Who recorded it first
Valerie
Not an Amy Winehouse original — a 2006 Zutons song
Almost everyone hears ‘Valerie’ as an Amy Winehouse song, but the version she features on is a cover. The song was written and first recorded by The Zutons, a Liverpool band, in 2006 — a UK No. 9 hit. Mark Ronson covered it a year later with Winehouse on vocals, and that 2007 version so eclipsed the original that the song is now remembered as definitively hers.
The record
Who recorded it first
How we traced it
‘Valerie’ was written and first recorded by The Zutons, a Liverpool band, and released as a single in 2006 from their second album Tired of Hanging Around. The songwriting is credited to all five members, with frontman Dave McCabe as principal writer Wikipedia ↗.
The original was a real hit — No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart — but a distinctly indie-rock record, and outside Britain it was little known.
Mark Ronson recorded a brass-driven soul arrangement for his 2007 covers album Version, with Amy Winehouse on lead vocals. Released that October, it reached No. 2 in the UK and became so dominant that most listeners now take it for one of Winehouse’s own songs Wikipedia ↗.
Wikipedia — the song’s full historyKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
The attribution problem
This is a gentle kind of misattribution: the famous version really is a Mark Ronson and Amy Winehouse record, and a great one. The errors are believing Winehouse originated the song — and that she recorded it alone — when it is a 2007 cover of a 2006 Zutons single.
‘It’s an Amy Winehouse song’
The Winehouse version is a cover, credited to Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse. The song was written and first recorded by The Zutons a year earlier, in 2006 the history ↗.
The Zutons, 2006
Their single reached No. 9 in the UK — a real hit, but an indie-rock one with little reach outside Britain, which is exactly why a soul cover could overshadow it so completely.
Mark Ronson ft. Amy Winehouse
The 2007 record was Ronson’s production for his covers album Version, with Winehouse guesting on vocals. Public memory quietly drops Ronson and reassigns the whole song to the singer.
Written and first recorded by The Zutons in 2006, and made famous — but not originated — by Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse in 2007 the record ↗.
Context
Why the cover ate the original
A cover eclipses its original most easily when the two live in different worlds. The Zutons’ ‘Valerie’ was a British indie-rock hit; Mark Ronson’s 2007 version rebuilt it as brass-heavy retro soul and handed it to a once-in-a-generation voice. It was not merely more popular — it reached a far wider audience, and the earlier record receded behind it.
The irony is that Amy Winehouse never claimed the song, and the credit never hid Mark Ronson — yet after her death the track folded into her legacy anyway. When a cover becomes the emotional centre of a performer’s story, listeners stop hearing it as anyone else’s song, and the band who wrote it slips out of the frame.
The two records, in order
- The Zutons write ‘Valerie’ and record it first (2006, Deltasonic).
- The original reaches No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart — a hit, but indie-rock and mostly British.
- Mark Ronson cuts a soul arrangement for his covers album Version, with Amy Winehouse on vocals.
- Released October 2007 → UK No. 2, one of the year’s biggest-selling singles.
- After Winehouse’s death in 2011, the cover becomes the definitive version, and the original fades from public memory.
Winehouse never claimed the song — her voice claimed it for her.