Dale Davis, long-time band leader for Amy Winehouse, is reminiscing about the last week of the singer’s life. Davis had bumped into Winehouse at the Camden Roundhouse, where she made her last-ever public appearance, briefly joining her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield onstage. “She said, ‘Let’s hang out,’” Davis says. “But the weird thing about that evening, it was July, and we were outside the Roundhouse and she said, ‘Dale, can you cuddle me? I’m cold.’ And Amy was never cold. So I cuddled her for the whole time, and just held her chatting.”

Winehouse died three days later. The night before, she rang Davis at 11.15pm. “We spoke for about 15 minutes. We had a wonderful chat. And maybe it was a realisation that it was the end for her. She said, ‘Dale, I’ve just been watching myself on YouTube. I can sing, can’t I?’ And I’m glad that she took the time to realise that because she never boasted about herself at all. I said, ‘Yeah, of course you can. You’re the best.’”

Davis was in Winehouse’s band from the very start in 2003, first as bassist before becoming musical director in late 2004. He saw it all through Winehouse’s all-too-short career: the staggering music and generational talent as well as the drink and drugs and the tabloid intrusion that came with her rise to notoriety. He now leads The Amy Winehouse Band, touring this autumn with singer Beth Morris, and into next year for the 20th anniversary of Winehouse’s mega-selling masterpiece, Back to Black. He’s on call with bandmate Ade Omotayo, the backing vocalist who joined her band in 2006.

Omotayo had known Winehouse socially around Camden before joining the band; she actually asked him to join after seeing him in one of her favourite old haunts, The Good Mixer. “The Amy I knew was a lot of fun,” Omotayo says. “Very protective of her friends. Very feisty. Loved to play pool. Hated to lose at pool. She was supremely witty. Could snap sometimes. But always a fun person to be around. Always.”

The pair were very close to Winehouse, Davis especially so. “We always got on, because we were the only people in the band who drank Jack Daniels,” Davis says smiling. “So that’s how I got big friends with her. But she always said that me and her were like the mum and dad of the band. She was very close to my son when he was born, too. She had that side to her as well.”

Davis actually failed his audition to join Winehouse’s band, but got a reprieve when the bassist she hired, who had played with George Michael and Cliff Richard, asked for too much money. “So she called the ugly, cheaper version that was me.” Davis says he remembers the exact moment he knew the singer was special: her performance at the Notting Hill Carnival in 2003 just two months before the release of her debut album, . “She was great. I said she didn’t need a band or anyone else around her. She was that powerful.”

He looks back fondly on the era. The album was dwarfed by the popularity of Back to Black, but it successfully established Winehouse as a rare talent (and did go on to sell one million copies) with real old-school star quality: wonderfully charismatic and unfiltered interviews became hugely entertaining events in themselves, where she displayed deep musical knowledge, vulnerability, a scathing wit and withering disdain for things, often other singers, she didn’t like.

“I remember speaking to Nick Shymansky” – Winehouse’s manager – “and he said, ‘Look, we’re having problems with Amy,’” Davis recalls. “I said, ‘Leave her alone. She’s a rebel. She’s got a punk mentality.’ She didn’t necessarily want to slag off other artists, but people would always try and annoy her with interview questions. But she had the talent to back it up.”

For the first year, Davis says the tour was a huge success. “She was consistently brilliant throughout that whole period, a faultless singer.” He recalls a gig at Bristol University where he realised her popularity was shifting towards the mainstream. “She had a Radio 2 crowd at first, then in Bristol there were all these young people.” But hints of the troubles to come began to appear as the tour rolled on. “The tiredness started to come into play, and once you get tired, the demons for anyone come out. And she was disappointed with the success of at the end of the period. She wanted a bit more from it. I think that 18-month period plus the lack of success had an impact coming into 2005.”

The first thing Omotayo did upon joining was film the “Rehab” video. “I was very green to the whole thing,” Omotayo says. “And she just assured me, ‘Listen, I picked you because I know you can do this.’” They both smile wide-eyed when asked about the first time they heard Back to Black. Davis recalls the “realisation that the music I was learning was special. Bit by bit you’re like, ‘Oh, this is incredible. This has got to be one of the best things I’ve ever heard.’”

He says for a short period, the focus on Winehouse was all about the talent. “The music started to really overtake everything.” But the Brit Awards in 2007 changed everything. “Overnight. Then nothing surprised me after that.” Winehouse won Best Female Solo Artist and walked out to the glare of the paparazzi that would hound her from that point. “We had to start touring with separate busses,” Omotayo says. “We used to go out to have dinner. After that, we just couldn’t do it.”

Winehouse’s addictions and much-publicised relationship with husband Blake Fielder-Civil became a tabloid constant. “We saw Blake a lot at the beginning,” Davis says. “And then he went down” – Fielder-Civil went to prison for assault in 2008 – “so a lot of things changed when that happened.”

Davis recalls the night Winehouse won three Grammys that year. “And I said, ‘Amy, well done.’ She went, ‘This is shit. Blake’s in prison.’ I know in [the 2015 Asif Kapadia documentary] , they talk about [her saying] it was boring without drugs, but that’s what she talked about with me. So she was having these extreme highs and extreme lows, too. She stopped sleeping at that point, and she had already developed the eating disorder, which was an issue.”

The chaotic environment began to affect the live show: throughout 2008, Winehouse’s gigs became erratic, and Winehouse herself unreliable. “We prepared a gig, and if she didn’t turn up, she didn’t turn up,” Davis says. “And after a while, you get used to it. It’s not the best, but she’s not the only artist to do that, so I’m not going to be negative about that. We had to keep it professional. We had her back no matter what, because we loved her that much.”

There has been criticism of Winehouse’s management and her father, Mitch Winehouse, for a lack of due care and pushing her into situations and performances she should have been saved from. What is their take? “That’s a very difficult situation,” Davis says. “Because Amy would say that she needed and she wanted to do the gigs. So it was complicated.” But Davis accepts that there were times she shouldn’t have been performing. “By the time she got to the gigs she’d be physically tired, and that definitely was the case by the time we got to 2011. She needed to write another album. But that was easier said than done.”

Only one of the scheduled 12-date tour of Europe in 2011 took place: what proved to be her final concert in Belgrade. It was a tragically sad evening, with Winehouse visibly struggling to even stand up let alone perform. “We’d already prepared for if she wasn’t going to be all right,” Omotayo says. “But it was unexpected. We’d had shows with her that were like, ‘Oh, man, she’s not on it,’ but she just wasn’t on it from the start. I didn’t know if anyone knew how she got into that state.”

“My body went into shock,” Davis says. “It was my most difficult night as a musician. But unfortunately, it signified the end. It was the breaking point for Amy.”

Winehouse died aged 27 on 23rd July 2011. “I get quite philosophical about these things because we all have to go,” Davis says. “It’s just that her way was quite a chaotic way. I don’t want to look at it as tragic because she gave so much while she was alive.”

Davis was initially reluctant to regroup and take The Amy Winehouse Band on the road, but felt safe to after Kapadia’s film. “Because I thought I didn’t need to answer any questions [about Winehouse].” They began touring in 2016, and soon realised the worth in helping keep Winehouse’s music and spirit alive. After a gig in Holland, Davis met a woman who had brought her terminally ill mother. “One of her wishes was to come and see the band. And at that point, I thought to myself, ‘It’s not about us; it’s about the audience.’ You see so much emotion. You see the impact it’s had.”

The Amy Winehouse Band tour the UK from 22 October to 28 March