Paloma Faith Blomfield was born in 1985 to a Spanish father and English mother who separated when Paloma was just two years old. She was raised by her mother in Hackney, East London, who encouraged Paloma to perform from an early age. As well as singing she has also done some acting appearing in films St Trinians and the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnarsus.
I fell in love with Paloma Faith in 2009 when I first heard her debut album, Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful, a record that barely made a dent in the charts when it was first released. I did a lot of banging on about this woman and several of my friends purchased the album and were mesmerized by this lady's brilliance.
Despite this it seemed like nothing she was doing at the time was working, several single releases still saw only modest sales of the album and I remember reading an interview that she did with music website Pop Justice where she said she felt she would soon be dropped by her record label due to poor sales, a claim Sony records refuted.
But she persevered. She toured extensively around the UK, made appearances on any Radio and TV show that would have her and slowly but surely momentum grew and sales shot up. The album eventually went platinum, over a year after it's original release with sales of over 500,000 copies in the UK, proof that hard work really does pay off.
On February 29th this year Paloma revealed her second album would be called Fall To Grace and she has enlisted producers Nellee Hooper, (Madonna) and Jake Gosling. The success was much more rapid, partly due the fan base she had garnered but also due to the success of the fantastic single Picking Up The Pieces which debuted at number seven in May, and is still hanging around the top twenty now almost eight weeks later. The album shot to number two in the UK Album Chart and received excellent reviews from fans and critics alike and selling 83,000 copies (so far) in the UK alone.
Her live performances have also been well received as she mixes her stunning vocal ability with a show full of elegance and grace that has captivated audiences and made her one of the must see live performers of the last few years. She will embark on a full UK tour early 2013 which I will be lucky enough to see.
For me Paloma is one the most exciting female artists around at the moment, her voice is instantly distinctive and her songs are full of beautiful, well written and well crafted songs, many of which, like New York, Picking Up The Pieces and Do You Want The Truth Or Something Beautiful will be hailed as classics in years to come. I'm incredibly proud of what Paloma has managed to achieve, she fully deserves it and I'm happy I was there to witness this brilliant artists rise from the very beginning.
Catch Paloma Faith at a concert venue near you in early 2013!
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