Mark Ronson Remembers Making Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back to Black’ on 10th Anniversary of Singer’s Death

To mark the 10th anniversary of the death of Amy Winehouse, Mark Ronson has shared a clip from his upcoming docuseries Watch the Sound With Mark Ronson, in which he recalls the making of the late singer’s classic, “Back to Black.”

In the video, Ronson remembers spending a long night trying to come up with not just the right chords for “Back to Black,” but the right way to present them on tape. “I was like, ‘Okay, what can I do to make this instantly evocative of the music she likes?’” he recalls. “And I was like, ‘Oh, I know what, I’ll cake this tambourine in reverb.’”

Ronson then shares a snippet of the original “Back to Black” demo, while he later notes how he spent the rest of the night “tinkering with reverb and piano — there was not even any time really to think on this one.” Ronson eventually fell asleep at four in the morning, and when Winehouse returned to the studio the next day, Ronson admits, “I had no idea if she was going to like it or not. And she was just like, ‘Yeah, I like it.’ She never gave up too much.” The clip ends with raw footage of Winehouse casually recording the vocals to the song.

Watch the Sound is set to premiere July 30th on Apple TV+. The series will explore the process and evolution of sound creation, and find Ronson chatting with an array of artists and audio pioneers, including Paul McCartney, Questlove, Dave Grohl, Charli XCX, King Princess, T-Pain, Santigold and more. Each episode of Watch the Sound will end with Ronson creating an original piece of music.