Amy Wadge

Amy Wadge (born 1975) is a Wales-based singer-songwriter originally from Bristol. She has co-written tracks with Ed Sheeran, including his signature song "Thinking Out Loud" for which she was nominated for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.

Early life and musical beginnings

Wadge was born and brought up in Backwell, a small village just outside Bristol, England. Her father's passion for music influenced her enormously, and on the subject of her paternal influences she has said that she "grew up listening to early Elton John, Joni Mitchell and James Taylor. That was the stuff I cut my teeth on and now I listen to everything you can possibly imagine from hip hop to country". This wide range of influences, nurtured in her from an early age, can be heard throughout her body of work. She began to write her own songs at the age of 9 on the family piano. When she was 11, her parents bought her her first guitar from a junk shop. It was when Wadge taught herself to play along to Tracy Chapman's debut album that she discovered her affinity for the guitar, which became the driving force of her career.

Ed Sheeran

Edward Christopher "Ed" Sheeran (born 17 February 1991) is an English singer-songwriter and musician. He was born in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire and raised in Framlingham, Suffolk. After dropping out of school at 16, he moved to London the following year, in 2008, to pursue a career in music. In early 2011, Sheeran independently released the extended play, No. 5 Collaborations Project, which caught the attention of Elton John and Jamie Foxx. After signing with Asylum Records, his debut album, + (read as "plus"), was released on 9 September 2011 and has since been certified six-times platinum in the UK. The album contains the single "The A Team", which earned him the Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically. In 2012, Sheeran won the Brit Awards for Best British Male Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act.

Sheeran's popularity abroad began in 2012. In the US, he made a guest appearance on Taylor Swift's fourth studio album, Red. "The A Team" was nominated for Song of the Year at the 2013 Grammy Awards, where he performed the song with Elton John. He spent much of 2013 opening for Swift's The Red Tour in North America dates. In late 2013, he performed three sold-out shows at New York's Madison Square Garden as a headline act. He was nominated for Best New Artist at the 2014 Grammy Awards.

Out Loud

Out Loud may refer to:

Thinking Out Loud

"Thinking Out Loud" is a song by English singer-songwriter, Ed Sheeran, recorded for his second studio album, × (2014). It was written by Sheeran and Amy Wadge, and was produced by frequent collaborator Jake Gosling. It was released in the US on 24 September 2014, serving as the third single from the album.

In the UK, the song spent 19 weeks within the top 40 before it peaked at No. 1 in early November 2014; it became Sheeran's second number-one single there. The single has also reached the top spot in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia and South Africa, and is also Sheeran's highest charting single in North America to date, peaking at No. 2 on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and the Canadian Hot 100.

In June 2015, "Thinking Out Loud" became the first single to spend a full year in the UK top 40. In September 2015, it also became the seventh single to have achieved triple platinum in the UK during the 21st century. In October 2015, the song became the first to be streamed over 500 million times on Spotify, and is also one of the most streamed songs in the UK.

Luke Jackson

Luke Jackson may refer to: