With her gravelly voice and eclectic style, Amy Winehouse, 27, who has been found dead in London, won comparison with some of the great female singers such as Sarah Vaughan and Nina Simone. But like another great singer, Janis Joplin, she had a talent for self destruction, and fought a long battle against substance abuse.

Amy Jade Winehouse was born on 14 September 1983 in the well-to-do area of Southgate, north London. Her taxi driver father, Mitchell, was a jazz enthusiast and often sang songs to his daughter as she grew up.

She trained at the Susi Earnshaw Theatre School from the age of eight and, by the time she was 10, had formed a rap group with one of her best friends. Winehouse later attended the prestigious Sylvia Young Theatre School. She began writing music at the age of 14 and a former boyfriend sent a tape of her singing with a jazz band to an A&R man.

It led to a contract with the Island/Universal record label and a publishing deal with EMI. Her debut album Frank, released in 2003, was described by The Times newspaper as “earthy, warm, lived-in and astonishingly versatile”. She co-wrote all but two of the songs and won praise for what one reviewer described as “the cool, critical gaze” in the lyrics.

But as her popularity soared, her health began to suffer and her behaviour became more erratic. She appeared to be drunk on Channel 4’s The Charlotte Church Show in 2006, and took part in Never Mind The Buzzcocks in a similar state. Her weight plummeted during an exhausting schedule of promotional appearances and concerts in the UK and US. She admitted punching a female fan at a gig in London and attacking her boyfriend when he tried to calm her down. She confessed to self-harming and spoke of battles with eating disorders. And she shocked a journalist from US magazine Spin when she carved the name of then-boyfriend Blake Fielder-Civil into her stomach with a shard of mirror during an interview.

In her short career Winehouse gave us just a glimpse of what might have been, before she was undone by her own personal demons. But the songs she recorded, and the string of awards they brought her, served to underline what a talent she was.