A charity concert will honour the late British musician Amy Winehouse, who passed away last July. She had been battling with substance abuse problems, mental issues and eating disorders throughout her career.

An Evening for Amy celebrates the life and music of Winehouse and will feature over 20 different artists including Catherine Bowers, JJ Brewis, Manzea Jones, Emily Bowers, and Juno Award winner Angela Kelman.

Co-organizer, Catherine Bowers, 52, says each of the artists will be performing various songs by Amy Winehouse.

“The level of talent that we have in the show is outstanding,” Bowers says. “All the music played at the event was recorded by Amy Winehouse. Either original music of hers or covers that she selected.”

Tickets are $25 and money raised from the event will support the Avalon Women’s Centre and the Amy Winehouse Foundation. A portion of the proceeds will also go towards funding a bursary for the Jazz studies program at Capilano University.

There will also be a live and silent auction. Prizes include a Mexican vacation package valued at over $6,000, a watercolour painting of Winehouse by co-organizer JJ Brewis and various gift certificates and artwork.

According to Bowers, fellow musician JJ Brewis came up with the idea to hold a benefit concert in honour of Winehouse.

“JJ is a huge Amy Winehouse fan,” Bowers says. “When she passed away he felt that he needed to commit to something that would celebrate her music and her as a musician and not her character that she became in the stages of her drug and alcohol addiction.”

Brewis asked Bowers to help organize the event because of her previous experience with holding benefit concerts. Many of the artists in the event have a connection to the struggles that Winehouse dealt with.

“Some of them have no link but have empathy, some of them have suffered themselves and some are open about it and others aren’t as open about it,” Bowers says.

The support from the North Shore has been outstanding according to Bowers.

“We have had incredible community support,” she says. “We have set aside 50 tickets that will go to men and women in recovery who can’t afford to go.”

An Evening For Amy will be an emotional night for Bowers, who struggled with an eating disorder.

When Bowers was 22 she developed chronic bulimia and spent over 20 years dealing with it.

“I was extremely obese,” Bowers says. “I was almost near death.”

She began attending meetings at Avalon Women’s Centres and has been sober for over three years.

Before Bowers began receiving treatment she started to rekindle her passion for singing by taking music lessons.

Throughout her recovery she has released two albums “No It Ain’t Over Yet” and “Going to the Good Side” and finished second in a new artist contest on an Ontario radio station.

“I don’t do music for profit I do it all for giving back,” Bowers says. “I only perform for charities.”

Juno Award winner Angela Kelman provides singing lessons to students across the North Shore. One of her clients is Bowers. When she was asked by Bowers to perform at An Evening for Amy, she couldn’t refuse.

“I am so impressed with Catherine as a singer-songwriter and how she used those skills to help herself heal and now she is using all her talents to help others who are struggling,” she says. “I work with a lot of young teenage girls and they are so vulnerable to eating disorders and addictions and I think it’s really important to send the right message to our beautiful young women.”

Kelman says public awareness regarding addiction issues has changed from when she was a teenager in the seventies.

“People are willing to talk about this more, it’s not a dirty little secret that we don’t talk about,” Kelman says. “We are developing an attitude that if I am on a journey of healing I want to share what I know with people who are struggling the same thing instead of putting it in the closet and pretending it doesn’t exist.”

Kelman says Winehouse was an extremely talented singer who was given a beautiful gift.

“She was an old soul,” Kelman says. “She sounded like the real deal from the ’60s. She really embodied the whole vibe of the ’60s. She was really brave to come out as a British singer with that style of music.”

“When you are given the gift of extreme talent often it comes with a lot sadness for whatever reason and some people learn to deal with it and make the best of it and some people it gets the best of them as in her case.”

Between 1992 and 2002 Kelman performed in the country pop group Farmers Daughters. The group received various awards including two gold albums, two CCMA awards, and a Juno.

Bowers 14-year-old daughter Emily will also be performing in the concert. Emily says she is thrilled to be performing along side her mother to raise awareness for an important cause. “I think it’s a great idea and for a great cause,” she says. “It’s just a really good message.”

Kelman added that Catherine Bowers’ performance at the event is going to be very special.

“She has a real great vibe when she sings,” Kelman says. “You can tell she is a survivor and there is going to be some real emotion there that night.

npescod@nsnews.com