Amy Winehouse

A jazz household

Amy Winehouse was born in Enfield, London, on 14 September 1983, into a Jewish family steeped in jazz. Several of her maternal uncles were professional jazz musicians, and her paternal grandmother Cynthia, a singer, had dated the saxophonist Ronnie Scott. She attended the Susi Earnshaw and Sylvia Young theatre schools, bought her own guitar, began writing songs and sang with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra.

Her friend, the soul singer Tyler James, passed a demo to an A&R scout. In 2002 she signed to Simon Fuller's 19 Management. Island's Darcus Beese heard of her by chance, through the manager of the Lewinson Brothers. By then she had a publishing deal with EMI and a working relationship with the producer Salaam Remi, and she signed to Island Records.

Frank

Frank appeared on 20 October 2003. Remi produced most of it, alongside Commissioner Gordon, Jimmy Hogarth and Matt Rowe, and apart from two covers she co-wrote every song. Beccy Lindon of the Guardian placed the sound somewhere between Nina Simone and Erykah Badu. The lead single, Stronger Than Me, stalled at 71 on the UK chart yet won the 2004 Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song. The album climbed to number 13 in January 2004, drew Brit nominations for British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act, and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize.

Winehouse was not happy with it. She told the Guardian she was only 80 per cent behind the album, because the label had insisted on tracks and mixes she hated. It reached the United States only in November 2007. In 2019 a Guardian poll of 45 music writers placed it 57th among the best albums of the 21st century.

Back to Black

For the second record she turned to the girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s. In 2005 she recorded five songs with Remi at his Instrumental Zoo Studios in Miami, among them Tears Dry on Their Own. In March 2006 she met Mark Ronson in New York. Together, with the Dap-Kings, the band of the singer Sharon Jones, they made six more songs, mostly at Daptone in Brooklyn, among them Rehab, You Know I'm No Good and the title track. She based the songs largely on her relationship with Blake Fielder-Civil, who had temporarily left her for an ex-girlfriend.

Back to Black came out in October 2006 and first reached number one in the UK in January 2007. It was the best-selling album of 2007 there, with 1.85 million copies. Rehab went to number seven in Britain and number nine in the United States. On 10 February 2008 she won five Grammys, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year for Rehab, Best Pop Vocal Album and Best New Artist, performing by satellite from London because her US visa had not been processed in time. The album has sold 20 million copies worldwide, and the Guardian's 2019 poll of 45 music writers ranked it number one among the albums of the 21st century so far. Back to Black, the title song, reached 25 on release and 8 after her death.

Why would I fix that? That's what came out.

Amy Winehouse, as recalled by Mark Ronson, 2015

The last years

In June 2008 she appeared at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday concert in Hyde Park and at Glastonbury. On 18 June 2011 she began a European tour in Belgrade, and three days later it was announced that all the remaining shows were cancelled. Her last public appearance was on 20 July, when she joined her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield on stage at the Roundhouse in Camden.

She died at her home in Camden on 23 July 2011, aged 27. Her last recording was a duet with Tony Bennett, Body and Soul, released on what would have been her 28th birthday. Lioness: Hidden Treasures, compiled by Remi and Ronson, followed in December 2011, and Amy Winehouse at the BBC in 2012.

Legacy

Her family launched the Amy Winehouse Foundation on 14 September 2011 to help vulnerable and disadvantaged young people. Asif Kapadia's documentary Amy (2015) won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, and a biopic, Back to Black, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson, followed in 2024. Adele, Duffy, Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars are among the artists who have credited her as an influence. In 2025 the Library of Congress preserved Back to Black in the National Recording Registry.