Amy Winehouse – Back to Black, the brand new documentary concerning the making of the late singer’s 2006 breakthrough album, turns away from the tabloid facets of her life — the suffocating paparazzi, contentious relationship with ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil and her battle with medication and alcohol — to give attention to her artistic genius.
Of course, figuring out how her story ends — Winehouse died in 2011 of alcohol poisoning at age 27, leaving her second album as her swan tune — is inherently tragic. But that’s not how the movie — out on DVD, Blu-ray and digital on Nov. 2 from Eagle Vision’s Classic Albums division — approaches its topic. Instead, the album is thoughtfully dissected observe by observe by the individuals concerned in its creation.
The hourlong doc opens with footage from Winehouse’s 2008 Grammy Awards look backed by the Dap-Kings. She received 5 awards that night time — a primary for a British girl — accepted through satellite tv for pc from London after she was denied a visa into the U.S. But it then displays again on 2004 when Winehouse began work on the seminal album that went on to promote 16 million copies worldwide.
In recent interviews for the venture, Back to Black producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, combine engineer Tom Elmhirst, and studio musicians from the Dap-Kings hear again to the songs and recall reminiscences of the writing and recording classes. The accounts are sometimes paired with intimate footage of Winehouse creating and singing within the studio, in addition to close-ups of her handwritten lyrics.
Winehouse’s finest good friend Juliette Ashby, goddaughter Dionne Bromfield, first supervisor Nick Shymansky and Island A&R government Darcus Beese (now president of Island Records U.S.) are additionally among the many interviewees.
For the title observe, Winehouse reveals within the movie that on her day off she’d play pool all day within the pub and take heed to doo-wop and ’60s Motown woman teams on the jukebox, which influenced her. Ronson says he was impressed by the music she performed him and got here up with the piano half for “Black to Black” and added the drums and tambourine. “She came to the studio at noon and she was instantly, ‘Oh, cool. I love it. Let me go write something to it,’” he recollects.
“I didn’t really question the lyrics,” he says. “The only thing, as a producer, you think everything should rhyme because that’s pop structure, and I remember when she showed me the chorus in ‘Back to Black’ — ‘We only said goodbye in words/ I died a thousand times’ — I was like, ‘Do you think that’s weird? Should you change it?’ She looked at me a little bit dumbfounded like, ‘Why would I change it? That is what came out. This is honesty on a piece of paper.’”
There are equally fascinating tidbits for all of the songs. For “Love Is a Losing Game,” Ronson knew Winehouse hated strings, calling them “hammy” and “schlocky… So I type of did them, probably not behind her again however [thought], ‘Let me do some strings behind her again [laughs] and perhaps she’ll prefer it,’” he says, because the tune performs within the background. “She was listening to the mix for the first time with her head down on the desk for the whole song so I couldn’t read her reaction and then she just turned ’round [and said], ‘I love it.’”
As a bonus with the Back to Black making-of doc, Eagle Vision has added a beforehand unreleased live performance from the 2008 Grammy night time referred to as An Evening in London that Winehouse carried out for associates, household and report execs at Riverside Studios.
