Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011) was a British singer, songwriter, musician, and businesswoman. She is<!-- Keep as "is", she is still remembered for her all of the following things. --> known for her distinctive contralto vocals, expressive and autobiographical songwriting, and eclectic blend of genres such as soul, rhythm and blues, and jazz. Her music, along with her fashion and highly publicised personal life, made her an influential figure in popular culture.
Born to a Jewish family in Enfield, London, Winehouse grew up in a jazz-influenced household. She was a member of the National Youth Jazz Orchestra in her youth, recording several songs before signing a publishing deal with EMI. After a friend passed her demo to a music executive, Winehouse signed with Island Records in 2002. She worked with producer Salaam Remi for debut studio album, Frank (2003), which was commercially successful in the UK and drew critical acclaim for its mature songwriting and jazz-imbued production. Its lead single, "Stronger Than Me", earned the singer an Ivor Novello Award.
Inspired by 1960s girl groups and soul music, Winehouse recorded her second studio album, Back to Black (2006), with Remi, the Dap-Kings and producer Mark Ronson. It became an international critical and commercial success and one of the best-selling albums of all time. Its lead single, "Rehab", was a worldwide top-ten song and won her a second Ivor Novello Award. At the 50th Annual Grammy Awards in 2008, Winehouse won five awards, tying the then-record for the most Grammys won by a female artist in a single night and becoming the first British woman to win five Grammys. Her wins included three of the "Big Four" categories—Best New Artist, and Record of the Year and Song of the Year for "Rehab"—along with Best Pop Vocal Album.
Winehouse's career was often overshadowed by substance abuse, mental illness, and addiction, culminating in her death from alcohol poisoning at her Camden Square home in London at the age of 27. Her brother believed that bulimia was also a factor. Winehouse's life and career were depicted in the documentary Amy (2015) and dramatised in the biopic Back to Black (2024). In 2023, Rolling Stone included Winehouse on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. In 2025, Back to Black was preserved in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress.
Early life
Amy Jade Winehouse was born at Chase Farm Hospital in Gordon Hill in Enfield, London, on 14 September 1983. She was born to Jewish parents: her father, Mitchell "Mitch" Winehouse, was an amateur singer and taxi driver; her mother, Janis "Jane" Winehouse (née Seaton), was a pharmacist. She had a brother named Alex, who was three years older than her. Winehouse was raised in Southgate, London; when she was five she began attending Osidge Primary School. She then started her secondary education at Ashmole School, where her grades were "surprisingly good" according to her mother. As a child, Winehouse attended a weekly cheder, a Jewish primary school. In a later interview, she expressed her dislike for the school, recalling that she often begged her father to let her stay home and felt she "learned nothing about being Jewish" from attending.
left|alt=Black-and-white image of Mitch in the foreground, smiling and looking at the camera; behind him is Winehouse, leaning on his shoulder|thumb|Winehouse and her father, Mitch, in 2008
Many of Winehouse's maternal uncles were professional jazz musicians. Her paternal grandmother, Cynthia, had been a singer and dated jazz saxophonist Ronnie Scott. Cynthia, along with Winehouse's parents, nurtured Winehouse's early interest in jazz. Mitch would frequently sing and play the songs of jazz musicians like Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett around the house, and when reprimanded at school, Winehouse would sing "Fly Me to the Moon" before seeing the headmistress. Her parents separated when she was nine, after which she lived with her mother and her boyfriend in Whetstone, London, and spent weekends with her father and his girlfriend in Hatfield Heath, Essex.
In 1992, Cynthia encouraged Winehouse to attend the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School, where she spent Saturdays developing her singing, acting and tap dancing. With her childhood friend Juliette Ashby, she formed a short-lived rap duo called Sweet'n'Sour. Winehouse later enroled at the Sylvia Young Theatre School; at her audition she sang "On the Sunny Side of the Street". Reports that she was expelled at 14 for "not applying herself" and for piercing her nose were denied by both Sylvia Young and her father, who clarified that she simply transferred schools at 15. One of her teachers there recalled her as a skilled writer, saying she could have become a novelist or journalist. She later attended the Mount School in Mill Hill and briefly went to the BRIT School in Selhurst, Croydon. After experimenting with her brother's guitar, Winehouse purchased her own and soon began writing her own songs. Around the same time, she worked as an entertainment journalist for the World Entertainment News Network and was a vocalist for the National Youth Jazz Orchestra. Her best friend, soul singer Tyler James, later sent a demo tape of hers to an A&R scout to help kickstart her professional career. although she was a regular jazz standards singer at the Cobden Club. Her future A&R representative at Island, Darcus Beese, heard of her by chance when the manager of the Lewinson Brothers showed him some productions of his clients, which featured Winehouse as key vocalist. When he asked who the singer was, the manager told him he was not allowed to say. Having decided that he wanted to sign her, it took several months of asking around for Beese to eventually discover who the singer was. By that time, Winehouse had already recorded a number of songs, signed a publishing deal with EMI, and formed a working relationship with producer Salaam Remi. Winehouse's voice was compared with those of Sarah Vaughan and Macy Gray, among others.
