Amy Winehouse

English singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse was found dead at her house on Saturday, July 23, 2011. Emergency officials found the body of the 27 year old in her north London property around 3:54 p.m. She was 27. Police are calling the cause of death undetermined, but many suspect a drug overdose.

Amy Winehouse

Last month, Winehouse pulled out of her European tour because she was booed at her comeback performance in Serbia for looking as if she was too drunk to perform. It is understood that for 90 minutes, Winehouse mumbled through parts of songs and at times left the stage - leaving her band to fill in. She has been battling drugs and alcohol for a while.

Amy Winehouse

Winehouse, who is known for her powerful contralto vocals, won much acclamation when she was 20 with her 2003 debut album, Frank. However, it wasn’t until 2006, when she released the album Back to Black that she got worldwide fame, winning five Grammy Awards.

Amy Winehouse’s music — Sixties pop-soul in 21st-century street slang — was always less interesting than her chaotic off-stage life. Her name seldom featured in the press unless prefixed by the word “troubled” and accompanied by an account of her battles with drink and drugs and her dependent-abusive relationship with her husband, a petty drug dealer and junkie called Blake Fielder-Civil. Cancelled gigs, brushes with the law and spells in rehab gave the press plenty to write abort.

Amy Winehouse and Blake Fielder-Civil

Born in 1983 in London, Amy Winehouse tried out a number of different musical ventures, including dabbling with rap when she was 10, before she signed her first record contract as a singer-songwriter. Aged 20 she released her first album, the jazz influenced Frank, which reached No.13 in the UK and saw Winehouse nominated for Best Female Solo Artist and Best Urban Act at the BRIT Awards. The album went on to produce platinum sales while the single, "Stronger Than Me", won the acclaimed Ivor Novello Songwriting Award.

Amy Winehouse

The follow-up album Back to Black (2006) reached No.1 in the charts twice, the first time helped by the single "Rehab", and then once again on receiving the BRIT Awards nomination for Best Album. The album was released in the US in 2007 and went straight into the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, at the time a record debut entry position for a British female artist. Winehouse played the MTV Music Awards show which helped "Rehab" into the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100.

Hailed by Newsweek Magazine as a cross between Billie Holiday and Lauryn Hill, British soul singer Amy Winehouse's U.S. debut, Back To Black hits the US amid a flurry of accolades, radio and TV buzz unprecedented in recent years for a young siren.

Amy Winehouse

Her brassy mix of emotive vocals tinged with 60's girl-group stylings, sly funk, and anguished jazz, sparked the New York Daily News to crown Back To Black a "marvelous debut that would do Etta James proud" while New Yorker Magazine called her "a fierce English performer whose voice combines the smoky depths of a jazz chanteuse with the heated passion of a soul singer," and Spin Magazine affirming "there's never been A British star quite like her."

Amy Winehouse

Back To Black smolders with a bristling fusion of old school doo-wop/soul inflected uprisings, (the charismatic singer/songwriter wrote or co-wrote all of the songs on the album) brewing instant classics such as the Shirley Ellis influenced "Rehab," the Supremes tinged title song "Back To Black," the aching "Wake Up Alone," and the album's closer, "Addicted."

Amy Winehouse

During her 2009 stay in St. Lucia Winehouse worked on new music with producer Salaam Remi. It was claimed by Island that a new album would be due in 2010, Island co-president Darcus Beese said, "I've heard a couple of song demos that have absolutely floored me". In July 2010 Winehouse was quoted as saying her next album would be released no later than January 2011, which has since passed, saying “It’s going to be very much the same as my second album, where there’s a lot of jukebox stuff and songs that are… just jukebox, really.” Mark Ronson said in July 2010 that he had not started to record the album.

Amy Winehouse

Karen Heller with The Philadelphia Inquirer summarised the maelstrom Winehouse's way: “She's only 24 with six Grammy nods, crashing headfirst into success and despair, with a codependent husband in jail, exhibitionist parents with questionable judgement, and the paparazzi documenting her emotional and physical distress. Meanwhile, a haute designer Karl Lagerfeld appropriates her dishevelled style and eating issues to market to the elite while proclaiming her the new Bardot.”

Amy Winehouse

Amy follows now joins the notorious 27 Club, also known as Forever 27, which is a group of musicians who have all died at the age while struggling to cope with fame. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was the most recent victim and in 1994, pumped with heroin and valium, he turned a gun on himself. Decades earlier Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Brian Jones all died at 27. Rolling Stone Jones drowned in a swimming pool in 1969; Hendrix choked to death in 1970 after mixing wine with sleeping pills and singer Janis Joplin suffered a suspected heroin.