Amy Winehouse 10th anniversary: The story of when she sang in Dingle

Ten years on from Amy Winehouse's death, some of those who dealt with her on her visit to Co Kerry recall happier times before her life spiralled out of control
Amy Winehouse 10th anniversary: The story of when she sang in Dingle

Amy Winehouse in Dingle. Picture: Other Voices

In the wake of Amy Winehouse’s death on July 23, 2011, at the shockingly young age of 27, her family took solace in her astonishing 2006 appearance on RTÉ’s Other Voices, in the tiny Church of St James in Dingle. The singer's mother, Janis, said at the time that the Amy she saw on screen from Co Kerry was the Amy who used to come home for Sunday lunch.

The English singer and songwriter was 23 when she came to Dingle, and she had just released her second album, Back to Black. She was on the cusp of international stardom, and her drinking and drug use had already made her a tabloid regular.

Other Voices’ founder Philip King credits the series’ music producer Aoife Woodlock with the idea of booking Winehouse, and for arranging her visit to Dingle. He remembers Winehouse arriving minus her drummer, who had missed his flight.

“There was just the bass player, Dale Davis, and the guitar player, Robin Bannerjee,” King recalls. “The three of them arrived on a cold, wet, winter evening. Landed into Dingle, and she was wearing her drainpipe jeans and she had her beehive hairdo adding to her height.”

 Aoife Woodlock liked her from the moment they met: “My first impressions of Amy were her humour, her hardcore-ness, she had the tattoos of a sailor, she was uncompromising, she had a filthy tongue but got away with it, she was just herself.

“She was tiny, but her smile and her hair were the biggest thing in the room.” 

King says Winehouse asked for a tube of Pringles, and then hit the stage for a set he will never forget.

Amy Winehouse performing at  St James Church in Dingle.
Amy Winehouse performing at  St James Church in Dingle.

“It was just a remarkable performance of those songs, and I think the fact that there was no drummer there was interesting from a musical point of view, because it just pointed up her ability to sing completely free when there’s no kick-drummer tying everything down.

“I don’t think I ever saw anything like it. She was in body and soul a singer, and she was just glorious.” 

John Kelly, who presented Other Voices at the time, says he had known Winehouse would be good, but he hadn’t been prepared for just how good she was, until he watched her close-up.

“Just out of sight there on the side of that little tiny stage is the door into the vestry and I was standing in that doorway, so I was literally a couple of feet away just watching her perform, and it was spectacularly good.

“The performance was absolutely stunning and you were left in no doubt that you were in the presence of a real singer. Just one of those rare, special kinds of people.”

Woodlock agrees Winehouse was phenomenal that night in Dingle, and notes with sadness: “She had such power and control when she was singing, and those were the two things she didn’t appear to have when she was offstage.” 

Woodlock suggests that what also made Winehouse’s Other Voices appearance especially memorable was John Kelly’s remarkable interview with her.

“You couldn’t buy an interview like it. It was just an absolutely brilliant conversation to witness. They jazzed-off. It was unbelievable.

“The whole conversation was music, music, music. It looked like someone had just plugged her in. Thelonious Monk, Sarah Vaughan, the Ronettes, Dinah Washington, and at one point she kept saying to John ‘Stop, stop, stop’, putting her hand out, she was talking over him.”

Kelly says his role on Other Voices was that of “a hired gun”, acting as MC and recording brief interviews with visiting musicians, interviews he says which were never intended to be particularly in-depth.

“When Amy came along, we hit it off, as you do with anyone else you meet who has a shared interest in music, or would have mutual friends, perhaps, or know various musicians you know.

“I was delighted to be talking to someone who knows who Ella Fitzgerald is, and knows who Sarah Vaughan is, and knows who Ray Charles is, and knows who Thelonious Monk is.

“And I think she was probably pleasantly surprised to be asked about those things, as opposed to her growing reputation as a drinker, because she did already have that rep, and she had made a few appearances on television where she was under the weather, and she had become a tabloid figure.” 

Philip King says that 20-minute set before 80 people in Dingle later took on iconic status as Winehouse’s life spiralled.

“As her career peaked, and then she began to go into decline, there were some really terrible, tragic performances. People who understood her brilliant talent, they wanted to find a place where she was singing beautifully, and on top of her game, so many eyes turned towards this performance.

Philip King
Philip King

“Her fall from grace was extraordinarily difficult, and I think the turmoil and the fire in her head, and the fact that she had entered a chemical world that she found very difficult to get out of, is the stuff of tabloid delight, but for people who cared for her and admired her, [and wanted to remember] her at the height of her powers, this was it.”

Aoife Woodlock recalls attending the premiere of Maurice Linnane’s film Arena: Amy Winehouse – The Day She Came to Dingle a year later, in St Anne’s Church, in East London.

“Amy’s family were there and they said it was the only thing that they had collectively gone to. They hadn’t been to anything around her passing, and her mother was an absolutely lovely woman, and we offered our condolences, and we said we felt we had a responsibility with the documentary and we hoped we did Amy justice.

“She said ‘What you did was you showed me my daughter, the girl who came around for Sunday lunch’.” “I was told that it meant a lot to them,” John Kelly says, “and I suppose for that obvious reason that this was her being herself, talking about music, and being funny, and charming, and kind, and sweet, and awkward, and all the things that she was. So, that’s a good thing.”

When Winehouse arrived in Dingle, she marvelled to Woodlock that there were no paparazzi flocking to the edge of Europe. “She said ‘I feel so free here!’ She just had an amazing day here. She was sober, she was well, she was in good form.”

 2021 is Other Voices’ 20th year, and Aoife Woodlock likes to imagine that in another world, a kinder world, Amy Winehouse might be headlining this year’s celebrations.

She muses too that when any artist passes away, those who love their art mourn that loss of talent, and feel they knew the artist. But she says the greatest loss is always for their family and friends.

“A song comes on the radio, we have memories relating to that song, and we feel sad, but somewhere, somebody was her friend, or her brother, or her boyfriend, or her parent, and that has to be the biggest thing.”

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