<p>The cause was not immediately known. The police said that they were investigating the circumstances of the death but that “at this early stage it is being treated as unexplained.”<br /><br />With a husky, tart voice and a style that drew equally from the sounds of Motown and the stark storytelling of rap, Winehouse became one of the most acclaimed young singers of the past decade, selling millions of albums, winning five Grammy Awards and starting a British retro-R&B trend that continues today.<br /><br />Yet, almost from the moment she arrived on the international pop scene in early 2007, Winehouse appeared to flirt with self-destruction. She sang of an alcohol-soaked demimonde in songs like “Rehab”—whose refrain, “They tried to make me go to rehab/ I said, ‘No, no, no,’ ” crystallised Winehouse’s persona—and before long it seemed to spill over into her personal life and fuelled lurid headlines.<br /><br />The interplay between Winehouse’s life and art made her one of the most fascinating figures in pop music since Kurt Cobain, whose demise in 1994—also at age 27—was preceded by drug abuse and a frustration with fame as something that could never be escaped. Yet in time, the notoriety from Winehouse’s various drug arrests, public meltdowns and ruined concerts overshadowed her talent as a musician, and her career never recovered.<br /><br />Deep sadness<br />On Saturday, as the news of Winehouse’s death spread, many musicians took to Twitter with deep sadness but no surprise. Lily Allen, who rose through the British pop scene shortly after Winehouse, called her “such a lost soul.” The singer Josh Groban wrote: <br /><br />“Drugs took her gift, her soul, her light, long before they took her life. RIP Amy.” As much as her misfortunes eventually took on a sense of predictability, when Winehouse arrived with her breakthrough second album ‘Back to Black,’ which was released in Britain in late 2006 and in the United States the next year, she was a fresh voice with a novel take on pop history. She spoke of her love for Frank Sinatra, Thelonious Monk and Motown, as well as Nas, the New York rapper with a sharp eye for narrative detail.<br /><br />Her greatest love, however, was the 1960s girl groups, something that was evident from the instantly recognisable beehive hairdo and Cleopatra makeup that she borrowed from the Ronettes. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2007, Winehouse explained how a breakup had inspired the songs on “Back to Black” and described her state of mind in terms of music and alcohol. <br /><br />“I didn’t want to just wake up drinking, and crying, and listening to Shangri-Las, and go to sleep, and wake up drinking, and listening to the Shangri-Las,” she said. “So I turned it into songs, and that’s how I got through it.”<br /><br />Amy Jade Winehouse was born in Southgate, London, on Sept. 14, 1983. Her mother, Janis, was a pharmacist, and her father, Mitch, was a cab driver who nursed a love for music. They both survive her, along with a brother, Alex.<br /><br />She attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London and later went to the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology, a free performing arts school there that counts several other recent female pop stars among its alumnae, including Allen and Adele, another young singer who is sometimes seen as picking up the neo-soul mantle from Winehouse.<br /><br />In 2003, at age 19, Winehouse released her first album, ‘Frank.’ Influenced by jazz, it established her as a rising star in Britain. But ‘Back to Black,’ recorded with the producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, and the Brooklyn retro-soul band the Dap-Kings, made her an international sensation. With thick horns and club-ready hip-hop beats, the album was a darkly stylish update of classic 1960s R&B, and it was adored by critics and the public alike.<br /><br />According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales, Winehouse has sold 2.7 million albums and 3.4 million tracks in the US. Yet while ‘Rehab’ was still climbing the charts, Winehouse made headlines for drug binges and arrests that left her hospitalized and forced her to cancel concert dates. In October 2007, Winehouse and her husband at the time, Blake Fielder-Civil, were arrested in Norway on a charge of marijuana possession.<br /><br />A month later, Fielder-Civil was arrested and accused of perverting the course of justice by trying to bribe the victim in a bar fight not to testify against him. (Winehouse and Fielder-Civil divorced in 2009.)<br /><br />Perhaps the peak of Winehouse’s career was the 2008 Grammy Awards. She was nominated for six prizes and took home five, including Best New Artist. Yet, even days before the show, her appearance there was uncertain because of visa problems. In the end, she performed by satellite from London.<br /><br />Yet Amy Winehouse’s most recent comeback attempt faltered badly. Last month, she cancelled a European tour after a performance in Belgrade on the first night, during which she appeared to be too intoxicated to perform properly.<br /></p>
