The Boisdale Music Awards 2019

In asso­ci­a­tion with PUGLIA PRO­MOZIONE & REGIONE PUGLIA

On Thurs­day 10^th Octo­ber Bois­dale Patron of Music Jools Hol­land and recent­ly appoint­ed Glob­al Ambas­sador for the Puglia region of Italy, Nan­cy Del­l’O­lio host­ed the fourth Bois­dale Music Awards in asso­ci­a­tion with Puglia Pro­mozione & Regione Puglia at Bois­dale of Canary Wharf.

The annu­al event cel­e­brat­ed the great­est enter­tain­ers in the world of jazz, blues, soul, reg­gae, coun­try and pop. Each Bois­dale Music Award win­ner per­formed after receiv­ing their acco­lade and lux­u­ry lim­it­ed edi­tion Bois­dale sun­glass­es cre­at­ed by the UK’s num­ber one eye­wear design­er Tom Davies.

Oth­er notable attend­ing guests includ­ed Hol­ly­wood actor, pro­duc­er, direc­tor and writer Kelsey Gram­mer, Andrew Fletch­er of Depeche Mode, Joe Wash­bourn and Daniel ​“Dan” Hip­grave of Toploader, singer-song­writer Denise Pear­son, The Voice UK’s star Michelle Jones, Megan Bar­ton Han­son of the 2018 hit real­i­ty show Love Island, vocal­ist Janet Kay, singer-song­writer and fash­ion design­er Lisa Maf­fia, Mutya Bue­na of Sug­ababes and Tony Mom­relle of Incog­ni­to.

The win­ners col­lect­ing their awards on the night were:

Lati­no Award — Lady­va & Silva

These Swiss sib­lings are both world class Boo­gie Woo­gie pianists but they’ve also spent a great deal of their young lives in the Domini­can Repub­lic which has led to a sec­ond career as per­form­ers of their own unique brand of Latin Amer­i­can music.

Best New­com­er — Tal­lia Storm

The star of Celebs Go Dat­ing was the sup­port act for Elton John at the ten­der age of 13. She’s now matured into a very fine singer and whilst the media are fas­ci­nat­ed by her lifestyle and her pho­to­genic looks we’d like to draw atten­tion to her excel­lent vocal skills.

Best Instru­men­tal­ist — Sowe­to Kinch

Award win­ning alto-sax­o­phon­ist and MC Sowe­to Kinch is one of the most excit­ing and ver­sa­tile young musi­cians in both the British jazz and hip hop scenes. Undoubt­ed­ly, one of the few artists in either genre with a degree in Mod­ern His­to­ry from Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty he has amassed an impres­sive list of acco­lades and awards on both sides of the Atlantic.

Best Jazz Artist — Judi Jackson

We first became aware of this fine tal­ent when she record­ed her song Only Love with Gram­my award-win­ning band Snarky Pup­py. She’s cur­rent­ly divides her time between New York and Lon­don where she record­ed her crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed debut EP ​‘Blame It On My Youth’ and her debut live album ​“Judi Jack­son Live In London”.

Best Soul Artist — Shaun Escoffery

British soul and R&B singer and actor with an incred­i­ble, soul­ful voice. His first major release was the sin­gle ​“Space Rid­er”. For the last 10 years he has per­formed as Mufasa in the Lon­don pro­duc­tion of The Lion King mak­ing him the the longest-serv­ing actor in the musical.

Best Reg­gae Artist — Dawn Penn

Her song You Don’t Love Me (No, No, No)” became a world­wide hit in 1994 and is one of the most famous reg­gae hits of all-time cov­ered by count­less artists around the world includ­ing Bey­once, Rihan­na, Sean Paul, Wu-Tang Clan, Eve, J Mil­lz, Mims, and Lily Allen to name a few.

Best Band — British Collective

The core mem­bers are Don‑e, Junior Gis­combe, Noël McK­oy and Omar, who have been amongst the ​‘Torch Bear­ers’ of authen­tic British soul music since the 80s. Indi­vid­u­al­ly, they have sold mil­lions of records world­wide, record­ed some of the most icon­ic British soul anthems and won many notable indus­try awards. They have per­formed, writ­ten for and record­ed with many of the world’s R&B’s leg­ends, such as Ste­vie Won­der and Phyliss Hyman through to Erykah Badu and Ang­ie Stone.

Spe­cial Award — Joce­lyn Brown

Her incred­i­ble vocals made the mas­sive inter­na­tion­al hit Some­body Else’s Guy one of the great soul music per­for­mances of all time. She has also been an in-demand back­ing singer whose vocals have graced near­ly 30 top 20 hits over the last few decades.

Singer Song­writer Award — Raye

This won­der­ful­ly tal­ent­ed 21 year old has already had sev­er­al top ten songs with David Guet­ta, Jonas Blue and Jax Jones whose ​“You Don’t Know Me” peaked at no. 3. She has also writ­ten songs for Bey­once for her new album ​“Lion King” as well as hits for Lit­tle Mix and John Legend.

