Young singer Lenny wins big at Anděl Awards

The Anděl music awards were handed out on Monday in a special and refreshingly toned-down ceremony broadcast by Czech TV. This year the awards took place not at a large theatre but a famous Prague club – Lucerna Music Bar – an ideal venue for live performances.

Lenny, photo: CTK

The Anděl Awards this year took place in Prague’s Lucerna Music Bar featuring performances by Tomáš Klus and Thom Artway, Jelen, David Koller and others. By choosing the music bar, the awards, the equivalent of the US Grammy, regained a little street cred and got back to roots of what counts in this business, that is, live music, as TV host Libor Bouček pointed out. Tomáš Klus and Thom Artway were the first to perform:

Generally-speaking, the Anděls are highly-respected – voted on by members of the Czech Academy of Popular – the other popular music award given in the country is the Czech Nightingale, which is voted on by members of the public. There was crossover appeal though on Monday when 40x Nightingale winner Karel Gott received an Anděl for best-selling record (a double CD) in 2016. Gott, who recovered from Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma not long ago, joked by using a now familiar line that getting the award was something he really hadn’t foreseen; he got both applause and laughs.

“I don’t like repeating myself but I am going to have to say that one line again… Ah, I see that you guys don’t know me yet! I really didn’t expect this!”

Others who received awards on the night included the aforementioned Thom Artway who won Newcomer of the Year and Best Male Vocalist, and Jelen who were chosen as Best Group.

Karel Gott, photo: CTK

But the big winner of the evening, without a doubt, was the young singer Lenny who took the four top awards – Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Female Vocalist of the Year and Video of the Year. Her debut, called Hearts, has received extensive play and coverage. The singer thanked all those who had help make the album possible and, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, even those who didn’t.

“Thank you. I didn’t think it would come to this but I would also like to thank those who threw sticks in our path the whole way. I have a special thank you for them.”

If you haven’t heard Lenny’s hit song off the album Hell.o let’s just say for some time it has been more popular on Czech airwaves than Adele’s hit song of the same (or similar given the spelling) name.