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Mary J. Blige has opened up to Billboard magazine about how she saw the deceased singer as a kindred spirit who she might have been able to help. 

The soul singer says she believed she might have been able to help her and elaborated by saying: "I would tell so many people, 'I need to talk to her, I need to get to her. Especially when my life turned around and I chose life. I wanted to somehow get to her, to tell her, 'It's OK to choose life.”

Blige spoke highly of Winehouse in the interview, enthusing: “When I first heard Amy's album, I was like, she's incredible. And then when I saw her perform, It was scary how amazing she was, all that emotion and that almost Nina Simone-type singing.”

Below: Listen to Mary J. Blige's new single 'Right Now'

The R&B icon is set to release her thirteenth studio album ‘The London Sessions’ on 24 November. Jimmy Iovine, her boss at Interscope/Geffen, spoke highly of the album in the interview, seeing it as a savvy move: "The fact that she went to England to make the record was brilliant," he says. "The music community there and in Europe really appreciate what makes her great. There's a song on the album called 'Long Hard Look' [written by Sam Romans, among others]. It's a powerful, powerful song. She crushed it."