Back To Black: Looking back at Amy Winehouse's remarkable musical legacy – and her encounters with Hot Press

It doesn’t happen very often, but every now and again a song comes out of seemingly nowhere, demands the world’s attention and gets it.

That’s precisely what occurred in October 2006 when Amy Winehouse released ‘Rehab’, the first single from her Back To Black album, which immediately earned comparisons with the likes of Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington, who all happened to be heroes of Amy’s.

Those heady times are recalled in Back To Black, the eagerly awaited biopic starring Marisa Abela, the English actor who has Amy’s every mannerism down to a tee. With Eddie Marsden, Jack O’Connell and Lesley Manville also appearing, it’s a seriously star-studded affair.

The Back To Black film starts with Amy's early gigs, subsequent signing to Island Records and jetting out to Miami in 2003 to record her debut album, Frank. Recalling those sessions, her friend and first manager Nick Shymansky told me: “We had a convertible car and an expense account and were staying in the same hotel, the Raleigh, that Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardener used to go to. The record company expected her to put in 12/13 hour days, but we’d do two or three and then head to the beach. We were eating in these really flash restaurants three times a day. She loved her grub! There were so many funny moments and conversations that I cherish. I know it sounds cheesy, but when you look at ‘Miami’ written down, it’s almost ‘My Amy’. I don’t ever want to go back there, I just want it to be this beautiful memory!”

Fast-forward four years and ‘Rehab’ going top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic meant that Amy was suddenly one of Planet Pop’s hottest properties with serious air miles clocked up as she embarked on a PR blitz.

“It’s been a bit mental,” Amy acknowledged when we met in December 2006, “but in a good way. I got to do the Norwegian equivalent of Parkinson, which was like a surreal dinner party. There was the host, a comedienne, the world’s most famous diamond cutter and me. How the fuck did that happen? I’ve got very good at not knowing what’s being said, but nodding and smiling in the right places!”

Norwegian TV duties taken care of, it had been back to London for some celebrity hobnobbing.

“I got to meet Ronnie Wood at The South Bank Show,” she recounted with childlike glee. “I was sitting on a table with Gilbert and George – I know fuck all about art but they were cool!”

As ‘Rehab’ slipped out of the top 30, it was instantly replaced by ‘You Know I’m No Good’, which includes the immortal couplet: “‘Cause you’re my fella, my guy / Hand me your Stella and fly / By the time I’m out the door / You tear me down like Roger Moore.”

Not only was ‘You Know I’m No Good’ a massive hit at home, it also elevated her to superstar status in the US where she had A-List admirers aplenty.

“I did two shows in New York recently – Mos Def was at the first and Jay-Z was at the second,” she enthused when we met again at the start of 2007. “It’s always nice to be supported by people you admire. I don’t know if it’s because of the version of ‘You Know I’m So Good’ that’s come out with Ghostface Killah on it, but a lot of the hip hop community in America seem to know who I am.”

If that was Ms. Winehouse at her most playful, Amy’s subsequent triple-whammy of hit singles – ‘Back To Black’, ‘Tears Dry On Their Own’ and ‘Love Is A Losing Game’ – were altogether darker delves into a private life that can only be described as troubled.

Despite having had her heart serially broken, it was clear when Amy told us about her Valentine’s Day plans that she remained a true romantic.

“The boy doesn’t get up ‘til late, so I’ll start by going to the gym early on my own and raising my energy levels for what’s coming later!” she confided with a smile. “Adrenaline pumping, it’s back to the house where I cook him breakfast, we eat and read the newspapers in bed and then have a nice, soapy bath together. Next we’d go for a walk in London, pick somewhere nice in Soho for dinner and head home for some lovin’. You’re making me all tingly!”

Amy went on to tell me about her first kiss.

“I was about 12 and it was with a Greek boy called Chris,” she reminisced fondly. “My best friend Juliette thought I was making it up, so when my Mum picked us up from his house and we got in the car, she said, ‘Let me smell your breath’. I went ‘haaaaah’ and she goes, ‘Oh my God, boy breath, I believe you!’”

It was abundantly clear from my chats with Amy that it was the music that mattered, not the money or the other showbiz trappings.

“I don’t care about breaking America or Mars or wherever,” she averred. “If it happens while I live my life the way I want to live it, fine. If it doesn’t, you won’t find me going boo-hoo.”

I’m not sure how big she ended up being on Mars, but few artists have beguiled us humans like Amy Winehouse did.

• Back To Black is in Irish cinemas on Friday April 12.