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| Birth Name(s) : Vanessa Lee Carlton |
Date of Birth: N/A |
| Status:
Single
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Partner:
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| Profession:
Singer-songwriter, producer, instrumentalist |
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Full Vanessa Carlton Biography
Vanessa Lee Carlton (born August 16, 1980) is an American pop singer, songwriter, and pianist best known for the single "A Thousand Miles" from her debut album, Be Not Nobody (2002), which was certified platinum in the U.S. The commercial failure of Carlton's second album, Harmonium (2004), led her to part company from her record label A&M, though she still holds a dedicated fanbase. Her third album, Heroes and Thieves, was released in October 2007 on Irv Gotti's record label The Inc..
Carlton was born in Milford, Pennsylvania to Ed Carlton, a pilot, and Heidi, a piano and school music teacher; she has two younger siblings, a sister named Gwen, who is a student at George Mason University, and a brother named Edmund, who is a member of his school's a capella group and who attends St. Andrew's School in Delaware. She is of Scandinavian descent on her father's side, and of Russian Jewish descent on her mother's. Although she was not raised in any religion, she has referred to herself as "Jewish" and said she was "spiritual". She began playing the piano as a toddler, and received tutoring from her mother. After returning from Disneyland at the age of two, Carlton played "It's a Small World" on the piano. This event inspired Carlton's mother to expose Carlton to various classical composers such as Mozart and Erik Satie. She attended the School of American Ballet in New York City beginning at age fourteen. The stress and rigid training of the ballet lessons proved too much for her, and as the School of American Ballet is a finishing school for ballet, classes became too difficult once Vanessa started going through unexpected growth spurts. She chose not to become a dancer on graduation.
Carlton's debut album, Be Not Nobody, was produced by Ron Fair and released in April 2002. It included the hit piano pop single "A Thousand Miles", which peaked inside the top five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. Follow-up single "Ordinary Day", however, was less successful, and the final single, "Pretty Baby", failed to chart on the Hot 100. In 2003 Carlton received Grammy Award nominations for "Record of the Year", "Song of the Year", and "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)" for "A Thousand Miles". She provided the descant vocals for the Counting Crows' cover of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi", recorded for the film Two Weeks Notice.Carlton on the Harmonium (2004) album cover
Carlton's 2004 collaboration with the Italian rock and blues singer Zucchero, along with Haylie Ecker on violin, for the song "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" (a cover of The Korgis' song) was moderately successful, reaching the top forty in France. She provided backing vocals for a song on anti-folk singer Kimya Dawson's 2004 album Hidden Vagenda.
She began recording her second album, Harmonium, at Skywalker Ranch near San Francisco. Harmonium was released in November 2004 and yielded the single "White Houses", which reached the lower half of the Hot 100. Produced by Stephan Jenkins, Harmonium debuted outside the top twenty on the Billboard 200 album chart and was a commercial failure; consequently, Carlton left A&M Records in mid-2005.
Irv Gotti announced in October 2006 that he had signed Carlton to The Inc. Records. Carlton's third album is titled Heroes & Thieves, and Gotti co-produced the album with Linda Perry and Stephan Jenkins. Carlton is a featured artist on 7's debut single, "M-A-K-E L-O-V-E T-O M-E". Heroes and Thieves was released in October 2007, and the first single is "Nolita Fairytale".
Carlton dated singer/producer Stephan Jenkins of the rock band Third Eye Blind until 2007 when they broke up. Jane magazine in the U.S. named Carlton one of the "eleven people you'd most like to see naked"; she posed for the magazine's July 2005 issue.
Ashton Kutcher Punk'd Carlton in November 2004 during a rehearsal for her performance on The Tonight Show. In 2005 Carlton completed the New York City Marathon and donated the pledge money she collected to Musicians on Call, a nonprofit organization that brings live and recorded music to patients' bedsides.
In the October 2007 issue of Blender Magazine, Carlton admitted to going through a rebellious phase when she was 17, while living in New York City. "I just started partying, And I dropped out of ballet school. It's such a regimented life." She also admitted to drinking and doing various drugs. "I've been through tours where I've smoked pot everyday... but I've tried everything. Except heroin." |
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