A spokesman for Amy Winehouse says the singer won’t perform in the United States next month, as had been planned.

Spokesman Chris Goodman said Monday that Winehouse isn’t going to the Coachella festival in Indio, Calif., in “light of current legal issues.”

Winehouse was charged with assault last week for allegedly attacking a fan at a London party in September. The singer is due in court next week.

Being charged with a crime often makes it difficult for people to get U.S. visas.

Winehouse’s battles with addiction and frequent run-ins with the law have been highly publicized.

Last year, the U.S. government declined to give her a visa to attend the Grammy awards. The decision was reversed but too late for her to go.

Three-time Grammy Award winning artist and latest M.A.C Viva Glam spokesperson, Fergie, is using her voice to further raise awareness about the HIV/AIDS crisis in youth.

Along with PoetNameLife, she has recorded Viva Glamorous, a remix of her hit song Glamorous.

A limited number of free downloads of the remix and Viva Glam E-cards will be available March 25, 2008 on maccosmetics.com.

As part of the campaign Fergie is also encouraging her fans to buy MAC Viva Glam VI Limited Edition Lipglass. The profit from the sale will be channeled to international organizations that address the AIDS crisis in young people.

The remix will also be available in April on M.A.C websites in the U.K., France, Australia and Germany.

Forget the strike, the 50th Annual Grammy Awards had more melodrama than any writer would have dared script — Herbie Hancock staged an upset that rivaled this year’s Super Bowl, Amy Winehouse beamed in from rehab, Kanye West demanded stage time to mourn his mother and, just to toss in some politics, even Barack Obama took home a trophy.

While most awards shows struggle to seem topical, the golden anniversary of the Grammys will be remembered as one that was jammed full of nostalgia (and pairings of veteran icons with young superstars) but also overwritten by tabloid headlines and drenched in stage sweat.

The threat of a picket line was averted after a late deal with the Writers Guild of America, but producers acknowledge that the turmoil probably scared off some key performers.

In the end, the biggest bang of the night belonged to the Grammy voters who shocked the world by giving 67-year-old Hancock the trophy for album of the year for “River: The Joni Letters,” a CD that has sold fewer than 40,000 copies in the U.S. The win joins the surprise victories by Steely Dan and the T Bone Burnett-produced “O Brother, Where Art Thou” soundtrack in the same category in 2001 and 2002, respectively, showing that veteran virtuosos can pull in more votes than younger pop stars.

“This is the first time a jazz artist has won in this category in 43 years,” an emotional Hancock said as he fumbled with his notes. The album is a tribute to the music of Joni Mitchell, one of the great lyricists (who, in a wry twist, happened to win a Grammy on Sunday for best pop instrumental).

Backstage, Hancock said his victory was anything but the conservative choice.

“What’s conservative about me?” he said. “The way I dress? I think I play music further out than any of these [other nominated] artists have heard. What’s conservative about that?”

The most compelling subplot of the night came courtesy of a troubled young British singer at the center of a media frenzy. Winehouse, 24, dominated the marquee categories, winning best new artist, song and record of the year. She performed her life-imitating-art songs “Rehab” and “You Know I’m No Good” via satellite from England where she has been in drug rehab since Jan. 24.

“Sometimes life trumps awards shows,” actor Cuba Gooding Jr. said as he introduced Winehouse, who performed in front of a small crowd that chanted her name at London’s Riverside Studios. The singer celebrated her win with her parents at her side but her husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, was behind bars on a case-tampering charge, yet another subplot. “My Blake, incarcerated,” the retro-soul singer fairly moaned during her acceptance speech.

Winehouse led the field with five trophies in all. Her album “Back to Black” also earned Mark Ronson the award for non-classical producer of the year, which also recognized his work with Lily Allen and on his own solo effort.

West was right behind Winehouse with four wins, including best rap album and song, but his legacy is shaping up to be the petulant runner-up in marquee categories. West protested in past years when his two first two albums didn’t bring home the trophies he expected and this time he watched Hancock leave with the album award.

Forecasting the situation, R&B star Usher, who has toured with West, announced before the envelope was opened: “There are no losers in this category, Kanye.”

