The Making of...
Back To BLACK
Desolate and cinematic, the hit the Queen of Camden created with young producer Mark Ronson would become her timeless swansong
by Amy Winehouse
WE remember Amy Winehouse now as a towering icon of popular culture, a tragic totem of natural talent in an unfeeling world – but back in 2005 she was just another young singer flitting in and out of the public eye. Those eyeliner swooshes were mere wingettes, her beehive in larval form. She’d released Frank two years earlier and enjoyed the first flushes of fame in the UK but was little known in America, where Frank would not even get a release until 2007.
“She was the life of the party”: Amy in 2006
MISCHA RICHTER; STEPHEN J. COHEN/GETTY IMAGES; EARL GIBSON III/WIREIMAGE
When she wasn’t contractually obliged to be on stage, Amy would be holding court in Camden pubs, revelling in the attention and falling hard, fast and very publicly for Blake Fielder-Civil.
What she wasn’t doing much of was writing. She’d gained a bit of a reputation for procrastinating at this point. “We heard from Salaam [Remi, who produced most of Frank] saying that she just always took so long to write,” says assistant engineer Mike Makowski, dragging out his O’s for dramatic effect. But two things happened that sped the creative process along. First, she had her heart broken by Fielder-Civil. Second, she met Mark Ronson. Winehouse realised a musical kinship with the young producer; she knew that she wanted a ’60s girlgroup sound, while Ronson had an ear for a hook and an affection for vintage studio equipment. The pair famously came up with “Rehab” while wandering down a New York street. But the devastating, funereal “Back To Black” would come together bit by bit.
Binky Griptite, former guitarist with the Dap-Kings, remembers Ronson turning up to the studio with a CD packed with “little recordings of the tunes and the chords and whatnot”, and a vision for the song developed throughout the sessions: the first was in the Daptone Studios in Bushwick, Brooklyn, before Amy laid down her vocals at Chung King Studios in Manhattan. Finally, the orchestration was added at Metropolis in London.