She was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar...

Victoria Hart

Two weeks ago she was working as a waitress in a cocktail bar, cleaning tables for £7 an hour to make ends meet - but now Victoria Hart, an amateur jazz singer, is set to sign a £1.5m record deal with one of the world's most prestigious labels.

It took just one recommendation - from a friend who saw her singing one night in the Naked Turtle restaurant and bar in Richmond, south-west London - for the aspiring jazz musician to land a dream gig singing for the stars aboard George Clooney's yacht in Cannes.

The next thing she knew the 18-year-old from Essex, who describes herself as "just a little blonde girl," was being fought over by record giants EMI, Universal and BMG, who are all touting her as the next big thing in the world of jazz.

"A friend of a friend who saw me sing at work said he'd put my name forward to sing at George Clooney's party, but I just thought, 'yeah, right'," Hart told The Independent.

"When I found out I'd got the gig, all I could think was, Norah Jones is down in Cannes, why didn't they ask her? Here I am with every major record label fighting over me - it's unbelievable," she said. The concert in Cannes was certainly a good place to get noticed by the rich and powerful of the music world. Swapping her apron for an £800 Moschino dress - the money for which she had to borrow from a friend - Hart sang for free in front of a star-studded audience that included Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie.

George Clooney, who told the performer she was "simply lovely", was hosting the party on his £80m yacht to raise money for humanitarian aid in Darfur. Guests paid up to £100,000 a ticket. "I don't understand the figures involved. It all goes straight over my head," said Hart.

The media furore surrounding her performance is all a far cry from Hart's normal life. Until now, the biggest break she had got in her budding career had been a gig as a wedding singer.

Hart, who describes herself as a "female Frank Sinatra", is going back to the Naked Turtle restaurant tomorrow, but not to work a shift. Now her employers want to throw her a party, and it's a sign of what's to come that several bouncers have been hired to keep out paparazzi. "It'll be so weird - I'll probably still answer the phone," she admitted. It's doubtful that she'll be allowed.

Corinne Bailey Rae

The Leeds singer-songwriter Corinne Bailey Rae started work as a hat-check girl in her local jazz club. After studying literature at the University of Leeds, she took on the work while she carried on with her music. The club soon allowed her on stage on slow evenings. And after several years of performing while waiting tables and hanging coats she was finally given her own slot.

Even after she got more singing opportunities, Bailey Rae was juggling separate jobs in a department store and a restaurant. But it was these performances that led to her eventual record deal with EMI and her smash-hit single "Put Your Records On".

Before working at the club the 28-year-old singer had been a die-hard indie performer. She was the lead singer for an all-female indie group called Helen, which split after the bassist became pregnant, leaving Bailey Rae with no idea what to do next. "I kept hearing this jazz and soul stuff and I realised I loved that music too... It really broadened the kind of music that I liked and broadened the type of songs that I wrote as well."

Andrea Ross

Andrea Ross was just a 13-year-old high school student in Boston when she recorded some songs over a tinny karaoke backing tape and decided on a whim to send it to her musical hero, Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Despite a penchant for musicals and a string of amateur roles under her belt, she had little reason to believe her tape would end up anywhere other than the slush pile. And indeed it almost did - but for the efforts of an enterprising assistant, who insisted Lloyd Webber sit down and listen to the hastily compiled cassette.

Soon afterwards, one morning before school, Ross received a phone call out of the blue from the music maestro's agent asking her to come for an audition in Los Angeles.

It did not take long for her talent to be recognised. By the time she was 15, Ross was recording an album with Lloyd Webber in a state-of-the-art studio. "It is going to be great to see her develop," he said. "She has enormous potential to become a very big artist".

Now 16, Ross released her first album, Moon River, earlier this year. Her debut includes covers of various jazz staples, including Eva Cassidy's Songbird, versions of Popular, Heart Like A Wheel and The Prayer, as well as some lesser-known tunes from the Lloyd Webber catalogue.

Mary J Blige

Karaoke may have closer ties with drunken holiday nights out but in 1988 it helped launch the career of one of the world's biggest R&B stars. Mary J Blige was just 17 when she recorded Caught Up in the Rapture by Anita Baker at a karaoke studio in a Bronx shopping mall.

The tape was eventually passed to Andre Harrell, who launched the careers of LL Cool J and Run DMC, and initially he decided to recruit the songstress as a backing singer for Uptown Records. But soon he realised that Blige had more to offer and matched her up with Sean Combs, also known as P Diddy, who produced her first album, What's the 411? The record reached the top of the R&B chart and two years later My Life confirmed her as a major new presence in the mainstream charts.

Blige proceeded to sell nine gold and platinum-selling singles worldwide as well as seven multi-platinum albums, and has worked with a string of top names throughout her career, including Whitney Houston, Jay-Z, Sting, Wyclef Jean, Lil' Kim and even Sir Elton John.

Oasis

It wasn't their gig, but they didn't care. When a 21-year-old Liam Gallagher turned up at a Glasgow venue on a tip-off that the head of Creation Records was going to be there, the budding rock star and his mates from the Burnage estate threatened to smash up the venue if they were not allowed to play.

Fearing the worst, the organisers begrudgingly let the gatecrashers open the night, and indie label chief Alan McGee was so impressed that he ran backstage before they were snapped up by any other record producers present.

Although the cocksure Mancunians had played only five songs, Noel told McGee that he had written at least a dozen tracks and Oasis were promptly signed to Creation Records. It was 1993 and the Oasis era had begun. That six-hour journey from Manchester to Scotland had been worth it.

Twelve years later the band were named by Guinness World Records as the most successful UK act of the last decade, having sold 50 million albums worldwide. All of their six studio albums have reached the top spot in the British charts and they have garnered five Brit awards, the latest of which was in February, for an outstanding contribution to music.

Avril Lavigne

Avril Lavigne's first album, Let Go, sold more than 13 million copies worldwide, but the Grammy-nominated Canadian punk rocker was first spotted singing country covers in an Ontario bookshop by Cliff Fabri, who became her first manager.

Soon she got the chance to work on her own pop punk tracks such as Sk8er Boi, which made her name.

In 2002, when she released her debut single, Complicated, aged just 17, there were very few signs of her country and western beginnings.

The singer, who is famed for her grungy fashion, is often criticised for being more concerned with perfecting her look than her singing. However, unlike most teen-pop fodder, she does write her own music.

Pulp

One night in 1980, John Peel was getting into his car on the way home from recording one of his radio roadshows in Sheffield when a fresh-faced 16-year-old called Jarvis Cocker bounded up to him and thrust a demo tape into his hand.

Peel, a Radio 1 DJ, muttered that he would have a listen on the way home without so much as making eye contact with the schoolboy. But, in true Peel style, he did make time to listen to the tape - and when he did, it made an instant and lasting impression.

Weeks later, Pulp were invited to the famous Maida Vale studios in London, where they recorded the first of many sessions for Radio 1. Although the recordings gave the band the confidence they needed to develop their distinctive sound, it took them 14 years to achieve mainstream popularity.

The release of His 'n' Hers in 1994 coincided with the birth of Britpop, which propelled the band to the top of the charts. Pulp went on to release four top 10 albums and headlined the Glastonbury Festival in 1995.

They maintained their relationship with John Peel throughout their career and last recorded a studio session for him in 2001, three years before the DJ's death.