Singer is backed by music business giant on first tour

The Portsmouth-based singer-songwriter is being pushed by concert promoter giant Live Nation for her debut UK tour.

And her recent single Mother has been helping the singer reach a wider audience after being played on music streaming website Spotify more than 1.69m times.

News of Jerry’s increasing popularity comes as we launch our own Instant Star competition – a competition she won three years ago when first starting out.

The five-date tour, which kicks off at The Loft at The Kings pub in Southsea on Sunday October 2, is to mark the launch of her new EP, Let’s Just Forget It.

Jerry said: ‘We’ve been talking to people from Live Nation and things like that, and their guy likes the music and he likes me and they wanted to support me.

‘It’s really nice that they’ve put their trust in me to put shows on around the country when no-one really knows who I am, so it’s great they’re willing to put their name behind me and help me.’

Her track Mother picked up a huge boost after it was put on a popular playlist in America.

‘It’s so good,’ said Jerry. ‘We were really lucky, it got picked for one of the biggest playlists in America called Mood Booster and they put it at number one, on top of Justin Timberlake, which is crazy, and I got loads of new fans from that.

‘Someone from Spotify came to one of my gigs and said they would pitch me to these playlists – you never know.’

Looking back at winning Instant Star, Jerry said: ‘It was a great confidence booster, I felt so chuffed to win.

‘It was a great opportunity and it’s a great thing that there is a competition like this to help people get a start.’

The winner of this year’s competition will get to perform at The Children in Need show at the Wedgewood Rooms on November 27, as well as at The News’ WOW247 Awards and We Can Do It Awards nights.

They will also get to perform at the city centre switch-on of the Christmas lights in Commercial Road.

Auditions for Instant Star are at the Wedgewood Rooms on Monday, October 10.

Please arrive from 6.30pm for soundchecks, with auditions from 7pm.

All entrants must register in advance.

How to enter the Instant Star competition

To register for Instant Star, e-mail [email protected] with your name, address, age and contact numbers plus a brief

description of your act.

Put INSTANT STAR in the subject field. After the deadline has passed we’ll then give you an entry number so you can perform on the audition night – Monday, October 10.

If you have a video, upload it to YouTube and include the URL link in your e-mailed entry. We may then put it on our website, portsmouth.co.uk.

At the auditions, children will be seen first. We’ll ask you to do two minutes, then judges will confer and pick a winner/winners.

Winners must be available on November 27 and in the days beforehand, as you may be called for rehearsals.

Entrants can be of any age and we’ll consider any kind of variety act, but it has to be suitable for a family audience.

Musicians should perform acoustic sets only and we’re restricting bands to a maximum of four people.

If acts have a backing track to perform to, they may bring it on a CD or smartphone with its connection lead.

Closing date for entries is midnight on Monday, October 3.