Melua, Katie (1984– )

Georgian-born British singer and songwriter. She became popular in the UK in the early 2000s for her jazz and blues-inspired pop music. Her albums include Call Off the Search (2003), featuring the single ‘The Closest Thing to Crazy’, Piece by Piece (2005), featuring ‘Nine Million Bicycles’, and Pictures (2007). By the mid-2000s she had become the UK's highest-selling female artist.

In 2004 she was part of the Band Aid-20 ensemble for the remake of the single ‘Do They Know It's Christmas?’. She also recorded and performed covers of a number of jazz and blues standards as well as pop singles, for example The Cure's ‘Just Like Heaven’ in 2005.

Born in Tbilisi, capital of the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Georgia, Melua moved with her family to Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1993, and to Redhill, Surrey, England, in 1998. At the age of 15 she won a talent competition on the children's game show Mad For It and later studied music at the BRIT School for the Performing Arts in Croydon, Surrey. Music producer Mike Batt (1949– ) discovered her there, and, impressed by her ‘Faraway Voice’, a tribute to Eva Cassidy, signed her to his Dramatico music label.