her. But underneath, she was getting tired. Once the tiredness comes in, then it’s not so easy to be consistent.

• 20 Years Later

  Back to Black helped make room in the mainstream for soulful sounds to be adopted and reinvigorated by a new wave of British songwriters later on in the noughties, predominantly Adele and Duffy, while Winehouse’s magisterial wisdom can be seen and heard in many of contemporary pop’s leading lights, from Lola Young and Sienna Spiro to Olivia Dean, RAYE, Sam Smith and beyond. 

  Davis: What made Amy different is that she could really, truly tell a story instead of trying to outsing other artists. That’s the thing that makes her more powerful than just someone belting out a tune. She could sing with an orchestra in one song and just be with a guitar in the next, and she would be equally comfortable with both. She wrote all those [Back to Black] songs based on her feelings, so everything came straight from the heart. I really do believe that Amy was the most courageous and honest performer I’ve ever come across.

  Sugarman: Amy was very humble. She never thought of herself as anything other than someone who wanted to make the music she loved.

  Harrison: I don’t live in the U.K. anymore, but I came back to visit my family near Reading a few years ago and went into a record store. There were two teenagers dressed like goths, looking through the records. They came across Back to Black and were saying to each other, “Oh my God, she’s amazing.” And in my mind I was like, “F–k, yeah!” That was the moment I realised how ingrained Amy was in the culture, that even kids outside that genre respected her artistry.

  Sugarman: There are truly very few records in the history of recorded music that did what Back to Black did. It crossed so many genres, and everyone liked it, especially in the U.K.: everyone, from young to old, knew those songs and was touched by them. You try and tell me one person who doesn’t love that record! 

  O’Duffy: It’s an important album because it’s honest. It’s an unfiltered portrait of heartbreak, loneliness and longing, put together with music that’s timeless. Someone like Amy is a generational talent, one that only comes around maybe once every ten years, if that. I don’t think her influence will ever fade away.