MUSIC
What happened to Amy Winehouse and what was the cause of death? The last days of the Queen of Soul
The British soul singer would have turned 41 later this year. We look back at the events which lead to her tragic death at her London home in 2011.
With the release of a new biographical movie Back To Black and an accompanying, double vinyl soundtrack, it’s hard not to wonder what musical treats Amy Winehouse would have left us had she not tragically passed away in the summer of 2011. The London-born singer, whose influences ranged from jazz to soul, reggae and ska, made just two studio albums - her 2003 debut Frank and follow-up Back To Black - the former going x3 platinum (selling over 300,000 units) with the BPI and her second album, doing even better - x14 platinum, becoming the UK’s bestselling album of the 21st Century.
With her iconic, backcombed, bouffant beehive and heavy eye make-up, how you might envisage Ronnie Spector’s long-lost twin sister to look like, Amy Winehouse was one of the most instantly recognizable faces in popular music and indie music at the dawn of the new millennium. And just like Spector, her voice came right from the soul.
Amy Winehouse: addiction and struggles dealing with fame
Amy delved deep into it to sing about her own experiences - the torture of breakups, unrequited love - the pain she knew all too well herself in her own, complex personal personal life, which descended into something much darker with her own struggles with fame and addition.
She tried to numb the pain by drinking to excess during long, wild nights out with her hell-raising husband Blake Fielder-Civil. The couple were infamously photographed by the London paparazzi, heading home in the early hours of the morning, Amy with streaks of black mascara running down her face and blood-spattered shoes. Fielder-Civil looked even worse - the lower part of his face a bloody maze of cuts, gashes and scratches.
Meanwhile her live shows and TV appearances were becoming increasingly erratic and her singing and stage chat between songs, more incoherent. To the extent where her US tour was canceled in September 2007 due to “the rigors involved in touring.”
Amy Winehouse makes comeback in Brazil
In 2008, as Amy’s life started to spiral out of control, she checked in for rehab for crack and heroin addiction. But her battle with substance abuse would be one that Amy couldn’t win. She performed a handful of comeback gigs in Brazil in January 2011 and for a brief while, looked to be back on track. But her show at Kalemegdan in Belgrade, Serbia a few months later on 18 June was excruciating to witness. She was completely out of it. After being introduced by her MC, Winehouse was hardly able to walk as she stumbled on stage, hugged the guitarist, sat on the monitor, then fell down. She somehow managed to complete the show, slurring most of the lyrics in her 12-song set but never performed live again.
Less than a month later, Amy was dead. She was found unresponsive at her Camden Square home on 23 July 2011. At just just 27 years of age, Amy Winehouse’s death came as a huge shock - even for those who had witnessed her progressive downfall. In inquest in October revealed that the singer’s blood alcohol level was 416mg (per 100ml of blood) - over five times the legal UK driving limit (80mg). Three empty vodka bottles, two large bottles and one small bottle, were found at her flat.
A second inquest confirmed that Amy died of alcohol poisoning due to binge drinking. The amount of alcohol in her bloodstream sent her into a coma and fatally depressed her respiratory system. Amy had been taking medication, Librium, to cope with alcohol withdrawal but the autopsy report showed that there were no signs of any other drugs in her system at the time of her death.