Remembering Amy Winehouse’s Better Days: Her American Debut

Tal­ent­ed but trou­bled singer-song­writer Amy Wine­house was found dead in her Lon­don apart­ment on Sat­ur­day, July 23. The 27 year-old, whose deep voice had always expressed a lev­el of matu­ri­ty and soul­ful­ness that belied her age, was known to be strug­gling with drug addic­tion. In recent months, both her appear­ance and abil­i­ty to per­form live had dete­ri­o­rat­ed marked­ly.

Here she is in bet­ter days, mak­ing her Amer­i­can debut on The David Let­ter­man Show in 2007. For more back­ground on Wine­house­’s life and work, you can also check out The Girl Done Good, a free doc­u­men­tary avail­able at Snag Films. (Note: it is only avail­able in the US and Cana­da.)

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.