Amy Winehouse Research Paper

Amy Jade Winehouse, born on September 14, 1983, was an English pop-soul singer from London, England who had some fearsome personal demons. She was credited with inspiring the British retro-R&B trend in the mid-2000’s before her tragic death. Amy can better be understood by her background, career, drug/alcohol abuse and her tragic death. (Infoplease.com/biography/amywinehouse.com) Amy Winehouse was the daughter of a taxi-driving father, Mitchell Winehouse, a pharmacist of a mother Janis Winehouse and a loving sister to her brother Alex Winehouse. Most of her uncle's on her mother’s side were jazz musicians and even her paternal grandmother was romantically involved with British jazz legend Ronnie Scott. At age 12 she had gotten accepted to a theatre school known as Sylvia Young Theatre School. Amy soon started listening to R&B/Hip-Hop singers

The album was a mixture of jazz, pop, soul and hip-hop. It was nominated for a Mercury Music Prize and 2 BRIT awards. The debut single on that album “Stronger Than Me” earned an Ivor Award. Her second release, “Back to Black” in 2006 made her a bigger star in the U.K. and in the United States, where her album was released in 2007. By now she was known for cancelling shows and for being drunk in public. All this reinforced her image as a bruised soul and gave life to her songs. In spite of her bad image she won 5 Grammy Awards, including awards for best new artist, best pop vocal album “Back to Black” and 3 other awards for “Rehab”; one of them was for record of the year. She had problems with her visa which kept her from flying to L.A. for and award show. Instead, she performed via satellite hookup. It turned out to be the high-water mark of her career; she never recorded another album after this incident. At this point she had got into drugs and alcohol which was getting serious.