Out­stand­ing Con­tri­bu­tion To British Music — RJ Gibb on behalf of Robin Gibb

The Bee Gees have sold an incred­i­ble 220 mil­lion records and the Bois­dale Music Awards cel­e­brate them with an award to the late Robin Gibb. His wid­ow Dwina has col­lect­ed the award and their son R J Gibb per­formed Robin’s com­po­si­tion ​“I Start­ed A Joke”.

Life­time Achieve­ment Award — Joe Jackson

Joe scored a hit with his first release, ​“Is She Real­ly Going Out with Him?” in 1979. This was fol­lowed by a num­ber of new wave sin­gles before he moved to more jazz-inflect­ed pop music and had a Top 10 hit in 1982 with ​“Step­pin’ Out”. He is asso­ci­at­ed with the 1980s Sec­ond British Inva­sion of the US. He has also com­posed clas­si­cal music and has record­ed 19 stu­dio albums and received 5 Gram­my Award nominations.

Best Inter­na­tion­al Band – Sharmoofers

Found­ed by Egypt­ian musi­cians Ahmed Bahaa (vocals) & Moe El-3rkan (drums and gui­tar), in less than four years, their unique brand of reg­gae and pop-infused rock has gar­nered mil­lions of views on Youtube and just as many fans on Face­book. Think a mix of Bare­naked Ladies’ pop fused pos­i­tiv­i­ty with the fun lov­ing Reg­gae styles of Shag­gy, all in Arabic.

Bois­dale is unique amongst live music venues in that along­side its world class enter­tain­ment it is also renowned for the most mag­nif­i­cent food and drink.

On arrival guests were served Dom Perignon and Bois­dale 1^er Cru NV cham­pagne along­side Cala­fu­ria Rosato Tor­maresca 2018 wine from Puglia, Italy and City of Lon­don Dis­tillery Gin & Dou­ble Dutch tonics.

The recep­tion was fol­lowed by a three-course din­ner cel­e­brat­ing the won­der­ful food and wine of Puglia start­ing with Bur­ra­ta, roast pep­pers, cold pressed Puglian olive oil and fol­lowed by the mid­dle and main cours­es of Fresh‘ lit­tle ears’ pas­ta, turnip tops, chilli & parme­san; Rose­mary & lemon mar­i­nat­ed fil­let of beef, tra­di­tion­al fava beans purée, sautéed greens. For dessert guests were served Hon­ey, gin­ger and salt­ed almond iced par­fait.

About Puglia

Puglia in the heel of Italy’s famous ​“boot”, offers a slow pace, stun­ning beach­es, great food, authen­tic vil­lages and won­der­ful year-round sun­ny weath­er. Part of the charm of South­ern Italy’s ris­ing star is its slow approach to every­day life. Cen­turies old farm­land are hemmed by a superb sun-bleached sandy coast and attract trav­ellers look­ing for a lit­tle more authen­tic­i­ty and the peace­ful nature of this region.

Puglia has plen­ty of archi­tec­tur­al inter­est, as each rul­ing dynasty left its own dis­tinc­tive mark on the land­scape – the Romans their agri­cul­tur­al schemes and feu­dal lords their for­ti­fied medieval towns. Per­haps most dis­tinc­tive are the kas­bah-like quar­ters of many towns and cities, a ves­tige of the Sara­cen con­quest of the ninth cen­tu­ry – the one at Bari is the biggest and most atmos­pher­ic. The Nor­mans endowed Puglia with splen­did­ly ornate cathe­drals while the Baroque exu­ber­ance of towns like Lec­ce and Mar­ti­na Fran­ca are tes­ta­ment to the Span­ish legacy.

Puglia is also known as the bread­bas­ket of Italy. It is the source of 80 per­cent of Europe’s pas­ta and much of Italy’s fish; it pro­duces more wine than Ger­many and more olive oil than all the oth­er regions of Italy com­bined. It is famous for olives, almonds, dark juicy toma­toes (often sun-dried), cime di rapa (turnip tops), fava beans, figs (fresh and dried), cotog­na­ta (a mould­ed jam made from quince) and for its mel­ons, grapes and green cau­li­flower. For more infor­ma­tion vis­it https://​www​.viag​gia​rein​puglia​.it/​hp/en

WIN­NERS & NOM­I­NA­TIONS 2019

1. Lati­no Award — Vanes­sa and Sil­va * Luna Cohen | Hei­di Vogel

2. Best New­com­er — Tal­lia Storm * Michelle John | Teshay Makeda

3. Best Instru­men­tal­ist — Sowe­to Kinch * Mo Plea­sure | Court­ney Pine

4. Best Jazz Artist — Judi Jack­son * San­dra Mae | Cousin Alice

5. Best Soul Artist — Shaun Escoffery * Mutya Bue­na | Omar

6. Best Reg­gae Artist — Dawn Pen * Janet Kay | Horace Andy

7. Best Band — British Col­lec­tive * Toploader | Incognito

8. Spe­cial Award — Joce­lyn Brown* Richard Had­field | Wayne McIntyre

9. Singer Song­writer Award – Raye * Denise Pear­son | Ter­ri Walker

10. Out­stand­ing Con­tri­bu­tion To British Music - RJ Gibb on behalf of Robin Gibb

11. Life­time Achieve­ment Award — Joe Jack­son

12. Best Inter­na­tion­al Band — Shar­moofers