EVERY once in a while a singer-songwriter comes along who sets the music world alight and in the last 12 months Cardiff-based 25-year-old Amy Wadge has done just that. Her critically acclaimed debut album 'The Famous Hour' has led to live shows with everyone from Lenny Kravitz and the Stereophonics to Idlewild and Buffalo Tom, along with TV and radio shows and festivals across Europe.
With just an acoustic guitar and a voice from both heaven and hell, her songs travel to dark and beautiful places - and this Sunday, January 19, audiences in Tenby will be able to judge for themselves, when Amy appears at the town's Fourcroft Hotel.
In the summer of 2002, meanwhile, she took the Cambridge Folk Festival by storm and had headline dates at France's largest festival, the Lorient Interceltique festival, prior to returning to the UK for a series of gigs before undertaking a UK tour from September through December with dates with Eric Bibb and Cathal Coughlan as well as a string of headline shows.
Her current album has already sold 4,000 copies in the first months of release and a session on Radio 6 Music was aired in December. As well as performing solo, Amy is now performing with her new band (which includes Aled Richards from Catatonia on drums) and which debuted in November.
2003 sees Amy on more tour dates (the Fourcroft Hotel being one of them) to promote her second single which will mix full band tracks with solo guitar and vocal tracks and hopes to release a full band album in the autumn.
Amy was awarded Best Female Solo Artist in the 2002 Welsh Music Awards which took place on December 5 in Cardiff after being nominated for that category and Best Album.