Having performed alongside Amy Winehouse from her debut album until her tragic passing in 2011, Dale Davis initially felt uncomfortable when he first began playing Amy’s songs live again without the icon singer. 

"We started doing it in 2016 and it was very weird at first," he says of his first gigs with the Amy-less Amy Winehouse Band. "A lot of things used to go wrong and I thought ... is Amy trying to tell me that I shouldn't be doing this?" 

Then, during a live show in Holland, the band heard from an audience member attending with her dying mother. "She said that one of her last wishes was to come and see the gig," Dale recalls, still moved by the incident. "I realised at that point that it's all about the audience. And ever since then, we've been doing it for the audience, and they're getting bigger and better and stronger every time we go out.”

On the road for the summer, Amy Winehouse Band stop-offs include major UK festivals (Camp Bestival, Y Not), trips to Indonesia and France, and also an appearance in Dale’s new home city, at Coventry's Warwick Arts Centre on Thursday 20.

"I think the show is a great show,” he enthuses. “But at the moment, it's gone up again, to another level."

Inspired by Jimi Hendrix, Dale - who moved to Coventry earlier this year - picked up a guitar at eight, and then the bass guitar six years later. "And I've just been trying to make my way as a musician ever since," he says.

"I got my breakthrough with Norman Cook [aka Fatboy Slim] when he had Beats International, and I carried on working with him during Freak Power - I was with Norman for three years. And then I ended up working in Europe for four years with Night Of The Proms - it's like The Proms here, but more pop/ classical, and I was in the house band.

“That's when I first started working with Paul Young, and he called me afterwards and said 'do you want to come on tour with me?' So I did."

Then, in 2003, Dale was offered an audition with new act Amy Winehouse. He didn't initially get the job. But when the first choice proved too costly for a then unknown and untested artist, Dale got a call, quickly becoming the songstress' Musical Director as well as her close friend.

Looking back, he says Amy’s talent was very quickly evident.

"She was amazing. There was just so many occasions where you realised that you were with a genuinely special talent," he says. "She'd sing other people's songs, but she'd sing them in her own way. She was just as good as people like Mariah Carey. "I remember thinking, OK, you, really do have a voice!"

"Amy was probably the most courageous singer that I've ever worked with. She would take risks and she'd give so much." While there was a real buzz around Amy’s debut album, Frank, it was 2006's Back To Black which pushed her into celebrity status. Number one in over a dozen countries, including the UK, it even hit No.2 in the US Billboard charts.

But with that success came unprecedented media attention. "I remember one night, I dropped her home in my car, and when we got to her front door, there were two paparazzi there taking photos, and they looked like they'd won the World Cup - they were whooping and stuff, because they'd got all these big photos that they could sell the next day."

Amy died in 2011. Dale, who spoke to her hours before she passed, cites the pressure she was under, coupled with her addictions and health issues, as contributing factors. "Unfortunately, I think the thing that finished her off was her eating disorder more than what the public say about her drinking, drugs, and stuff like that. That's what I think. She didn't really eat much in the last five years, and your body's not going to survive, [you can't] go without food. It's a very similar story to Karen Carpenter in that way," he adds, referring to the singer/percussionist of the Carpenters, who died in 1983.

Thirteen years after her tragic passing, interest in the singer of Rehab, Tears Dry On Their Own, Love Is A Losing Game and Stronger Than Me, remains strong, fuelled by numerous documentaries, and the recent bio-pic, Back To Back, directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson and starring Marisa Abela. To get that air of authenticity, Dale was called on to assist with both the film and soundtrack, including advising the cast on stage moves.

"It's nice to see a different take," he says of the film.  While he’s all to aware no-one can truly equal Amy, he praises Marisa, as well as Bristolian vocalist Bronte Shande, who has the unenviable task of fronting The Amy Winehouse Band with Dale and longstanding Amy alumni, guitarist Hawi Gondwe.

Discussing how she copes with the challenge, Dale says: "Bronte was eight-years-old when Frank came out - she's 28 now - so she's studied Amy right from the get-go, and she's got her musicality. She just understands the whole project and gives it a lot of respect. The crowds can't believe how good she is. [Bronte] is one-of-a-kind - I think it's very hard to find people to sing Amy's songs and sing them in a way she does."

"She is the closest to Amy in attitude, sound and vocal ability of anyone I've heard."

Interview by Dave Freak. The Amy Winehouse Band plays Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry on Thursday 20 June, and Birmingham Town Hall on Wednesday 18 December.