Amy Winehouse, 5 times Grammy Award winner, British retro-soul singer and remarkable musical achievements were often overshadowed by her tumultuous personal life, was found dead at her home in the Camden section of London on July 23rd. Though police were calling the cause of death "unexplained" while they awaited a medical examiner's report, many have speculated that Winehouse finally succumbed to addiction following years of well-documented drug and alcohol problems. The singer was 27 years old.
The initial public reaction to news of Winehouse's death focused on the sense of inevitability that accompanied it, the singer's friends and fellow musicians expressed sadness and condolences online, tweeting everything from the Fleet Foxes simple "Bummer days" to Rihanna's "Dear God have mercy! I am sick about this right now! I am genuinely heartbroken about this." Lady Gaga wrote on Twitter that "Amy changed pop music forever, I remember knowing there was hope, and feeling not alone because of her. She lived jazz, she lived the blues."
Her fans had spent the past few years watching her private dramas unfold while they waited for news that Winehouse was doing well enough to make another album. But even with only a few dozen recorded tracks to her name, Winehouse was already an icon: a badass little Jewish girl with a cartoonishly massive beehive and exaggerated swooshes of eyeliner who found room between all the tattoos and scars from cutting to wear her heart on her sleeve. Moreover, there was just an undeniable power in her voice -- husky and sultry and sad, like a broken heart marinating in whiskey and cigarette smoke. It was a voice that sounded like it came from another time, echoing Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin.
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