They say success has many fathers, and nowhere is that ever more evident than in the music business, where aging executives still argue over who first spotted the rasping rick-rolling talent that is Rick ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ Astley in a smoky London bar.

One talent everyone loves talking about, though not much about her music recently, is Amy Winehouse. In fact, two separate executives who’ve taken the top job at different companies both claimed to have signed the five-time Grammy Award-winning bad girl, according to press releases that landed in our inboxes this morning.

Nick Gatfield is joining EMI Music as president of A&R Labels, North America and UK. According to EMI’s release he joined from Universal Music where he had been president of Universal Island Records Group since 2001:

“As well as signing five times Grammy Award winner Amy Winehouse, who has sold close to nine million copies of her ‘Back to Black’ album, Gatfield has also overseen the recording careers of Keane, Mika, The Fratellis, McFly, Busted, Sugababes, The Feeling and new artists Robyn and Sam Sparro.”

The next email in our inbox was a press release from Universal Music Group announcing the promotion of Darcus Beese and Ted Cockle as co-presidents of Island Records Group. Again the press release:

“Darcus Beese steps up after 15 years with Island, latterly as one of the industry’s most respected Directors of A&R. In 2003 he signed Amy Winehouse, now widely acknowledged as one of the world’s most talented artists. A year earlier, he signed Sugababes and strategised their reinvention, to make them one of Britain’s most successful and enduring girl groups.”

So who signed Winehouse? To be honest it doesn’t matter much to Universal Music Group International’s top boss Lucian Grange. He’s more concerned about Amy ending up ‘otherwise engaged’ one time too many according to reports.

(Photo: Reuters)

Brain drain at Google?

The defection of Douglas Merrill, vice president of engineering at Google, is part of a growing trickle of senior managers to leave a company that topped Fortune magazine’s annual list of best companies to work for in 2007.

All the more surprising is that he’s leaving the college-like pastures of Googleplex for the growth-strapped music business at EMI to become head of EMI’s digital business. EMI announced earlier this year that it planned to cut some 2,000 jobs.

Google lost its vice president of global sales, Sheryl Sandberg, in March to Facebook. Then there’s George Reyes, Google CFO, who retired last year. Wired provides a longer list of defections and their new projects.

New York Times: “We have a deep bench and work hard to grow leaders within the company,” Google said in a statement. “We are attracting immensely talented people around the world, every day.”

Part of the exodus probably has to deal with the natural timeline of all hot IPOs, when stock options that vest in four- or five-year periods suddenly give executives more financial wiggle room, Wired says.

Regardless, this much is certain. It takes more than free lunch to keep top talent these days.

(Reuters)

Keep an eye on:

• Newsday auction gets a potential new suitor — New York Observer owner Jared Kushner. (WSJ)
• Murdoch daughter Elisabeth Murdoch hosts fundraiser for U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama, not Hillary Clinton. (Guardian)
• Video search engine Blinkx launches online tv service. (paidContent)

(Photo: Google)