British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse was a phenomenon: a Jewish girl from a London suburb with a retro beehive, a devil-may-care attitude and a voice that channeled Aretha Franklin and Ruth Brown. Music industry figures on both sides of the Atlantic hung their hopes on her, and her breakout album, "Back to Black," did not disappoint, selling millions of copies.
Less than a decade after her emergence as an original talent, she was more likely to be mentioned in the company of pop music's tragedies — artists like Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix, whose self-destructive habits led to their deaths at the age of 27.
Winehouse, a five-time Grammy winner whose distinctive fusion of jazz and soul influenced other young artists, was found dead in her London home Saturday. Like Cobain and the others, she was 27.
The cause of death was not immediately known, but she had sought treatment, as recently as last month, for health problems that have been reported to include drug and alcohol abuse and early-stage emphysema.
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-amy-winehouse-20110724,0,5485625.story