The album entered the upper reaches of the UK Albums Chart in 2004 when it was nominated for the Brit Awards in the categories of British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act. It went on to achieve platinum sales. Later in 2004, she and Remi won the Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song, for their first single together, "Stronger Than Me". The album was also shortlisted for the 2004 Mercury Music Prize. In the same year, she performed at the Glastonbury Festival (on the Jazz World stage), the V Festival and the Montreal International Jazz Festival. After the release of the album, Winehouse commented that she was "only 80 percent behind [the] album" because Island Records had overruled her preferences for the songs and mixes to be included.
2006–2008: Back to Black and international success
thumb|upright=0.8|Winehouse at the Avalon in [[Boston, Massachusetts in 2007]]
After the release of her first jazz-influenced album, Winehouse's focus shifted to the girl groups of the 1950s and 1960s. Winehouse hired New York singer Sharon Jones's longtime band, the Dap-Kings, to back her up in the studio and on tour. Mitch Winehouse relates in Amy, My Daughter how fascinating watching her process was: her perfectionism in the studio and how she would put what she had sung on a CD and play it in his taxi outside to know how most people would hear her music. In May 2006, Winehouse's demo tracks such as "You Know I'm No Good" and "Rehab" appeared on Mark Ronson's New York City radio show on East Village Radio. These were some of the first new songs played on the radio after the release of "Pumps" and both were slated to appear on her second album. The 11-track album, completed in five months, was produced entirely by Salaam Remi and Ronson, with the production credits being split between them. Ronson said in a 2010 interview that he liked working with Winehouse because she was blunt when she did not like his work. She in turn thought that when they first met, he was a sound engineer and that she was expecting an older man with a beard.
Promotion of Back to Black soon began and, in early October 2006, Winehouse's official website was relaunched with a new layout and clips of previously unreleased songs. The first single released from the album was the Ronson-produced "Rehab". The song reached the top ten in the UK and the US. Time magazine named "Rehab" the Best Song of 2007. Writer Josh Tyrangiel praised Winehouse for her confidence, saying, "What she is<!--not a mistake--> is mouthy, funny, sultry, and quite possibly crazy" and "It's impossible not to be seduced by her originality. Combine it with production by Mark Ronson that references four decades worth of soul music without once ripping it off, and you've got the best song of 2007." The album's second single and lead single in the US, "You Know I'm No Good", was released in January 2007 with a remix featuring rap vocals by Ghostface Killah. It ultimately reached number 18 on the UK singles chart. The title track, "Back to Black", was released in the UK in April 2007 and peaked at number 25, but was more successful across mainland Europe. "Tears Dry on Their Own" and "Love Is a Losing Game" were also released as singles, but failed to achieve the same level of success.
thumb|Winehouse with [[Mick Jagger at the Isle of Wight Festival on the Isle of Wight, England where she sang "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" with the Rolling Stones on 10 June 2007.|left]]
A deluxe edition of Back to Black was also released on 5 November 2007 in the UK. The bonus disc features B-sides, rare, and live tracks, as well as "Valerie". Winehouse's debut DVD I Told You I Was Trouble: Live in London was released the same day in the UK and 13 November in the US. It includes a live set recorded at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire and a 50-minute documentary charting the singer's career over the previous four years. Frank was released in the United States on 20 November 2007 to positive reviews. The album debuted at number 61 on the Billboard 200 chart. In addition to her own album, she collaborated with other artists on singles. Winehouse was a vocalist on the song "Valerie" on Ronson's solo album Version. The song peaked at number two in the UK upon its October single release. "Valerie" was nominated for a 2008 Brit Award for British Single of the Year. Her work with ex-Sugababe Mutya Buena, "B Boy Baby", was released on 17 December 2007. It served as the fourth single from Buena's debut album, Real Girl. Winehouse was also in talks of working with Missy Elliott for her album Block Party.
