Watch footage of a pre-fame Amy Winehouse audition for Island Records
Amy Winehouse was a generational talent, as her audition footage for Island Records as a teenager proves. Even then, at the formative stages of her career, Winehouse’s voice was destined for stardom.
Winehouse had recently been signed to Simon Fuller’s 19 Management on the strength of a demo sent to the company by a friend. She was only 19 years old and paid £250 a week by Fuller, which was to be deducted from her future earnings. Whispers about Winehouse soon began to spread around the industry as her recordings were passed around, and Island A&R Darcus Beese was adamant they needed to sign her.
The late singer grew up around performing arts, having attended the acclaimed Sylvia Young Theatre School and the BRIT School. Despite her background, Winehouse wasn’t your typical performing arts student and was a naturally shy child. However, when she had a microphone to clutch, everything changed. She didn’t need to be an over-the-top, flamboyant performer because her voice had the ability to silence a room.
In an interview with HitQuarters in 2004, Beese explained how he discovered Winehouse. “I was sitting in my office one day when a producer/manager came in to see me,” he recalled. “He managed the Lewinson Brothers, a team of producers who have since worked with Joss Stone and others. He played me their productions and suddenly this voice came on, and I asked, ‘Who the hell is that?!’ and he said, ‘I can’t tell you – it’s something that we’ve done for 19 Management which we have to keep very quiet.’ I said he’d have to tell me what it was, but he wouldn’t.”
Beese continued: “It took me months to find out who it was just by continually asking around. I called 19 Management, but they wouldn’t return my telephone calls. Finally, I bumped into Felix Howard, who had been writing with the Sugababes, and he played me some songs that he’d been working on. I recognised the voice and asked him who it was and he said Amy Winehouse. All in all, it took me about six months to actually find her.”
The mystery surrounding Winehouse only made Beese more intent on securing her signature for Island, and his boss Nick Ganfield felt the same after first hearing her. After spending months tracking Winehouse down, they finally persuaded her to audition for the label, and after hearing her perform live, she was signed to Island Records.
The following year, Winehouse released her debut album, Frank, and her talent was no longer a secret among those in the know. Tragically, her career will always be shrouded in mystery, with people left thinking about what could have been if she had not succumbed to addiction. However, despite Winehouse only releasing two studio albums, the mark she left behind is permanent, and her work continues to influence others.
