Vanessa Amorosi

Vanessa Amorosi was born in Melbourne on August 9, 1981 to parents who were both professional singer/dancers working in the Australasian theatre restaurant cabaret circuit. She was surrounded by music and singing, and it had a profound impact on her life. As soon as she could talk she was putting her own words to her favourite songs on the radio, and singing them with an emotion that amazed even that showbiz family.

At the age of four Vanessa and her younger sisters were taking tap, jazz and classical ballet classes at a dance school run by their uncle. In this regard Vanessa also proved a natural and at the age of twelve was performing at shopping centres and local council concerts.

The big turning point came when at fourteen years of age Vanessa took a part-time job singing in a Russian restaurant. Her other performances had been part of regular dance class type activities all kids engaged in those activities partake in. The Russian restaurant job was different. Vanessa was in the spotlight on her own. And it was there she was spotted by Jack Strom, one of the producers of TV show Hey Hey It's Saturday. Strom had recently formed a management company with Seventies recording star Mark Holden, back in Australia after some years in America, where he'd been songwriting and producing.

Strom insisted Holden come and hear Amorosi sing. Vanessa took some convincing to throw her lot in with Strom and Holden. She'd already had numerous people promise to make her a star and seen nothing happen. But eventually they did convince her, signed her to a management contract and set about working towards her first record. They were some way into the project when Vanessa revealed her songwriting. She hadn't thought it worth mentioning. It made Strom and Holden completely rethink where they were taking her.

After rejections from all the major record companies, a deal was found with BMG distributed independent, Transistor Records. Vanessa was their first Australian signing. In May 1999 Vanessa flew to London to record several tracks including her debut single with producer Steve Mac, known for his work with pop acts Boyzone and Five, and subsequently Westlife.

The first single 'Have A Look', took her into the national top twenty. The second single 'Absolutely Everybody' reached #3 and spent 27 weeks in the top forty, one the longest runs of all time for an Australian single. The album, 'The Power' was the first time an Australian female reached number one on the national album chart with her first album.

In September 2000 Vanessa Amorosi was the only artist to feature in both the opening and the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics.

Over the next few years, Amorosi maintained a low-profile presence in the music industry, recording and performing in Australia and throughout the world while waiting out her existing record contract. She also spent those years hanging around recording studios and writing songs for others. It took watching others on stage for her to realize how much she actually missed performing, and in November 2006 it was announced she had signed to Universal Music Australia.

It took almost another year before fans heard anything new from Vanessa. She'd asked her new management team to put her together with producers who would challenge her, people who didn't know her and had no expectations, people who she would have to win over with her voice and songs before they agreed to work with her. The results can be heard on her album 'Somewhere In The Real World'. She says that every song is like a diary entry from the intervening time.