Winehouse promoted the release of Back to Black with headline performances in late 2006, including a Little Noise Sessions charity concert at the Union Chapel in Islington, London. On 31 December 2006, Winehouse appeared on Jools Holland's Annual Hootenanny and performed a cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" along with Paul Weller and Holland's Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. She also performed Toots and the Maytals' "Monkey Man". At his request, actor Bruce Willis introduced Winehouse before her performance of "Rehab" at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards in Universal City, California, on 3 June 2007. During the summer of 2007, she performed at various festivals, including Glastonbury Festival, as well as Lollapalooza in Chicago.
The rest of her tour did not go as well. In November 2007, the opening night of a 17-date tour was marred by booing and walkouts at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham. A critic for the Birmingham Mail said it was "one of the saddest nights of my life ... I saw a supremely talented artist reduced to tears, stumbling around the stage and, unforgivably, swearing at the audience." Other concerts ended similarly, with, for example, fans at her Hammersmith Apollo performance in London saying that she "looked highly intoxicated throughout," until she announced on 27 November 2007, that her performances and public appearances were cancelled for the remainder of the year, citing her doctor's advice to take a complete rest. A statement issued by concert promoter Live Nation blamed "the rigours involved in touring and the intense emotional strain that Amy has been under in recent weeks" for the decision. Mitch Winehouse wrote about her nervousness before public performances in his 2012 book, Amy, My Daughter. On 13 January 2008, Back to Black held the number-one position on the Billboard Pan European charts for the third consecutive week.
thumb|upright=0.8|Winehouse performing at the Virgin Festival at [[Pimlico, Baltimore|Pimlico in Baltimore in 2007]]
On 10 February 2008, Winehouse received five Grammy Awards, winning in the following categories: Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for the single "Rehab", and Best Pop Vocal Album. The singer also earned a Grammy as Best New Artist, earning her an entry in the 2009 edition of the Guinness Book of Records for Most Grammy Awards won by a British Female Act. Additionally, Back to Black was nominated for Album of the Year. Ronson's work with her won the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, in the non-classical category. She ended her acceptance speech for Record of the Year with, "This is for London because Camden Town ain't burning down," in reference to the 2008 Camden Market fire. Performing "You Know I'm No Good" and "Rehab" via satellite from London's Riverside Studios at 3 a.m. UK time, she couldn't be at the ceremony in Los Angeles as her visa approval had not been processed in time.
After the Grammys, the album's sales increased, catapulting Back to Black to number two on the US Billboard 200, after it initially peaked in the seventh position. On 20 February 2008, Winehouse performed at the 2008 Brit Awards at Earls Court in London, performing "Valerie" with Mark Ronson, followed by "Love Is a Losing Game". She urged the crowd to "make some noise for my Blake." A special deluxe edition of Back to Black topped the UK album charts on 2 March 2008. Meanwhile, the original edition of the album was ranked at number 30 in its 68th week on the charts, while Frank charted at number 35.
In Paris, she performed what was described as a "well-executed 40-minute" set at the opening of a Fendi boutique in early March. By 12 March, the album had sold a total of 2,467,575 copies—318,350 copies had been sold in the previous 10 weeks—putting the album on the UK's top-10 best-selling albums of the 21st century for the first time. On 7 April, Back to Black was in the top position of the pan-European charts for the sixth consecutive and thirteenth aggregate week. Amy Winehouse – The Girl Done Good: A Documentary Review, a 78-minute DVD, was released on 14 April 2008. The documentary features interviews with those who knew her at a young age, people who helped her achieve success, jazz music experts, and music and pop culture specialists.
At the 2008 Ivor Novello Awards in May, Winehouse became the first-ever artist to receive two nominations for the top award: Best Song Musically & Lyrically. She won the award for "Love Is a Losing Game" and was nominated for "You Know I'm No Good". "Rehab", a Novello winner for best contemporary song in 2006, also received a 2008 nomination for best-selling British song. Winehouse was also nominated for a 2008 MTV Europe Music Award in the Act of the Year category.
Although her father, manager and various members of her touring team reportedly tried to dissuade her, Winehouse performed at the Rock in Rio Lisboa festival in Portugal in May 2008. Winehouse performed at Nelson Mandela's 90th Birthday Party concert at London's Hyde Park on 27 June 2008, and the next day at the Glastonbury Festival. On 12 July, at the Oxegen Festival in Ireland she performed a well-received 50-minute set which was followed the next day by a 14-song set at T in the Park.