West had the most emotional performance of the night. His mother, Donda West, died in November after cosmetic surgery, and the 30-year-old rapper was badly rattled by loss of his parent, former manager and role model. West had stepped away from the spotlight before Sunday to deal with the loss, and even his rehearsals this week with acclaimed French duo Daft Punk were closed at Staples Center. On Sunday, he and Daft Punk (making its first television appearance) performed “Stronger,” one of the biggest hits of 2007, and then segued into a revamped version of his 2005 song “Hey Mama,” an ode to their relationship.

Accepting the statuette for best rap album of the year with the word “Mama” shaved into the back of his head, West said, “I appreciate all the support. The prayers you’ve said for me.” He grew testy as music began swelling behind him — “It would be in good taste to stop the music now.” Then continuing his tribute to his mother he said, “I know you’re proud of me. I know you’d want me to be the No. 1 artist in the world, Mama. All I’m gonna do is keep on making you proud. We run this!”

The show tried to emphasize its anniversary by pairing stars from the present with voices from the past, such as an incendiary version of “Proud Mary” with Beyonce and Tina Turner, and the opening sequence that paired Alicia Keys with a projected image of the late Frank Sinatra for a spectral duet of “Learnin’ the Blues.”

The show began with footage of Sinatra at the very first Grammys gala pledging that the award would be more about art than commerce. This year the recording industry would have had a hard time putting sales first anyway — the backdrop to the show is ongoing crisis in the sector, which has seen the sales of CDs drop 36% since 2000.

Politics played a small role as well. Following up his 2006 Grammy win for best spoken word album “Dreams from My Father: a Story of Race and Inheritance,” presidential candidate Barack Obama walked off with his second Grammy for “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” following in the footsteps of his Democratic foe Hillary Clinton, who won for best spoken word or non-musical album in 1997 for “It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us.”

Obama bested Bill Clinton, who was nominated in the category this year for “Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World.”

The nominees and winners were determined by the 13,000 voting members of the Recording Academy. Awards were handed out in 110 categories recognizing recordings released between Oct. 1, 2006, and Sept. 30, 2007.

Party queens Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton were spotted having a catfight at the Grammy Awards bash.

The confrontation kicked off when the hard-partying starlets came face-to-face, reports the Mirror.

On spotting Paris arrive, Lindsay said: “What the hell is that bitch doing here? I didn’t know she was on the list.”

In response to the comment, Paris said: “F*** off you bitch.”

Meanwhile, Lohan has become the latest celebrity to join the hearing loss awareness campaign.

The actress has been photographed for the Hear The World campaign, which also has striking campaign images of Joss Stone and Moby holding their hands to their ears.

And while the Mean Girls star signed up for the campaign, Paris promoted her much talked about new footwear line in an interesting way by smooching her pet pooch.

The House of Wax star showed up at Macys South Coast Plaza in California while endorsing her new shoe line and kissed her pet Chihuahua.

A representative for Amy Winehouse has said the troubled singer is keen on performing at the Grammy awards, in spite of her health concerns.

The Rehab star recently shelved planned performances on her UK tour as she seeks time-off to deal with her husband’s problems with the law. Winehouse’s spouse, Blake Fielder-Civil, is currently on remand in Pentonville Prison having allegedly attempted to bribe a barman he is accused of attacking.

People magazine cites a representative for the neo-soul crooner as saying that Winehouse is currently enrolled on a programme to help her recover her health and is writing a lot of music.

The spokesperson for the star said: “It’s a really difficult time and she’s been channelling it into her music.”

Speaking about Winehouse’s reaction to being nominated for six Grammys – the music industry’s most prestigious awards – the representative told the magazine Winehouse was “thrilled” about the honour and eager to make an appearance at the show.

“Amy is thrilled to be nominated for six Grammys and is very much hoping to attend. She is determined to be ready and well for that performance,” the spokesperson said.

Earlier this week, Winehouse’s mother wrote an open letter to her daughter advising her to “stop, think and take stock” of her life.

Janis Winehouse, 52, urged her daughter to seek help from her family after the singer cancelled her UK tour.