Aiming for America.

Propelled by a powerful promotions team and transatlantic whispers of her talent, Amy Winehouse's mission to conquer America was turning into a fairytale story - but one that is now on hold as her North American tour is postponed

It was set up as the triumphant return of one of the biggest breakthroughs of the year. But that will now be put on hold following the postponement last week of Amy Winehouse's forthcoming North American tour.

While the development is unquestionably a set-back to the Universal artist's Stateside push, it would be unfair for it to overshadow what has, to date, been an exceptionally executed and successful campaign in the market. A fortnight ago Back To Black - her debut album release in the US - SoundScanned its one-millionth sale and is presently one of only a dozen albums there within 2007 to reach seven figures.

"Back To Black is one of those special albums, which in my opinion is destined to become a classic," says Universal Republic president Monty Lipman. "We're targeting 2m sales by October, but there are 300m people in the United States so there's a long way to go with this album."

The US success of Back To Black, which in March became the highest debuting album in Billboard 200 history by a UK female solo artist, entering at number seven, is made even more incredible by the fact that its predecessor Frank was not even released in the States. While a release for Winehouse's debut is now due at some stage, it appears cross-communication on which Universal label was planning to release it in the States explains this omission.

"I've been a fan of Amy since Frank was released, but I was led to believe that it would be released through Universal's jazz label Verve, while there was also talk of it going through Motown proper, so I backed off," says Lipman. "However, when we launched Universal Republic 18 months ago, I heard that she had a new album in the pipeline, so I jumped on in there."

One of the main players in helping bring about the production team behind that second album was EMI Music Publishing UK managing director Guy Moot.