On 16 August, she played at the Staffordshire leg of the V Festival, and the following day played the Chelmsford leg of the festival. Organisers said that Winehouse attracted the biggest crowds of the festival. Audience reaction was reported as mixed. On 6 September, Winehouse was Bestival's Saturday headliner, where she started 40 minutes late and was on stage for 35 minutes, before her performance was terminated because of a curfew. A clip of Winehouse's music was included in the "Roots and Influences" area that looked at connections between different artists at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex NYC, which opened in December 2008. One thread started with Billie Holiday, continued with Aretha Franklin and Mary J. Blige, and then finished with Winehouse. Back to Black was the world's seventh-biggest-selling album of 2008. The album's sales meant that the market performance of Universal Music Group's recorded music division did not drop to levels experienced by the overall music market. The album has sold over 20 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time.
2009–2011: Final projects before death
In a 2009 poll of U.S. residents conducted for VisitBritain by Harris Interactive, one-fifth of the participants indicated they had listened to Winehouse's music during the previous year. She performed with Rhythms del Mundo on their cover of the Sam Cooke song "Cupid" for an Artists Project Earth benefit album released in July that year.
thumb|right|Winehouse backstage with her band in 2009
Winehouse and Ronson contributed a cover of Lesley Gore's "It's My Party" to the Quincy Jones tribute album Q Soul Bossa Nostra, released in November 2010. She had agreed to form a group with Questlove of the Roots, but her problems obtaining a visa delayed their working together. Salaam Remi had already created some material with Winehouse as part of the project. According to The Times, Universal Music pressed her for new material in 2008, but as of 2 September that year she had not been near a recording studio.
In May 2009, Winehouse returned to performing at a jazz festival in Saint Lucia amid torrential downpours and technical difficulties. During her set, it was reported she was unsteady on her feet and had trouble remembering lyrics. She apologised to the crowd for being "bored" and ended the set in the middle of a song. During her stay in Saint Lucia, she worked on new music with Remi. On 23 August that year, Winehouse sang with the Specials at the V Festival on their songs "You're Wondering Now" and "Ghost Town".
Island claimed that a new album would be due for release 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, 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." Ronson said at that time that he had not started to record the album.
thumb|left|Winehouse performing in Brazil in January 2011, one of her last concerts before her death
In January 2011, Winehouse played five dates in Brazil, with opening acts of Janelle Monáe and Mayer Hawthorne. While performing in Florianópolis, Winehouse forgot the lyrics of her songs several times and had to be aided by the public and her band. During the concert, she only drank from a water bottle, but even so, on two occasions, she left the stage in the midst of the show for a period of about five minutes. Upon her return, the crowd showed strong compassion for her and praised Winehouse for continuing the performance. The following month, she cut a performance in Dubai short following booing from the audience. Winehouse was reported to be tired, distracted and "tipsy" during the performance.
On 18 June 2011, Winehouse started her 12-leg European tour in Belgrade. Local media described her performance as a scandal and disaster; she was booed off the stage due to her apparently being too drunk to perform. Serbian defence minister Dragan Šutanovac called Winehouse's performances "a huge shame and a disappointment". It was reported that she was unable to remember the city she was in, the lyrics of her songs or the names of the members of her band. She then pulled out of performances in Istanbul and Athens, which had been scheduled for the following week. On 21 June, it was announced that she had cancelled all shows of her tour and would be given "as long as it takes" to sort herself out.
Winehouse's last public appearance took place at Camden's Roundhouse on 20 July 2011, when she made a surprise appearance on stage to support her goddaughter Dionne Bromfield, who was singing "Mama Said" with the Wanted. Winehouse died three days later. Her last recording was a duet with American singer Tony Bennett for his album Duets II, released on 20 September 2011. Their single from the album, "Body and Soul", was released on 14 September 2011 on MTV and VH1 to commemorate what would have been her 28th birthday.
Other ventures
Activism and philanthropy
Throughout her life, Winehouse donated her money, music and time to numerous charities and causes, particularly those concerned with children. She joined a campaign to stop a block of flats being built beside the George Tavern, a famous London East End music venue. Campaign supporters feared the residential development would end the spot's lucrative sideline as a film and photo location, on which it relies to survive. As part of a breast cancer awareness campaign, Winehouse appeared in a revealing photograph for the April 2008 issue of Easy Living magazine. In 2009, she appeared on a CD called Classics alongside musicians such as the Rolling Stones, the Killers and many Cuban musicians to raise awareness of climate change.
