Free Amy Winehouse by Chas Newkey-Burden Page A

nomination for an award. The Mercury Prize is an annual music prize awarded for the best album from the United Kingdom or Republic of Ireland, established as an alternative to the industry-dominated BRIT Awards. The nominees are chosen by a selected panel of executives in the music industry in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The Mercury Prize also has a reputation for being awarded to outside chances rather thanthe favourites. ‘The point of the Mercury is not simply to elect a winner: the point of the Mercury is to give publicity to and celebrate all sorts of music,’ says Simon Frith, chairman of the judging panel. Previous winners included Ms Dynamite, M People and Talvin Singh. Frith added that the panel have never got the choice wrong.
    The other nominees for the 2004 prize were Basement Jaxx ( Kish Kash ), Belle & Sebastian ( Dear Catastrophe Waitress ), Franz Ferdinand ( Franz Ferdinand ), Jamelia ( Thank You ), Keane ( Hopes and Fears ), Snow Patrol ( Final Straw ), Joss Stone ( The Soul Sessions ), the Streets ( A Grand Don’t Come for Free ), Ty ( Upwards ), Robert Wyatt ( Cuckooland ), and the Zutons ( Who Killed … The Zutons? ).
    At the ceremony on 8 September 2004, the award went to Scottish indie rockers Franz Ferdinand. ‘This is coming in a year when we’re surrounded by such fantastic bands,’ said the band’s charming lead singer Alex Kapranos. ‘Everyone else deserves it more than we do. They reflect a trend in the UK at the moment for fantastic music so we’re living in pretty good times at the moment.’ Bless him! Amy may not have won but she did perform at the ceremony and she’d be back before long. Indeed, little could she have known then quite how many awards she would go on to be nominated for, or how many of them she would win.
    Also in 2004, Amy was nominated for two BRIT awards. The categories she was shortlisted in were British Female Solo Artist and British Urban Act. The ceremony was at Earls Court and hosted by Cat Deeley, who appeared wearing a top hat andstraddling a huge champagne bottle, declaring, ‘Booze is back! Rock and roll is back!’ Amy would have approved. The evening was dominated by the glam rockers the Darkness, who won three awards. Busted and Justin Timberlake were double winners, and Beyoncé Knowles took the award for Best International Female. Laughter erupted across the arena when DJ Chris Moyles said, ‘I’m sitting backstage – it’s rubbish. I’ve got to look at Dr Fox’s fat face all night. No food, no booze, no birds – it’s rubbish.’
    On the night Amy won neither award with the British Female Solo Artist gong going to Dido. Accepting her award via a video message, she said she was ‘pretty surprised’ to have won. ‘I know it’s voted for by the public, I’m so grateful.’ Meanwhile the British Urban act award was handed to Lemar, who had come to prominence from the BBC’s Fame Academy programme.
    By this time, Amy had performed her first major headline show in London. Billed as ‘an attractive oasis on Shepherd’s Bush’s busy Uxbridge Road’, Bush Hall is one of the capital’s most charismatic venues. At the start of the twentieth century, it hosted ballroom dancing, swing orchestras and Irish music jigs. Then, during World War Two, it became a soup kitchen for hungry locals, before becoming a bingo hall and then an amusement arcade in the postwar years. During the 1990s it became a snooker hall, which was visited by famous people, including Hugh Grant and Stephen Fry. At the start of the twenty-first century it was renovated and has since hosted concerts for a host of acts, including REM, BoyGeorge – his first concert for over a decade – Scissor Sisters, Lily Allen and Sugababes.
    The venue has a capacity of 350 and much of that was, on the evening, made up of curious music industry folk and friends of Amy. With space at such a premium on and off the stage, Amy had to fight for performing room with her band,