Katie Melua

Name	Katie Melua
Landscape	yes
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Ketevan Melua
Alias	Katie Melua
Born	September 16, 1984Kutaisi, Georgian SSR, Soviet Union
Origin	Kutaisi, Georgia
Voice type	Mezzo-Soprano
Instrument	Guitar Piano Violin Vocals
Genre	Blues, jazz, folk-pop
Years active	2003–present
Associated acts	Eva Cassidy
Label	Dramatico
Url	www.katiemelua.com

Ketevan "Katie" Melua ( , ; born 16 September 1984) is a Georgian-British singer, songwriter and musician. She moved to Northern Ireland at the age of eight and then to England at fourteen. Melua is signed to the small Dramatico record label, under the management of composer Mike Batt, and made her musical debut in 2003. In 2006, she was the United Kingdom's bestselling female artist and Europe's highest selling European female artist.

In November 2003, at the age of nineteen, 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. Her second album, Piece by Piece, was released in September 2005 and has gone platinum four times. Melua released her third studio album Pictures in October 2007.

According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, Melua has a fortune of £18 million, making her the seventh richest British musician under thirty. It was reported in 2009 that she had lost almost half of her fortune as a result of the global economic downturn.

Life and career

Early life

Ketevan Melua, known as Ketino to her family, was born to Amiran and Tamara Melua in Kutaisi, Georgia, which was then part of the Soviet Union. She spent her first years with her grandparents in Tbilisi before moving with her parents and brother to the town of Batumi, Ajaria where her father worked as a heart specialist. and according to her, "Now, when I'm staying in luxurious hotels, I think back to those days". and Russian ancestry.

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 less than a month later. Melua initially planned to become either a historian or a politician. This changed in 2000, at the age of fifteen, 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!. 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. Had she lost the contest, she would have been gunged.

Education and religion

Although she is a baptised Orthodox Christian, 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.

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.

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.

In late 2006 it was reported that Melua was in a close relationship with photographer Lara Bloom. In an interview in May 2010, she spoke about speculation surrounding the relationship with Bloom, saying "I can tell you that I'm single, which is not lovely, but it is what it is. I really don't think whether you are gay or not is the whole identity of a person. It's just one side; it doesn’t have to be the thing that defines you. We live in the 21st century: questions of sexuality are not outdated, but I don't think the lines are very clear and they are not always clear to me."

Melua is occasionally referred to as an 'adrenaline junkie' because she enjoys roller coasters and fun fairs and often paraglides and hang glides. 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."

In September 2010, Melua was ordered by her doctors to stop working for a few months after suffering from a debilitating medical condition resulting in her hospitalisation for six weeks. All touring and promotional activities were postponed as a result.She has recovered by 2011 and plans to undertake the postponed European tour throughout the months of March April, May and June of 2011.

Nationality

On 10 August 2005, Melua became a British citizen with her parents and brother. The citizenship ceremony took place in Weybridge, Surrey. On gaining British nationality, Melua was eligible for a British passport. 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." and a singer capable of singing "jazz and blues in an interesting way". 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 took her into the studio, producing her first three albums during the ensuing years

William Orbit

For her album The House (2010) she worked with producer William Orbit. She said about the experience: “The whole thing has been really exciting. It was the same feeling I had the first time I went skydiving. I was really quite nervous, but I knew all I had to do was let myself go and it was going to feel amazing. I wasn’t trying to get away from anything. It was more about going towards something. I wanted the music to be inspired by the future, something unknown that’s never been heard before, but at the same time hold on to the values of the music of the past, to try and tap into something that’s so ancient and old that its kind of forgotten. I thought that, if we went far enough in both directions, we could end up in the same place.”

Recording career

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 UK hit for singer Elkie Brooks. The otherl six songs on the album were by Mike Batt.

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. Wogan played "The Closest Thing to Crazy" frequently in the summer of 2003. Wogan's support raised Melua's profile and when Call off the Search was released in November 2003 supported by a TV campaign financed by Batt, it entered the top 40 UK albums chart. THe single avhieved the number 10 spot in the UK chart. After an appearance on the Royal Variety Show the album was further boosted, and Batt continued a relentless marketing campaign which saw the album hit the number one spot in January 2004. Call off the Search reached the top five in Ireland, top twenty in Norway, top thirty in a composite European chart In the UK, the album sold 1.9 million copies, making it six times platinum, and spent six weeks at the top of the UK charts. It sold 3.6 million copies worldwide. Subsequent singles from the album 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.The album achieved 6X platinum status in UK, 3X platinum in Norway, 2X platinum in Germany, Holland, Denmark and Ireland, Platinum in South africa, Australia and Switzerland and Gold in New Zealand and Hong Kong.