<p>The cause was not immediately known. The police said that they were investigating the circumstances of the death but that “at this early stage it is being treated as unexplained.”<br /><br />With a husky, tart voice and a style that drew equally from the sounds of Motown and the stark storytelling of rap, Winehouse became one of the most acclaimed young singers of the past decade, selling millions of albums, winning five Grammy Awards and starting a British retro-R&B trend that continues today.<br /><br />Yet, almost from the moment she arrived on the international pop scene in early 2007, Winehouse appeared to flirt with self-destruction. She sang of an alcohol-soaked demimonde in songs like “Rehab”—whose refrain, “They tried to make me go to rehab/ I said, ‘No, no, no,’ ” crystallised Winehouse’s persona—and before long it seemed to spill over into her personal life and fuelled lurid headlines.<br /><br />The interplay between Winehouse’s life and art made her one of the most fascinating figures in pop music since Kurt Cobain, whose demise in 1994—also at age 27—was preceded by drug abuse and a frustration with fame as something that could never be escaped. Yet in time, the notoriety from Winehouse’s various drug arrests, public meltdowns and ruined concerts overshadowed her talent as a musician, and her career never recovered.<br /><br />Deep sadness<br />On Saturday, as the news of Winehouse’s death spread, many musicians took to Twitter with deep sadness but no surprise. Lily Allen, who rose through the British pop scene shortly after Winehouse, called her “such a lost soul.” The singer Josh Groban wrote: <br /><br />“Drugs took her gift, her soul, her light, long before they took her life. RIP Amy.” As much as her misfortunes eventually took on a sense of predictability, when Winehouse arrived with her breakthrough second album ‘Back to Black,’ which was released in Britain in late 2006 and in the United States the next year, she was a fresh voice with a novel take on pop history. She spoke of her love for Frank Sinatra, Thelonious Monk and Motown, as well as Nas, the New York rapper with a sharp eye for narrative detail.<br /><br />Her greatest love, however, was the 1960s girl groups, something that was evident from the instantly recognisable beehive hairdo and Cleopatra makeup that she borrowed from the Ronettes. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times in 2007, Winehouse explained how a breakup had inspired the songs on “Back to Black” and described her state of mind in terms of music and alcohol. <br /><br />“I didn’t want to just wake up drinking, and crying, and listening to Shangri-Las, and go to sleep, and wake up drinking, and listening to the Shangri-Las,” she said. “So I turned it into songs, and that’s how I got through it.”<br /><br />Amy Jade Winehouse was born in Southgate, London, on Sept. 14, 1983. Her mother, Janis, was a pharmacist, and her father, Mitch, was a cab driver who nursed a love for music. They both survive her, along with a brother, Alex.<br /><br />She attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London and later went to the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology, a free performing arts school there that counts several other recent female pop stars among its alumnae, including Allen and Adele, another young singer who is sometimes seen as picking up the neo-soul mantle from Winehouse.<br /><br />In 2003, at age 19, Winehouse released her first album, ‘Frank.’ Influenced by jazz, it established her as a rising star in Britain. But ‘Back to Black,’ recorded with the producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi, and the Brooklyn retro-soul band the Dap-Kings, made her an international sensation. With thick horns and club-ready hip-hop beats, the album was a darkly stylish update of classic 1960s R&B, and it was adored by critics and the public alike.<br /><br />According to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales, Winehouse has sold 2.7 million albums and 3.4 million tracks in the US. Yet while ‘Rehab’ was still climbing the charts, Winehouse made headlines for drug binges and arrests that left her hospitalized and forced her to cancel concert dates. In October 2007, Winehouse and her husband at the time, Blake Fielder-Civil, were arrested in Norway on a charge of marijuana possession.<br /><br />A month later, Fielder-Civil was arrested and accused of perverting the course of justice by trying to bribe the victim in a bar fight not to testify against him. (Winehouse and Fielder-Civil divorced in 2009.)<br /><br />Perhaps the peak of Winehouse’s career was the 2008 Grammy Awards. She was nominated for six prizes and took home five, including Best New Artist. Yet, even days before the show, her appearance there was uncertain because of visa problems. In the end, she performed by satellite from London.<br /><br />Yet Amy Winehouse’s most recent comeback attempt faltered badly. Last month, she cancelled a European tour after a performance in Belgrade on the first night, during which she appeared to be too intoxicated to perform properly.<br /></p>