In Southgate, London, England on September 14, 1983 Amy Winehouse was born. She is an English soul, vocal jazz, R&B and doo-wop singer and songwriter with the Island, Republic label. While her family shared in her love of jazz music, Winehouse is actually best known for her eclectic mix of various musical genres including soul, jazz and R&B.

Whenever she was only 10-years-old Winehouse founded a short-lived rap group with her childhood friend Juliette Ashby. The group was called Sweet 'n' Sour. At the age of 13-years-old Winehouse received her first guitar after toying with her brother's guitar. The next year, Winehouse went on to train at the Sylvia Young Theatre School, which is where she also began to write music. Allegedly, she was expelled from this school two years later, when she was 14-years-old, for not applying herself, as well as for piercing her nose. However, it was also at around this time that she first started experimenting with drugs as well. For the next two years she worked at different jobs, one of which was as a showbiz journalist for the World Entertainment News Network and another was as a singer with a jazz band. Her boyfriend at this time was soul singer Tyler James. He sent her demo tape to an A&R person, which led to her signing with record label Island/Universal under Simon Fuller's company 19 Management, as well as to a publishing deal with EMI. As such, in 1997, Winehouse appeared in an episode of The Fast Show with other children from the Sylvia Young School. She then went on to hire New York singer Sharon Jones's longtime band, the Dap-Kings, to back her up in the studio as well as on tour.

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