What we learned in new doc on Winehouse
Film goes track to track on ‘Back to Black’ story
Twelve years after its release, Amy Winehouse’s beloved second and final album, “Back to Black,” remains a masterpiece – in its vintage production from her star collaborators Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, its soulful performances from backing band the Dap-Kings, and most of all, its showcasing of the incredible talents of Winehouse herself.
Multiple documentaries have tried to tell the story of the singer’s tragic life, which ended far too soon when Winehouse died of alcohol poisoning in 2011 at age 27. A new film, “Amy Winehouse – Back to Black,” goes track-by-track to tell the story of how Winehouse’s most celebrated body of work was created, featuring previously unseen footage of the singer and her recording sessions, alongside new interviews with producers Ronson, Remi and the other musicians involved in the project.
By focusing on the most creatively fruitful period of Winehouse’s life, the documentary presents a more loving take on the star than other portraits of her more focused on her fall from grace. A must-see for Winehouse devotees, “Amy Winehouse – Back to Black” is also a fascinating look at how albums get made, the interplay between artists and their producers and backing bands, and the inner workings of a musical genius.
The most interesting things we learned from the film:
She hated strings – but Ronson added them anyway
Adding strings to her “Back to Black” tracks was out of the question for Winehouse, as Ronson recalled how he sneakily succeeded in adding some moody instrumentals to one “Back to Black” track, “Love is a Losing Game.”
“There was one thing she was really adamant over: She didn’t want to put any strings on the record. Because to her, someone did strings on one of her past records and she really didn’t like it, and it was kind of this hammy, schlocky thing to her. She’s like, ‘It’s just a waste of time – no strings.’ ”
Even when Ronson offered to pay for the extra sessions to add strings to test them out, Winehouse balked. But he was convinced that their recordings needed that extra emotional element.
“I didn’t really do them behind her back. I just thought ... ‘Let’s add strings
behind her back,’ ” he said, laughing. “Maybe she’ll like it. And we mixed ‘Love is a Losing Game,’ which if there were any songs that would raise her alarm bells, it would be that one.
“She was listening to the mix (with strings) for the first time, with her head down on the desk ... and then she just turned around and said, ‘I love it.’”
She was speedy – and quirky – in the studio
Two of the album’s most enduring tracks, the hit single “Rehab” and the mournful title track, were conceptualized by Winehouse in one shockingly-fast burst of creativity.
“She came to New York, and I met her, and she had a few of these songs,” Ronson remembered. “She wrote “Back to Black” and “Rehab” within the three days that we at my place on Mercer Street. It was probably the quickest I’ve worked on any record. We did about five songs in four days.”
Winehouse’s collaborators described the singer, who was recording the album at the peak of her powers and before she fell into the worst days of her drug and alcohol addictions, as wickedly smart and funny – with some distinctly British sensibilities. Remi reminisced about her sneaking off to make tea in the middle of a separate session recording another “Back to Black” track, “Me and Mr. Jones.”
“There’s this funny story where, we were recording ‘Me and Mr. Jones,’ and Amy was making tea in the kitchen in the next room, and the kettle went off halfway through the song, and we didn’t necessarily hear it, and as the song’s going on, we just hear her run off, and we’re like, ‘What happened?’ So when we’re listening back to the vocals, and halfway through the song, the tea kettle starts. It’s there, on the record, and you can’t actually hear it, but it’s this high frequency.”
The original ‘Rehab’ never would’ve been a hit
The idea for “Rehab,” the biggest hit from “Back to Black,” was born out of a joking conversation between Winehouse and Ronson, in which she remembered a real-life instance when her family held her an intervention.
“‘I used to be crazy. I remember one time my family came over and tried to get me to go to rehab,’ ” he remembered her saying. “And I just went, ‘No, no no!’ And that just sounded like a great hook for a song, you know?”
That same afternoon, they headed back to the studio to turn their chat into a song. “She comes back with an acoustic guitar on her knee, and the song was more like a 12-bar blues, very slow. The producer inside me, thinking in a pop sense, was like, ‘That’s cool, but how about we put a bit of a beat behind it and speed it up?’ And she was really into that girl-group pop stuff, so that idea seemed pretty obvious to me.”
Whether “Rehab” would have become the same kind of hit in its sloweddown version, we’ll never know – but it seems unlikely the song would’ve packed the same kind of punch without its rhythmic heat.