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 and was number 3 in the UK singles chart.. The album contains four more songs written by Melua herself, four more by Batt (including "9 Million Bicycles), 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. This album broke Melua across Europe where it sold 1m copies in Germany alone and achieved the number one position in Billboard's "European" albums chart. It was 4X platinum in UK and Ireland, 3X platinum in Norway, Denmark, Holland and Germany, 2X platinum in Poland and Switzerland and at least platinum or gold in France, Iceland, South Africa, Austria, Belgium, New Zealand and Sweden. Worldwide sales to date are in excess of 3.5m

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: }}

They were interpreted by Singh as an assault on the accuracy of the work of cosmologists which sparked a series of letters from other Guardian readers, agreeing or disagreeing. On 15 October, Melua and Singh appeared on the BBC's Today programme, and Melua unveiled a re-recording of the song which included Singh's tongue-in-cheek amendments to the lyrics:

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 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, 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.

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. Towards the end of 2006, Melua released the single, "It's Only Pain", which was written by Mike Batt. This was followed by the release of "Shy Boy", also written by Batt.

Pictures

Melua's third album, Pictures, was released in the UK on 1 October 2007 and was announced to be, at least teporarlly, the last of her albums in collaboration with Mike Batt as lead writer and producer.. The album also featured a cover of "In My Secret Life" by Leonard Cohen and Sharon Robinson. Melua said of the cover, "[It] completely got to me, about how we all have great ideals but in reality we end up conforming, following everyone else." "Mary Pickford", written by Mike Batt, was about the silent film star of the same name.

The iTunes version of the album includes a cover of the Prince song "Under the Cherry Moon" as a bonus track.

The House

Melua's fourth album, The House, was released on 24 May 2010. Songwriters include Lauren Christy, Guy Chambers and Rick Nowels, with William Orbit producing.

Other work

Acting and modelling

Melua appeared in a segment of the 2007 movie Grindhouse, written by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. The segment in which Melua appeared, entitled "Don't", was a faux trailer, directed by Edgar Wright and produced in the style of a 1970s' Hammer House of Horror film trailer.

In 2009, Melua was named as the new face of the leading French cashmere designer, Eric Bompard.

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 the Norwegian 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. 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.

Charity work

Melua has been a supporter of the Oxfam charity shops for many years, using them frequently to buy her clothing.

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. Then in 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. Later in 2005, through her role as a goodwill ambassador to the charity Save the Children, Melua went to Sri Lanka where she observed the work the charity was doing for children in the area after the civil war and Indian Ocean tsunami. In 2006 Melua donated all the proceeds from her single "Spider's Web" to the charity.

On 7 July 2007 Melua performed at the German leg of Live Earth in Hamburg and in December of that year, 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.

Musical tastes

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".

Melua has said on numerous occasions how Queen were a huge influence on her as a child/teenager, with one of her memories of music being her uncle playing records by Queen and Led Zeppelin. She performed with Queen at the 46664 concert in South Africa in March 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.

Discography

Call Off the Search (2003)

Piece by Piece (2005)

Pictures (2007)

''The House (2010)

Filmography

Soundtrack

Acting roles

Honours and awards

{| class="wikitable" |- ! Year !! Ceremony !! Category !! Result |- |rowspan=2| 2007 || ECHO Award || Best International Female Artist || Won |- || Goldene Kamera || Pop International Solo || Won |- |rowspan=3| 2006 ||rowspan=2| BRIT Awards || Best British Female Solo Artist || Nominated |- || Best Pop Act || Nominated |- | 2005 || Best International Newcomer || Won According to VH1, Call off the Search is the 87th best-selling British album in history.

References

External links

KatieMelua.com — The Official Katie Melua website, owned and maintained by Dramatico.

Category:1984 births Category:Living people Category:British female singers Category:Mingrelians Category:British jazz singers Category:British people of Canadian descent Category:British people of Georgian descent Category:British people of Russian descent Category:British singer-songwriters Category:English-language singers Category:Former students of the BRIT School Category:Georgian immigrants to the United Kingdom Category:Georgian pop singers Category:Georgian-language singers Category:Jazz-pop singers Category:Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom Category:People from Batumi Category:People from Belfast Category:People from Kutaisi Category:People from Sutton Category:Spanish-language singers Category:Torch singers