Relive Amy Winehouse’s performances at the BBC
When a music star dies, fans often crave unreleased music from the vaults.
From David Bowie to The Beatles we want to hear everything they’ve ever recorded just to have something more to remember them by.
Often this takes the form of radio sessions or gigs they’ve performed down the years, like Bowie’s recent Brilliant Live Adventures, which came five years after his death. John Lennon‘s Gimme Some Truth. The Ultimate Mixes was even longer in the making, 40 years after his passing and on what would have been his 80th birthday.
Sadly, the world lost Amy Winehouse when she was just 27. She had recorded just two studio albums by the time of her death in 2011 – Frank and Back To Black. Posthumous compilation album Lioness: Hidden Treasures was released months after she died.
Next month her discography will be bolstered by the release of Amy Winehouse At The BBC. The three LP and three CD collection, out on May 7, features BBC sessions from 2004 to 2009, her memorable Porchester Hall sessions and a tribute disc compiled by musician and Later host Jools Holland.
Mark Cooper, the BBC’s former head of music, said: “Jools loved Amy straight away – her honesty as a vocalist, songwriter and Londoner. Britain has produced a lot of brilliant female singersongwriters and vocalists in the last decade or so, many from Beth Gibbons to Adele rooted in older black American forms, soul and jazz and blues. But there was only ever one Amy Winehouse. She was frank and fresh and haunted. And we miss her.”
Amy performed on Later several times and on the Annual Hootenanny. There are ten songs on the Jool’s tribute disc, including Rehab and a cover of I Heard It Through The Grapevine with Jools and Paul Weller.
Also in the three-disc set are 14 songs recorded for the BBC over the span of six years. It captures Amy on a
variety of shows like T In The Park, Jo Whiley Live Lounge and Leicester Summer Sundae.
The trilogy is completed by another 14 tracks, this time for the Porchester Hall sessions, which Amy recorded for BBC One. Crowd pleasers like Valerie and The Specials’ Monkey Man are on it along with the unforgettable Back To Black.
The collection is being released by UMC/Island both physically and on digital services like Amazon Music and the iTunes Store. For the very first time, this updated release offers audio-only versions of the songs featured on A Tribute To Amy Winehouse by Jools Holland and BBC One Sessions Live at Porchester Hall. A high proportion of these tracks will be completely new to Digital Service Providers.
Stronger Than Me, Tears Dry On Their Own and You
Know I’m No Good were available on streaming services from March while the video for Stronger Than Me is available on YouTube.
This comprehensive collection captures the strong and enduring relationship that Amy enjoyed with the BBC and is further proof of quite what an extraordinarily talented, completely original, and truly engaging performer Amy was.
Amy Winehouse At The BBC includes Amy’s earliest BBC Radio sessions, music from her first ever TV performances, as well as unheard gems, rarities, unique covers and live versions of classic songs from Frank and Back To Black.
It also includes a beautifully illustrated 20-page booklet featuring rare photographs.
The set is available to pre-order now via amywinehouse.lnk.to/AtTheBBC link.