Amy Winehouse dead in 27
Singer Amy Winehouse, who died inexpectedly in her London home Saturday found many of her career success overshadowed by her drug and alcohol addiction.
While Winehouse publicly acknowledged her drug and alcohol abuse, some addiction experts said, like many addicts, Winehouse may not have grasped the severity of her addiction.
“I think she minimized the extext to which her life was impacted by drugs and alcohol” – said Dr. David Sack, CEO of Promises Treatment Center in Los Angeles, Calif. “She was denying the extent to which it affected her.”
In one of her hit songs, ‘Rehab,’ Winehouse sings that she will not go to rehab, even though her father encouraged her to go.
“It’s not just my pride, it’s just ’til these tears have dried” – Winehouse sings.
Winehouse admitted in several interviews during the album’s release that she suffered from depression, had an eating disorder and engaged in self-injury.
“I do drink a lot. I think it’s symptomatic of my depression” – Winehouse said in an interview on the British TV show, ‘The Album Chart Show.’ “I’m manic depressive, I’m not an alcoholic, which sounds like an alcoholic in denial.”
The song ‘Rehab’ cited a real plea by her friends and father to seek treatment, she said.
“I just felt, no. Do they have a gym there? Who’s going to feed my cats?” Winehouse said. “Alcoholism is a horrible thing, but if you can’t remember the practical issues, that’s when you know you’ve got a real problem.”
Amy Winehouse.
In just 27 years, Amy Winehouse has managed to leave behind her a soul legacy, with a band of modern British female soul singers (Adele, Duffy, Jessie J) celebrating success across the world borne almost entirely in her wake.
Sadly, however, the immeasurably gifted singer is unlikely to be remembered for her talents, which were so often starved; drowned by drink and tranquillised by drug abuse.
Amy Winehouse’s death was one foretold by gruesome pictures of bloody plimsolls and near death experiences from drugs publicly retold by her lovers. It almost seems unsurprising that, in death, Winehouse joins many of her heroes – Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison – all of whom died aged just 27.
Amy Winehouse was born in 1983, a second child to cab driver Mitch and his wife Janis, a pharmacist, from North London.
Her parents split when she was nine years old and she and older brother Alex moved to live with their mother in Southgate, North London – just minutes away from The Priory, the rehab clinic favoured by celebrities, which she would revisit just months before her death.
“She was always very self-willed” – her father Mitch told Rolling Stone in 2007. “Not badly behaved but…different.”
The balance between her precocious musical talents and a seeming inclination to self-destruct were clear from a young age. At just 12, Winehouse enrolled at the Sylvia Young Theatre School but was expelled not long after for getting her nose pierced.
British singer Amy Winehouse lived a life of dizzying highs and hellish lows after taking the entertainment world by storm more than five years ago.
Her distinctive musical talents were overshadowed by her self-destructive habits and very public battle with alcohol and drugs.
The singer’s career high came with the release of her second album Back To Black in 2006, which brought her global fame.
Working with producers Mark Ronson, Salaam Remi and soul-funk group the Dap-Kings, she fused soul, jazz and doo-wop with lyrical tales of romantic obsession and emotional excess.
The album was released in the United States in March 2007 and went on to win five Grammy awards, including song and record of the year for ‘Rehab’.
Music critic John Aizlewood attributed her trans-Atlantic success to a ‘fantastic voice’ and a ‘genuinely original sound’.
“A lot of British bands fail in America because they give America something Americans do better, that’s why most British hip-hop has failed” – he said.
“But they won’t have come across anything quite like Amy Winehouse.”
Amy’s rise to fame was helped by her distinctive look – black beehive hair, thickly-lined eyes and obtrusive tattoos.
She was also known for being famously blunt. In an assessment of her peers, she once described Dido’s sound as ‘background music, the background to death’.
The songs on ‘Back To Black’ detailed break-ups and breakdowns with similar frankness.