Amy Winehouse with her mother Janis, 1998
Amy Winehouse is one of those stars who shined brightly before burning out only a few years after becoming one of the biggest stars in music. Her whisky and cigarette soaked vocals brought danger back to pop radio, but her addictions got the best of her and she passed away on July 23, 2011.
As a teenager in the 1990s Winehouse attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School in London where she worked out of her vocals and her songwriting skills. At the same time she was also getting into trouble, acting out in ways that were only a preview for what was to come. Her mother wrote of the young woman:
Amy came into my life like a whirlwind and changed it forever. Although I lived through it with her, sometimes her story does not feel real. I am a proud mother who watched her daughter achieve the success and recognition she desperately wanted… She, herself, walked an endlessly unsteady tightrope between withdrawing from the limelight and needing to be noticed.
