He may be best-known as Amy’s father, but Mitch Winehouse is making his own waves, writes TIM HUGHES.

A lifelong jazz fan, with a youth spent hanging round some of London’s coolest venues, at the age of 59, Mitch Winehouse is taking the plunge by embarking on his own career as a singer.

It’s a bold move for a man who has spent his working life at the wheel of a London black cab.

But then Mitch isn’t any normal taxi-driver; he just happens to have a rather famous daughter.

And while he at first bristles at the suggestion, he concedes that he wouldn’t be where he is right now – with a recording contract, album and a UK tour under way – were it not for his headline-grabbing offspring, Amy.

“It’s foolish to say I could have got this gig if I wasn’t Amy’s dad,” admits the bluff north Londoner, speaking from Spain, where he is holidaying with friends. “After all, record labels are not queing up to sign 59-year-olds.

“Some people do say it’s a vanity project,” he confesses, before adding: “...until they listen to the album.”

Mitch’s thing is jazz – not squawky avant-garde, but the old standards as sung by the great torch-singers; you know... Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan and Frank Sinatra.

Sultry, and romantic, it’s the stuff he grew up with. “Ronnie Scott was my mum’s boyfriend in the ’70s and invited us to see whoever was there – and that place had artists like Nina Simone. All the greats played there.

“I’ve been singing my whole life.

“When I grew up it was pre-TV, so we tended to entertain ourselves.

“But things never worked out previously. The timing wasn’t right for me, and I did other things – such as bringing a family up and coping with other pressures.”

Things changed when his daughter was thrust into the limelight as one of the country’s most ubiquitous stars.

And Mitch seized the opportunity – with a bit of encouragement from Amy.

“When her first album came out, she’d get me up on stage to do a couple of songs, and told me I should do an album,” he recalls. “Since then, as has been documented, she’s been ill, but when she got better we brought the album out. We are both very similar people. When we are working, we enjoy it. However professional she may be, she is still having fun.”

Surely seeing his daughter all over the red tops and gossip mags must have been hard for Mitch? “As a family we all stuck together, and all got through it,” he says.

“We are no different from other families. She may be one of the country’s most famous artists but hasn’t changed her – or our family.

“I have made different acquaintances – people like Mick Jagger and Elton John – and they’re really nice. But I’ve also got loads of friends, and if I get too big for my boots they’ll normally get me back in check.”

This week Miitch embarks on his first UK tour. That is, if he is well enough. After chatting to The Guide he was taken ill and forced to cancel the start of the tour. He is expected, however, to be back on his feet and in full voice in time for Monday’s gig at Oxford’s Living Room.

“It’s my first tour,” he says. “It is just me and my piano. It’s going to be good, but it won’t be rock ’n’ roll; we won’t be smashing up hotel rooms!”

The gig comes ahead of the release of his single Please Be Kind, from album Rush of Love, which will raise money for Macmillan Cancer Care, which cared for his late mother.

“The reason I recorded Please Be Kind is it was my mother’s favourite song. She was cared for by Macmillan nurses and they did an amazing job. I really feel I owe them a great debt.

“As well as my mother, my father, my mother’s twin, and my grandmother and grandfather all had cancer. I don’t know if there’s something in the family make-up, but we’ve been really badly affected.”

So can we look forward to any surprise father-daughter duets? No, it would seem. “It would be wrong,” he says brusquely. “You name me a song that isn’t a love song; even Frank and Nancy Sinatra singing Something Stupid was a bit of a cringe.

“Amy is also an undisciplined singer who goes off at a tangent, so it would be difficult to sing with her.”

He adds: “I’m just doing my own thing in my own time and in my own way, and people like it.

“Amy can sell 20 million albums – but if I sell 18 albums I’d be happy!”

So does he ever miss the taxi driving? “ I haven’t driven a cab for three years, but I loved being a driver,” he says almost wistfully. “It took me more than two years to learn The Knowledge, and once you’ve got it you don’t give it up.

“People like Amy’s music and quite frequently they would recognise me. Normally taxi drivers say ‘guess who I had in the back of my cab…’ but, with me it’s the other way round. People would say, ‘Guess who I had in the front of my cab’.”

Mitch Winehouse plays the Living Room, Oxford, on Monday. You are advised to call the venue in advance on 01865 260210