Before she was pronounced dead yesterday, Amy Winehouse allegedly showed "signs of life" when paramedics arrived at her London apartment, "but she died before they could transport her." TMZ reports that authorities are "operating under the suspicion" of an overdose, but this couldn't be confirmed and an official tells the Times "at this early stage it is being treated as unexplained." Winehouse's father, Mitch, who is a jazz musician, was in New York yesterday before he was scheduled to perform at the Blue Note on Monday, but has since cancelled the show and returned to London. Winehouse's mother told a British paper that her daughter " seemed out of it" when she saw her on Friday, and that her death at an early age was "a matter of time. But her passing so suddenly still hasn’t hit me.”
As fans paid tribute to the troubled singer by laying flowers and photos outside her residence in north London, celebrities who knew Winehouse mourned her passing. Produced Mark Ronson, whose songwriting helped make Back To Black a critical and commercial success, told the BBC, "She was my musical soulmate and like a sister to me. This is one of the saddest days of my life." Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood said on a radio show yesterday that, "It's a very sad loss of a very good friend I spent many great times with."
The Times' music critic Jon Parales sums up Winehouse's impact nicely:
Her self-destruction was a deep loss to listeners. Ms. Winehouse was no manufactured pop commodity. She was a genuine musician: one of the very small handful of British singers whose version of American soul music had a gutsiness and flair far beyond what could be studied.
In her music, Ms. Winehouse could sketch out her troubles and laugh them off, with a resilient beat and that insouciant flutter in her voice. Outside the recording studio, as a human being separate from her art, Ms. Winehouse couldn’t do that. Her songs, it turned out, would be wiser than she was.
