Jamie Cullum thought music would save Amy Winehouse

Jamie Cullum thought music would save Amy Winehouse.

The late singer – who died in 2011 at the age of 27 – opened for Jamie, 36, on his first-ever tour in 2003 and although they lost touch as she spiralled into addiction, he hoped that when her issues started affecting her music she would turn her life around.

He explained: "I thought it would be the music that would bring her back. When she didn’t start sounding right, I thought that would be enough to make her stop and get well. I knew how much sounding right meant to her. But it didn’t. It’s just sad."

Jamie and Amy connected through their shared passion for music and he insisted that in the early days, Amy never even wanted to go out partying after a gig.

He told Event magazine: "I started out with Amy. She was my support act on my first-ever tour. We were really close. As performers we completely connected because we share that same looseness, that love of improvising to whatever is happening in the room or in that moment. But this was way before she hit the height of her fame.

"The Amy I knew was just obsessed with music. She was always a character but music just came first. When we were on tour, she didn’t want to go out after a gig, she wanted to go back to the hotel and listen to music.

‘We lost touch when she became famous and then…"