July 23, 2011 – Amy Winehouse death announcement and tributes – BBC 5 Live – Gordon Skene Sound Collection –
July 23, 2011 – Doesn’t seem like 10 years since news of the death of singer Amy Winehouse got the worlds attention, even the day after the worst mass shooting took place in Norway. Death that came as a shock/not-a-shock, but still the needless loss of the life of a talent on the rise whose wings were cut short and whose sky was taken away.
It was the stuff of tabloids, the life of Amy Winehouse – a life consumed by demons and contradictions and a loss that many shook their heads upon hearing. It was a story heard over and over; ravages of the territory – lives of wretched excess. Dealing with fame and the loss of a private life in exchange for a very public and sometimes messy one.
Among music veterans there was the cynical aside that it was yet another inductee to the 27 Club – the same club that took Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. Now there was a new one. Some saw her as heir to the mantle of Dinah Washington and the league of Jazz/Soul singers of the past. Others dismissed her as a gimmick and a well-crafted imitation of Soul.
Whatever assessments were of her work as an artist, they were often overshadowed by her life and her troubles and her on-again-off-again bouts with drug and alcohol addiction.
But when police were called to her home in the London suburb of Camden, they made the discovery and the story was over.
Shortly after her death was announced, tributes and remembrances poured in. Here is a clip via BBC 5 Live’s Up All Night with Dotun Adebayo as it was aired live on July 23, 2011.
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