Maine Woman Writes Big Hits For Big Stars

A bunch of years back, a friend of mine started trying to do some things to help out a young woman from southern Maine named Amy Allen. She was just starting out as kind of a bluesy, singer/songwriter type, with cool little ditties about life in general. She met with some reasonable notoriety on a local level.

She's not a stranger to the business though. She's appeared on NBC's The Voice, she fronted her own band based out of Boston called Amy & The Engine, and now lives in Los Angeles helping to write songs for some of the biggest people in the business.

Amy recently wrote a song with Selena Gomez called Back To You and it's been climbing the charts steadily for weeks. As of the 3rd of November, the track was at #20 on Billboard. She's also collaborated with Halsey and Shawn Mendez. Although, initially, she was kind of weirded out about writing songs for other people, according to the Portland Press Herald.

I always thought I didn’t want to write for other people. I thought it would feel weird. But I get to work with so many different people and try so many different sounds. When I was writing for myself and the band, I didn’t want to stray too much from my own sound. Now I can do urban, pop, country, and it’s so much fun.

It's certainly been a whirlwind for Amy going from southern Maine, to New York, to Los Angeles, and making a full time living as a songwriter. But she does it with ease, and poise. I've met her on a couple of occasions, and found her to be extremely likable and talented. It's no wonder she's made it to where she has.

My suggestion is to keep your eyes and ears open for Amy Allen. It's likely you may not know you're hearing her song, but it's great to know they're out there. And who knows, before long, she just may wow us herself, with one of those awesome songs.

Here's the track she did with Selena Gomez: