Amy Winehouse, Early career

After toying with her brother's guitar, Amy Winehouse received her first guitar when she was 13, and began writing music a year later. Amy Winehouse began working soon after, including as a showbiz journalist for the World Entertainment News Network, in addition to singing with a jazz band.

Amy Winehouse' sometimes boyfriend at the time, soul singer Tyler James, sent her demo tape to an A&R person. Amy Winehouse signed to Simon Fuller's 19 Management in 2002. While being developed by the management company, the artist was kept an industry secret. Her future A&R representative at Island/Universal, Darcus Beese, heard her by accident when the manager of The Lewinson Brothers showed him some productions of his clients on which Amy Winehouse featured as vocalist. When he asked who the singer was the manager told him he was not allowed to say.

Having decided that he wanted to sign her it took several months of asking around for Beese to eventually discover who the singer was. By this time Winehouse had already recorded a number of songs and signed a publishing deal with EMI. Through the publishers she formed a working relationship with the producer Salaam Remi.

Beese introduced Amy Winehouse to his boss, Nick Gatfield, and the Island head shared his enthusiasm in signing the young artist. Winehouse was signed to Island/Universal as rival interest in Amy Winehouse had started to build, with representatives at EMI and Virgin also starting to make moves. Beese told HitQuarters that he felt the reason behind the excitement over an artist who was an atypical pop star for the time was due to a backlash against reality TV music shows with audiences becoming starved for genuine young talent.