Winehouse loaned a vintage dress used in her video for "Tears Dry on Their Own" as well as a DVD to the British Music Experience, a new museum dedicated to the history of British pop music. The museum, located at the O<sub>2</sub> Arena in London, opened on 9 March 2009. In March 2011, Winehouse donated over £20,000 worth of clothes to a local charity shop in London. A Caribbean man, Julian Jean DeBaptiste, revealed that Winehouse had paid for his urgent surgery costing £4,000 during her stay in Saint Lucia in 2009. "I had surgery on 1 July 2009... it cost a fortune and Amy paid for the whole thing. I tried to thank her but she just hugged me and told me not to say anything. Her generosity gave me my life back."
Business
thumb|upright=0.8|The first act on Winehouse's record label was her goddaughter [[Dionne Bromfield.]]Winehouse had an estimated £10m fortune, tying her for tenth place in the 2008 The Sunday Times listing of the wealth of musicians under age 30. The following year her fortune had dropped to an estimated £5m. Her finances are run by Mitch and Janis Winehouse. It was reported she earned about £1m singing at two private parties during Paris Fashion Week as well as another £1m to perform at a Moscow Art Gallery for Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich.
In January 2009, Winehouse announced that she was launching her own record label. The first act on her Lioness Records is Winehouse's 13-year-old goddaughter Dionne Bromfield. Her first album, featuring covers of classic soul records, was released on 12 October 2009. Winehouse is the backing singer on several tracks on the album and she performed backing vocals for Bromfield on the BBC's television programme Strictly Come Dancing on 10 October.
Winehouse and her family are the subject of a 2009 documentary shot by Daphne Barak titled Saving Amy. Winehouse entered into a joint venture in 2009 with EMI to launch a range of wrapping paper and gift cards containing song lyrics from her album Back to Black. On 8 January 2010, a television documentary, My Daughter Amy, aired on Channel 4. Saving Amy was released as a paperback book in January 2010.
Winehouse was a notable fan of the brand Fred Perry. She collaborated on a 17-piece fashion collection with the label, which was released for sale in October 2010. According to Fred Perry's marketing director, "We had three major design meetings where she was closely involved in product style selection and the application of fabric, colour and styling details," and gave "crucial input on proportion, colour and fit". The collection consists of "vintage-inspired looks including Capri pants, a bowling dress, a trench coat, pencil skirts, a longline argyle sweater and a pink-and-black checkerboard-printed collared shirt." At the behest of her family, three forthcoming collections up to and including autumn/winter 2012 that she had designed prior to her death were released. Following Winehouse's death, Fred Perry has donated 20% of the net revenue from the Amy Winehouse collection to the charity set up in Winehouse's name, the Amy Winehouse Foundation.
Artistry
Musical style
Winehouse was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including rhythm and blues, soul, (sometimes labelled as blue-eyed soul and neo soul), and jazz. She was described as a "retro-soul" singer by Rolling Stone, The New York Times, The Nation, and Billboard. The BBC's Garry Mulholland called Winehouse "the pre-eminent vocal talent of her generation". According to AllMusic's Cyril Cordor, she was one of the UK's premier singers during the 2000s. "Fans and critics alike embraced her rugged charm, brash sense of humor, and distinctively soulful and jazzy vocals". In The Guardian, Caroline Sullivan later wrote that "her idolisation of Dinah Washington and the Ronettes distinguished her from almost all newly minted pop singers of the early 2000s, and her exceptionally-susceptible-to-heartbreak voice did the rest".
Image
thumb|upright=0.8|Winehouse was influenced by soul girl groups such as [[the Ronettes, whose look she imitated.]]
Winehouse's greatest love was 1960s girl groups. and she borrowed her Cleopatra makeup from the same group. Her imitation was so successful that as The Village Voice reports, "Ronnie Spector—who, it could be argued, all but invented Winehouse's style in the first place when she took the stage at the Brooklyn Fox Theater with her fellow Ronettes more than 40 years ago—was so taken aback at a picture of Winehouse in the New York Post that she exclaimed, "I don't know her, I never met her, and when I saw that pic, I thought, 'That's me!' But then I found out, no, it's Amy! I didn't have on my glasses."
The New York Times style reporter Guy Trebay discussed the multiplicity of influences on Winehouse's style after her death. Trebay noted, "her stylish husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, may have influenced her look." Additionally, Trebay observed: