Ketevan "Katie" Melua
(Georgian: ??????? "????" ????? listen (help·info); ; born 16 September 1984) is a Georgian/British singer, songwriter and musician. She was born in Georgia, but moved to Northern Ireland at the age of eight and then relocated to England at the age of 14. [1] Melua is signed to the small Dramatico record label, under the management of songwriter Mike Batt, [2] and made her musical debut in 2003. In 2006, she was the United Kingdom's biggest-selling female artist
In November 2003, at the age of 19, Melua released her first album, Call off the Search
, which reached the top of the United Kingdom album charts and sold 1.8 million copies in its first five months of release. [4] Her second album, Piece by Piece
, was released in September 2005 and to date [] has gone platinum four times. [5] Melua released her third studio album Pictures
in October 2007, which has been announced to be the last of her albums in collaboration with Mike Batt. [6] According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, Melua has a fortune of £18 million, making her the seventh richest British musician under thirty. [7] It was reported in 2009 that she had lost almost half of her fortune as a result of the global economic downturn. [8]
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KATIE MELUA TICKETS
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Life and career
Early life
Ketevan Melua, known as Ketino to her family,
[9] was born in 1984 in
Georgia, then part of the
Soviet Union, in
Kutaisi [10] and spent her first years with her grandparents in
Tbilisi.
[11] Later she moved with her parents and brother to the town of
Batumi,
Ajaria where her father worked as a heart specialist.
During this time Melua sometimes had to carry buckets of water up five flights of stairs to her family's flat
[12] [13] and according to her, "Now, when I'm staying in luxurious hotels, I think back to those days..."
In 1993, in the aftermath of the
Georgian Civil War, the family moved to
Belfast,
Northern Ireland, where her father took up a position at the prestigious
Royal Victoria Hospital. The family remained in Belfast, living close to
Falls Road, until Melua was thirteen. During her time in Northern Ireland, Melua attended
St. Catherine's Primary School on the
Falls Road and later moved to Dominican College, Fortwilliam. This is where Melua learned most of her English. Then the Melua family moved to
Sutton,
London, and some time later moved again to
Redhill,
Surrey. Melua recently moved just a few kilometers away from her parents' home in
Maida Vale to an apartment in
Notting Hill where she transformed the spare bedroom into a recording studio. Melua speaks
Georgian, Russian and English and is partly of Canadian
[14] and Russian ancestry.
[15] [16]
During the
South Ossetia War in 2008, Melua's brother and mother were staying with relatives in the Georgian capital,
Tbilisi. Melua was due to travel to Georgia herself just two weeks later.
First television appearance
Because of her upbringing in politically unstable Georgia and
troubled Belfast,
[17] Melua initially planned to become either a
historian or a
politician.
[18] This changed in 2000, at the age of 15, when Melua took part in a talent competition on British television channel
ITV called "Stars Up Their Noses" (a spoof of
Stars in Their Eyes
) as part of the children's programme
Mad for It!
.
[19] Melua won the contest by singing
Badfinger's "
Without You". The prize was £350 worth of
MFI vouchers, with which she bought a chair for her father.
[20] Had she lost the contest, she would have been
gunged.
[21]
Education and religion
Although she is a baptised
Orthodox Christian,
[22] whilst living in Belfast, Melua attended the
Roman Catholic schools St Catherine's Primary School and
Dominican College, Fortwilliam, while her younger brother attended
Protestant schools.
After completing her
GCSEs at the all-girls' grammar school
Nonsuch High School in
Cheam,
Sutton, Melua attended the
BRIT School for the Performing Arts in the
London Borough of Croydon, undertaking a
BTEC with an A-level in music. She began to write songs when at the school.
[23] Melua first met her future manager, producer
Mike Batt, when studying at the school.
Melua didn't attend University, though she has often stated her desire to do so, saying that
English literature,
history and
physics would be her courses of choice should she get the chance to go to University.
[24]
Personal life
Melua met
Luke Pritchard, lead singer of
The Kooks, when they were both studying at the
BRIT School where they began dating. Melua and Pritchard rarely speak of the relationship, but what is known is that the couple dated for three years. However, as Melua became more successful, the relationship came into difficulties and they split up in March 2005.
Melua is occasionally referred to as an '
adrenaline junkie' because she enjoys
roller coasters and
fun fairs and often
paraglides and
hang glides.
[26] She has
skydived four times and taken several
flying lessons, and in 2004 she was lowered from a 200 metre building in
New Zealand at 60
mph. When asked about Melua being an 'adrenaline junkie',
Mike Batt said, "she enjoys extremes, but in life her emotions are always in check."
British nationality
On 10 August 2005, Melua became a
British citizen with her parents and brother. The citizenship ceremony took place in
Weybridge, Surrey.
[27] On gaining British nationality, Melua was eligible for a British passport.
[28] Becoming a British citizen meant that Melua had held three citizenships before she was 21; first
Soviet, then
Georgian and finally
British. After the ceremony, Melua stated her pride at her newest nationality. "As a family, we have been very fortunate to find a happy lifestyle in this country and we feel we belong. We still consider ourselves to be Georgian, because that is where our roots are, and I return to Georgia every year to see my uncles and grandparents, but I am proud to now be a British citizen.
Recording career
Mike Batt
It was when performing at a
Brit School showcase that Melua caught the eye of
Mike Batt, an English songwriter and producer who was originally looking for an acid-rock band, bass player
[29] and a singer capable of singing "jazz and blues in an interesting way".
[30] After hearing Melua sing "Faraway Voice" (a song she wrote about the death of her idol
Eva Cassidy) Batt signed the 18 year-old Melua to his small
Dramatico recording and management company and sent her into the studio.
[31]
Call off the Search
Call off the Search
featured two songs written by Melua: "Belfast (Penguins and Cats)", a song about Melua's experience of her time in the troubled capital of
Northern Ireland, and "Faraway Voice", a song about the death of
Eva Cassidy. Melua also covered songs by
Delores J. Silver ("Learnin' the Blues"),
John Mayall ("
Crawling up a Hill"),
Randy Newman ("I Think it's Going to Rain Today") and
James Shelton ("Lilac Wine").Originally a major U.K. hit for singer Elkie Brooks. A final six songs on the album were by
Mike Batt.
[32]
It was initially difficult for Melua and Batt to get airplay for the album's lead single, "
The Closest Thing to Crazy". This changed when
BBC Radio 2 producer
Paul Walters heard the single and played it on the popular
Terry Wogan breakfast show.
[33] Wogan played "The Closest Thing to Crazy" frequently in November and December 2003 in an attempt to make it that year's
Christmas number-one. The single only reached number 10, but Wogan's support raised Melua's profile and when
Call off the Search
was released it became an immediate hit, reaching number one on the UK albums chart in January 2004.
Call off the Search
reached the top five in Ireland, top twenty in Norway, top thirty in a composite European chart and top fifty in Australia. In the UK, the album sold 1.2 million copies, making it four times
platinum, and spent six weeks at the top of the charts. It sold three million copies worldwide. Subsequent singles did not reach the success of the first — the second single and album title track, "
Call off the Search", reached number 19, and the third single, "
Crawling up a Hill", got to number 41.
[34]
Piece by Piece
Melua's second album,
Piece by Piece
, was released on 26 September 2005. Its
lead single was "
Nine Million Bicycles", which was released a week before the album on 19 September. The first UK airplay for the single was on the Terry Wogan show on 1 August. The album contains four more songs written by Melua herself, four more by Batt, one Batt/Melua collaboration and three more songs described as new versions of "great songs". The band line-up was the same as on the first album. The album debuted at the number-one spot on the
UK Albums Chart on the week of 3 October 2005.
[35]
On 30 September 2005, Melua came under criticism in
The Guardian
from writer and scientist
Simon Singh for the lyrics of the track "Nine Million Bicycles". Melua's disputed lyrics were:
| “
| We are 12 billion light-years from the edge. That's a guess — no-one can ever say it's true, but I know that I will always be with you.
| ”
|
They were interpreted by Singh as an assault on the accuracy of the work of cosmologists
[36] which sparked a series of letters from other
Guardian
readers, agreeing or disagreeing.
[37] On 15 October, Melua and Singh appeared on the
BBC's
Today
programme, and Melua unveiled a which included Singh's tongue-in-cheek amendments to the lyrics:
| “
| We are 13.7 billion light-years from the edge of the observable universe, That's a good estimate with well-defined error bars, And with the available information, I predict that I will always be with you.
| ”
|
Both sides amicably agreed that the new lyrics were less likely to achieve commercial success, amidst a discussion about
scientific accuracy versus
artistic licence. Melua said that she "should have known better" because she used to be a member of the
astronomy club at school.
[38]
A
double A-side of the Melua-penned "
I Cried for You" and a cover of
The Cure's "
Just like Heaven" (1988), which is the theme song to the film
Just like Heaven
,
[39] was released in the UK on 5 December and peaked at number 35. "I Cried for You" was inspired by a meeting with the writer of
Holy Blood, Holy Grail
.
[40]
A third single, "
Spider's Web" was released on 17 April 2006 and peaked at number 52 in the UK. Melua embarked on a concert tour in support of
Piece by Piece
, the UK leg of which started in Aberdeen, Scotland on 20 January 2006.
[41]
Towards the end of 2006, Melua released the single, "
It's Only Pain", which was written by
Mike Batt.
[42] This was followed by the release of "
Shy Boy", also written by Batt.
Pictures
Melua's third album,
Pictures
, in the U.K. was released on 1 October 2007.
[43] and has been announced to be the last of her albums in collaboration with Mike Batt as a creative team.
It also features Melua's friend
Molly McQueen, the former frontwoman of
The Faders, as co-writer of "Perfect Circle".
The iTunes version of the album includes a cover of the
Prince song "
Under the Cherry Moon" as a bonus track.
Pictures in the first eight months after the release has sold over 1.5 million copies worldwide and over 450,000 copies in the UK alone, being certified Platinum and becoming the 49th Best selling album in 2007.
Charity work
In November 2004 Melua was asked to take part in
Band Aid 20 in which she joined a chorus of British and Irish pop singers to create a rendition of "
Do They Know It's Christmas?" to raise money for famine relief in Africa. This was in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the original
Band Aid.
[44]
On 19 March 2005, Melua sang "
Too Much Love Will Kill You" with
Brian May at the
46664 concert in
George, South Africa for
Nelson Mandela's
HIV charity. Melua had been a fan of
Queen since her childhood in Georgia when her uncles played the band's music, so performing with May was a realisation of a childhood dream.
Melua is a
goodwill ambassador to the charity
Save the Children, and in 2005 she went to
Sri Lanka to see the work the charity was doing for children in the area after the
civil war and
Indian Ocean tsunami.
[46] In 2006 Melua donated all the proceeds from her single "
Spider's Web" to the charity.
[47]
Melua is a supporter of the
Oxfam charity shops, using them frequently to buy her clothing.
However, she has stated that this is related as much to her dislike of spending and glamour as it is to her support for the charity,
admitting that, when out in public, she looks "like a
tramp" and that her hairdresser playfully calls her look "the
Romanian window cleaner".
[48]
On 7 July 2007 Melua performed at the
German leg of
Live Earth in
Hamburg.
[49]
In December 2007, Melua released a cover of the
Louis Armstrong song
"What A Wonderful World"
in which she sang with a recording of the late
Eva Cassidy. All profits from the single, which entered the UK singles chart at #1 on 16 December 2007, went to the
Red Cross.
[50]
World record holder
On 2 October 2006, Melua entered the
Guinness Book of Records
for playing the deepest underwater concert 303 metres below sea level on
Statoil's
Troll A platform in the
North Sea. Melua and her band underwent extensive medical tests and survival training in Norway before flying by helicopter to the rig.
[51]
Melua later described achieving the record as "the most surreal gig I have ever done". Melua's concert is commemorated in the DVD release
Concert Under the Sea
, released in June 2007.
Musical taste
In April 2006, for the
Sun
newspaper, Melua chose fourteen pieces of her favourite music that she enjoyed and had the biggest musical influence on her. The pieces she chose were
Paul Simon's "Hearts and Bones",
Jeff Buckley's version of
Leonard Cohen's "
Hallelujah",
Joni Mitchell's "Marcie",
Bob Dylan's "
Masters of War",
James Taylor's "How Sweet It Is (to Be Loved by You)",
Chuck Berry's "No Particular Place to Go",
Portishead's "Glory Box",
Björk's "The Pleasure Is All Mine",
Camille's "Au Port",
Rage Against the Machine's "
Killing in the Name",
Bobbie Gentry's "Fancy",
Finley Quaye's "Even After All",
Suzanne Vega's "Caramel" and
Babyshambles' "
Fuck Forever".
[52]
Melua has said on numerous occasions how
Queen were a huge influence on her as a child/teenager, with one of her memories being buying Queen's
Greatest Hits II
and singing along to "
Radio Ga Ga" in her home country Georgia.
[53]. She performed with Queen guitarist
Brian May at the
46664 concert in 2005.
Melua appeared on the
BBC's
The Culture Show
in November 2006 advocating
Paul McCartney as her choice in the search for Britain's greatest living icon.
[54] [55]
Acting
In 2007, Melua announced that she would be appearing in a segment of the movie
Grindhouse
. The segment entitled "
Don't", a faux trailer, was directed by
Edgar Wright.
[56] [57]
In Melua's role, she and a group of friends open a door to find a crazy hatchet wielding man who kills one of her friends.
Discography
- Call Off the Search
(2003)
- Piece by Piece
(2005)
- Pictures
(2007)
Filmography
Soundtrack
| Year
| Film
| Song
|
| 1999-2001
| Watership Down (TV series, Episode 9]''
| "Thank You Stars"
|
| 2009
| Faintheart
| "Toy Collection"
|
| 2007
| Nancy Drew
| "Looking for Clues"
|
| 2006
| Mía Sarah
| "Call off the Search", "Tiger in the Night"
|
| Miss Potter
| "When You Taught Me How to Dance"
|
| 2005
| Just like Heaven
| "Just like Heaven"
|
Acting roles
| Year
| Film
| Role
|
| 2007
| Grindhouse
| Murder Victim's Friend (segment "Don't")
|
Honours and awards
| Year
| Ceremony
| Category
| Result
|
| 2007
| ECHO Award
| Best International Female Artist
| Won [58]
|
| Goldene Kamera
| Pop International Solo
| Won [59]
|
| 2006
| BRIT Awards
| Best British Female Solo Artist
| Nominated [60]
|
| Best Pop Act
| Nominated |
| ECHO Award
| Best International Female Artist
| Nominated [61]
|
| 2005
| Best International Newcomer
| Won [62]
|
- Melua was the best-selling UK female artist of 2004 and 2005.
- In 2006 Melua had a tulip named after her. [63]
- According to VH1, Call off the Search
is the 87th best-selling British album in history. [64]
References
- biog
- The hitman and her
- IFPI confirm Katie Melua as Europe’s highest selling European female artist in 2006
- review of ''Call off the Search''
- review of ''Piece by Piece''
- Katie Melua: I want to start afresh
- Katie Melua worth a staggering £18m
- Music giants' 'fortunes dwindle'
- Chilling eye witness accounts of the cost of the Georgia conflict
- Georgia on her mind
- MELUA SHUNS LUXURIOUS LIVING
- I still shop at Oxfam
- Georgia peach
- Katie Melua: Getting her own Piece of the pie
- Katie Melua talks about the Georgia-Russia conflict
- My Life In Travel: Katie Melua
- Katie Melua In Gunfire Drama
- Second Cup Café: Katie Melua
- "The Closest Thing to Crazy:" An Interview With UK Rocker Katie Melua
- Melua trivia page
- Video of the performance show on Belgian TV
- Success on her own terms
- New Music: Katie Melua
- MELUA TAKES TIME OUT TO STUDY
- I LOVE HIM BUT WE'VE SLOWLY BROKEN EACH OTHER'S HEARTS ...IT SUCKS
- I'M THE CLOSEST THING TO CRAZY
- Singer Melua made British citizen
- Katie Melua, 'piecing' together global fame
- Katie in Iceland
- Katie Melua
- Fallen from Heaven
- "Call off the Search" Review
- Talk the talk
- Melua Profile
- Katie Melua makes mellow comeback
- Katie Melua's bad science
- A few million light years short of reality
- Today Program
- "Just Like Heaven" Movie Soundtrack News
- Ingénue Rising
- Interview
- Melua reveals Kooks pain
- Katie true to her heart on new album
- Geldof hails new Band Aid single
- Queen And Katie Melua Team Up
- Katie's diary
- MELUA TO DONATE SINGLE PROCEEDS TO CHARITY
- I Look like a tramp
- Katie sings to save the planet
- Melua duet headed for number one
- Melua's deep sea gig sets record
- What Katie did next
- The World According To... Katie Melua
- Living Icons
- Katie Melua Talks About Paul McCartney
- Latest Blog - March 7th 2007
- US box office horror for Grindhouse
- Echo Awards handed out in Berlin
- KATIE MELUA AND NIC CAGE RECEIVE GERMAN HONOUR
- Brit Awards 2006: The winners
- ECHO 2006 Künstlerin des Jahres international
- Interview: Katie Melua
- Nine Million Botanists
- Another honours list for Britain's best-selling rock stars