Amy Winehouse: 10 Years On: BBC documentary will commemorate Back to Black singer’s death - when is it out?

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Amy’s mother, Janis Winehouse, will share never-before-seen footage of the singer-songwriter

Ten years after the tragic death of Back to Black singer Amy Winehouse, the BBC has confirmed it will make a documentary about her life.

Reclaiming Amy will share never-before-seen footage of the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter, as well as offering input from her mother.

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Winehouse has been named by stars such as Adele and Lady Gaga as the inspiration for their genre of music and her death shined a light on the less than glamorous reality of the problems related to drugs and alcohol among young artists in the music industry.

Amy Winehouse performed at an event to celebrate Nelson Mandela's life at Hyde Park on June 27, 2008 in London  (Picture:Getty Images)Amy Winehouse performed at an event to celebrate Nelson Mandela's life at Hyde Park on June 27, 2008 in London  (Picture:Getty Images)
Amy Winehouse performed at an event to celebrate Nelson Mandela's life at Hyde Park on June 27, 2008 in London (Picture:Getty Images)

This is what we know about the documentary, what her mum has said and how she has inspired other artists.

What is Reclaiming Amy about?

The one-off programme will anchor a series of tribute shows across BBC Two and radio looking back on her life, work and the impact she had on the music industry.

It will look at how Amy grew up, with clips from her family’s home footage and her earlier performances from BBC’s archives.

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Amy’s mother, Janis Winehouse, who has remained private in the past when asked about her daughter, will also speak out in the documentary.

Following the BBC’s announcement about the programme, Janis said: “I don't feel the world knew the true Amy, the one that I brought up, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity to offer an understanding of her roots and a deeper insight into the real Amy.”

Despite the late singer’s issues with alcohol and substance abuse, she has been hailed by many of today’s pop icons as an inspiration for the next generation of female singer-songwriters.

Reclaiming Amy comes six years after director Asif Kapadia produced the Academy Award-winning documentary, Amy.

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The 2015 film was criticised by her father Mitch, who claimed it showed him in an unfair and poor light.

He then revealed he would be working on his own biographical film, with Kinky Boots writer Geoff Deane, which would “celebrate” his daughter - the film has never come to fruition.

What happened to Amy WInehouse?

Winehouse was just 27 years old when she died of alcohol poisoning at her home in north London.

Her mum claims Winehouse was destined for a career in music and from a young age would ditch school to get tattoos, smoke and drink alcohol.

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Winehouse’s music career took off when she was 20, when her first album ‘Frank’ reached third in the UK’s billboard charts, and she became a household name, however she had a troubled personal life.

She made reference to how she enjoyed chaos and once said: “If you’re a musician, and you have things you want to get out, you write music,” adding “You don’t want to be settled, because when you’re settled you might as well call it a day.”

The award-winning singer moved to Camden, where she met Blake Fielder-Civil, who was also addicted to drink and drugs.

The pair would later end up being arrested for possession of drugs, and the singer was at one point filmed inhaling drugs from a crack pipe.

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Winehouse’s former manager, Nick Godwyn, told the Times in 2007: “Amy changed overnight after she met Blake.

“She just sounded completely different. Her personality became more distant. And it seemed to me like that was down to the drugs.

“When I met her she smoked weed but she thought the people who took class-A drugs were stupid. She used to laugh at them.”

Godwyn managed to convince Winehouse to attend rehab, but not before she released an eye-opening, telling record ‘Rehab’ in 2006, about her refusal to admit she needed to detox.

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Winehouse went from performing for at events for Nelson Mandela’s birthday and headlining successful concerts and TV broadcasts, to cancelling more tour dates than she appeared in - turning up to gigs intoxicated and telling her booing fans she was “bored”.

In 2009, she divorced her “Blake, incarcerated” - as she had referred to him during her Grammy acceptance speech - and vowed to return to music.

She was lined up to release a new album and appear on the soundtrack for a James Bond movie, but she failed to see out her commitments.

The star instead returned to rehab, knocking her drug addiction on the head, but using alcohol as her vice.

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Her final performance was at Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade, Serbia in June 18 2011, but Winehouse was visibly intoxicated and the audience was booing her.

She was found dead just days later in her Campden flat on 23 July 2011 of accidental alcohol poisoning.

How did she inspire other artists?

Winehouse may have faced struggles and openly shared her experiences of addiction and attempts at sobriety, but she was undeniably groundbreaking in her approach to music.

British artists such as Adele and Florence and the Machine have hailed the late star for the impact she had, with Florence Welch saying she changed the dynamics of live music.

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The Florence and the Machine vocalist said: “[before Amy] Glastonbury had been more emblematic of male artists and bands, seeing her up there made me think, wow, there is a place for female singer-songwriters in this world.”

Adele paid tribute to Winehouse for “paving the way for artists like me.”

Adele wrote in a 2011 tribute: “[she] made people excited about British music again. I don’t think she ever realised just how brilliant she was and how important she is.”

US pop-icon Lady Gaga has also shared her love of Amy’s less mainstream approach, saying: “I don’t believe what I do is very digestible.

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“And somehow Amy was the flu for pop music. And everybody got a little bit of the flu…. and fell in love with Amy Winehouse.

“And now, when more flu comes along, it’s not so unbearable.”

It was not only female artists she inspired, as British singer Sam Smith, who has had huge success including joining Adele as a singer for James Bond soundtracks, said: “I miss Amy Winehouse so f**king much.

“Her music still inspires just as much as it did the first day I heard it,” they wrote in a Tweet in 2015.

When will the documentary be released?

Reclaiming Amy will air on BBC Two at 9pm on 24 July, the day following the tenth anniversary of her death.

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