Brooke Gabrielle Fraser
(born 15 December 1983 in Wellington, New Zealand) is an award-winning New Zealand singer-songwriter.
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BROOKE FRASER TICKETS
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Early life
Fraser is the eldest of the three children born to former
All Black,
Bernie Fraser and his wife Lynda Fraser. She grew up in
Naenae,
Lower Hutt and attended Dyer Street School then Naenae Intermediate and Naenae College.
Fraser started taking piano lessons at seven years of age, continuing until seventeen. She started writing songs at age twelve and taught herself the
acoustic guitar at fifteen. Notably, she has never taken any singing lessons.
She performed at
Parachute, an annual New Zealand music festival, and has continued to do so each year since 2000 - including a special guest performance in 2007.
Fraser was a presenter on a
cable television show. She began writing for the
Soul Purpose
magazine at age fifteen and was later made editor in 2002. She gave up her job as editor shortly after moving to
Auckland in late 2002 in order to pursue her music career.
[1]
Musical career
In 2002, while Fraser was in
Auckland,
Scotty Pearson, the drummer for
Elemeno P, organized a meeting with producer Matty J for her. Matty J became her manager, liaising with the major labels who had shown interest and compared their offers. Fraser had about five different labels offering her deals, and in late 2002 she signed a multi-album deal with
Sony Music Entertainment New Zealand.
What to Do With Daylight
Fraser's first album
What to Do with Daylight
was released in New Zealand in late 2003, debuting at #1 and achieved gold status in the same week. The album eventually went 7 times platinum, selling over 100,000 copies in New Zealand alone. She remained on the album charts for a record 66 weeks.
[2] All five singles from her album reached the top 20
RIANZ charts, the official singles chart of New Zealand. Her album was the second best selling NZ album of 2004 (behind
Hayley Westenra's
Pure
which went 11 times platinum).
Following the release of
What to Do with Daylight
, Fraser toured Australia and New Zealand with
American artist
John Mayer and then toured New Zealand with veteran
U.K. rock artist
David Bowie.
[3] Following this, Fraser set out with her band for her own
What to Do with Daylight Tour
and made several public and television appearances. Whilst on tour with
John Mayer, she met with his guitarist and keyboardist Michael Chaves who, after recording Mayer's album
Heavier Things
, Fraser enlisted to play on her album and future concerts.
What to Do with Daylight
was also re-released as a two disc "Special Edition" following the album's success.
Albertine
In 2005, prior to writing and preparing her follow-up album, Fraser took a trip to
Africa to immerse herself in Rwanda before visiting her sponsor children in Tanzania, as she is an advocate for child sponsorship. In this trip, she was so moved that she wrote the song "Albertine" about a young child (named Albertine), whom she met while in Rwanda. It was later decided to make this song the album's title track.
[4]
For the second album, Fraser decided to enlist a new band, primarily constructed from
American musicians who'd worked with an array of notable artists, both live and recorded
[5]. In 2006, Fraser and the band went into the studio in
Los Angeles to record the album. Later, Fraser also allowed her MySpace page to give visitors a listen to the album's first single "
Deciphering Me", which was later released initially to radio and ultimately to CD single, and achieved #4 in the
New Zealand single charts.
On 4 December 2006
Albertine
was released in New Zealand, achieving double platinum status less than a month after its release and has remained, to date, in the top 20 every week since. The album was released in Australia and internationally on 31 March 2007. In Australia, it charted at #29 in its first week on 9 April and has thus far achieved Gold sales status in Australia.
On 6 April 2007, Fraser performed "Deciphering Me" for the
Good Friday Appeal, an annual televised fundraising event to raise money for the
Royal Children's Hospital in
Melbourne.
In 2008, Fraser appeared on the
Dave Barnes song "Believe" from his album
Me + You + the World
, performing backing vocals.
Albertine
was also Fraser's U.S. debut, released 27 May 2008 and entered the
Billboard 200 at #90 on 19 July 2008. Her album propelled in success with online sales after being chosen as Editor's Choice on
iTunes. It reached #5 on the iTunes charts. On July 4 2008 Fraser supported Canadian artist/U2 collaborator Daniel Lanois at the Montreal Jazz Festival. In August she toured the southern U.S.
[6] In September, she re-toured several major U.S. cities and completed the tour at the Shepherd's Bush Empire in London, UK.
Brooke is currently writing for her third album, scheduled for release in early 2010.
Personal life
After the success of her first album, Fraser moved to Sydney, where she has lived for five years. She commutes to the U.S. for touring. In March 2008 she married Scott Ligertwood, in Sydney, changing her name to Brooke Ligertwood
[7]. "Brooke Fraser" has solely become her stage name for her activity as a
Sony BMG recording/touring artist, though prior to her marriage she had contributed songs to her local church (Hillsong Church) under her maiden name (now only her stage name). She continues to contribute to writing songs for her church, but these are now written as "Brooke Ligertwood" to make the distinction between her volunteer activities and her career as a mainstream recording artist. Among her notable worship songs are "Lead Me To The Cross"
[8] and "Hosanna"
[9].
Fraser is a Christian, but she is strongly opposed to being considered a Christian music artist, at least based on the industry of CCM and to what she sees as many in the industry as marketing something sacred only for profit. In her own words, "There are those who are actually abusing the name of Jesus, making money off of what is sacred and turning the temple into a marketplace. And at the same time you have to acknowledge that there are those who have genuine hearts and who are truly doing what God has called them to do."
[10]
Charity work
Fraser has been a
World Vision Artist Associate since 2001. She has visited
Cambodia and
Tanzania with World Vision, the
Philippines with
Opportunity International and independently traveled to
Rwanda in June 2005, in June 2006 as part of charity event "Hope Rwanda", and in May 2007 when she filmed the music video for the song "Albertine". In 2006 she, along with
Petra Bagust and Tau from
Spacifix, appeared advertising the
World Vision 40 Hour Famine; an event which raises funds for children in
third world countries. She also sponsors a number of children through World Vision and makes child sponsorship available to people at her shows in NZ, Australia and the U.S., in addition to providing her audiences with other ways of contributing to the work of World Vision (i.e. fundraising t-shirts etc).
Discography
Albums
- 2003: What to Do with Daylight
- 2006: Albertine
Singles
Year
| Title
| Chart positions
| Album
|
NZ [11]
| US CHR [12]
|
2003
| "Better"
| 3
|
| What to Do with Daylight
|
"Lifeline"
| 7
|
|
2004
| "Saving the World"
| 15
|
|
"Arithmetic"
| 8
|
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2005
| "Without You"
| 16
|
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2006
| "Deciphering Me"
| 4
|
| Albertine
|
2007
| "Shadowfeet"
| 13
| 9
|
"Albertine"
| —
|
|
"C.S. Lewis Song"
| —
|
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Awards
- Most promising Woman Musician Award & Overall winner
- 1999 Hutt Valley Pepsi Smokefree Rockquest regional finals
- Best Female Solo Artist: What To Do With Daylight
- 2004 NZ Music Awards
- Breakthrough Artist of the Year: What To Do With Daylight
- 2004 NZ Music Awards
- Most Performed Work on NZ radio in the Last 12 Months: Better
- Apra Silver Scroll Awards 2004
- Australasian Performing Right Association's Silver Scroll: Albertine
- Apra Silver Scroll Awards 2007
- The Warehouse Highest Selling Album: Albertine
- 2007 NZ Music Awards
- NZ on Air Airplay Record of the Year: Deciphering Me
- 2007 NZ Music Awards
- Editor's Music Choice Award: Albertine
- iTunes
Fraser was also awarded a satirical award:
- The most used fairy lights in a video clip
(for "Arithmetic") - Studio 2 Awards (2004)
References
- Sunday Star-Times article regarding Fraser's music career, personal views, and involvement with Soul Purpose.
- The RIANZ Chart indicates the chart run for ''What to Do with Daylight''.
- 2004 Performance details
- http://www.brookefraser.com/
- The NewsTours Page on Fraser's website indicates her band's history.
- Brooke Fraser puts a Kiwi note into US charts
- News of marriage in NZ Girl
- Brooke discusses the writing of Lead Me To The Cross
- Brooke discusses the writing of Hosanna
- About Christian Music article regarding Fraser's music career and personal views.
- charts.org.nz - New Zealand charts portal
- [1] R&R CHR chart