About Amy Winehouse

Amy-Jade Winehouse (born 14 September 1983) is an English soul, jazz, and R&B singer and songwriter.

Winehouse’s debut album, Frank (released in 2003) was nominated for the Mercury Prize.

Winehouse is a two-time Ivor Novello Award winner; once in 2004 for her debut single “Stronger than Me” and again in May 2007 for the first single “Rehab” from her 2006 album Back to Black. On 14 February 2007, she won a BRIT Award for Best British Female Artist (she had also been nominated for Best British Album). On 17 July, Back to Black was announced as one of the 12 albums on the 2007 shortlist of Mercury Prize nominees and later that year she was nominated for three MTV Video Music Awards.

Winehouse was born in the Southgate area of Enfield, London to a Jewish family with a history of jazz musicians. Her father, Mitchell Winehouse, is a taxi driver, and her mother, Janis, is a pharmacist. She has one brother, Alex Winehouse. She grew up in the suburb of Southgate, and attended Ashmole School. At around the age of 10, Winehouse founded a short-lived amateur rap group called Sweet ‘n’ Sour, as Sour. She described the group as “the little white Jewish Salt ‘n’ Pepa”. She attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School when she was 12 years old but was expelled at 13 for “not applying herself” and piercing her own nose. She later attended the BRIT School in Selhurst, Croydon.

Winehouse received her first guitar at age 13. By age 16, she was singing professionally after her friend, soul singer Tyler James, gave her demo tape to an A&R person. She signed to her current record label, Island/Universal, under management company 19 Management, Simon Fuller’s management company.

Amy Winehouse Photo Archive