 |
Judith Owen | |
|---|---|
 Owen at Esplanade Studios | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 2 January 1969 (age 55) London, England, UK [1] |
| Origin | Wales, UK |
| Occupation | Singer-songwriter |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Spouse | |
| Website | judithowen |
Judith Owen (born 2 January 1969 [2] ) is a Welsh singer-songwriter. Her first album, Emotions on a Postcard, was released in 1996 and has been followed by several additional albums. She is co-founder of Twanky Records with her husband, Harry Shearer.
Owen is the daughter of Welsh opera singer Handel Owen and is originally from Llanelli. [2] She performed on West Virginia Public Radio's Mountain Stage on 10 September 2006 and was interviewed on National Public Radio's (NPR) Weekend Edition Sunday on 17 June 2007, on which she performed several of her songs from her 2007 release Happy This Way. Her cover of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" has been used as bumper music on Coast to Coast AM . [3]
In 2008 she released Mopping Up Karma, followed by 2010's The Beautiful Damage Collection (a compilation album).
On 18 September 2008, a three-song live video performance premiered on LiveDaily Sessions, featuring the songs: "Creatures", "I Promise You" and "Let's Hear It For Love". [4] On 25 October 2008, Owen performed "Creatures of Habit" on Public Radio International's What d'Ya Know with Michael Feldman.
She has recorded and toured with Richard Thompson in recent years, notably on the 1000 Years of Popular Music recording and tour. She has also appeared on his albums The Old Kit Bag and Sweet Warrior . [5]
Owen appeared as herself on The Simpsons in the thirteenth-season episode "The Blunder Years" and sang the song "600" for the show's 600th episode, "Treehouse of Horror XXVII".
On 10 February 2011 she appeared on BBC Breakfast alongside Ruby Wax, promoting their new show, Losing It.
Her tenth studio album, Ebb & Flow was released on 7 April (UK) and 6 May 2014 (US and Canada); it features Leland Sklar on bass and Russell Kunkel on drums – both former members of The Section – and Waddy Wachtel on guitar. Ebb & Flow was her first album to be released and promoted throughout Europe and received critical acclaim from The Independent (UK), The Sunday Times , Le Figaro (France), La Repubblica (Italy), CronacaTorino.it (Italy), BT (Denmark), and Rolling Stone (Germany) with radio play from RTE Radio 1 (Ireland), BBC Radio 2, RTVE Radio 3 (Spain), P5 (Denmark) and YLE Radio Suomi (Finland).
In 2015 she was invited to support Bryan Ferry on his UK tour. The London Royal Albert Hall Show on 1 June was cancelled at the last minute due to Ferry having a throat infection. Several journalists were attending to review her and an impromptu decision was made to invite them all to her London home, where she performed the planned set acoustically. The Independent ran an article the following day and highlighted it on a feature of living-room shows. [6] She performed at the Cropredy Festival in Oxfordshire and the MadGarden Festival in Madrid.
In 2016 Owen released the album Somebody's Child in the UK, Europe, Australia and Japan. In June 2016, she showcased the album in Melbourne and Sydney to rave reviews including Noise11.com. The same year, Owen and Harry Shearer performed together in Brisbane and at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival with a new show called This Infernal Racket , which created massive media coverage of this as well as her album.[ citation needed ]
The 2016 annual charity show Christmas Without Tears returned to London along with New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and New Orleans.
Touring in UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Netherlands, Ireland is planned.[ when? ]
In 2017, Somebody's Child was released in the US and Canada, while touring throughout the year.[ needs update ]
In May 2018 redisCOVERed her first all-covers album was released, featuring covers of songs by Deep Purple ("Smoke on the Water"), Soundgarden ("Black Hole Sun"), Donna Summer ("Hot Stuff"), Wild Cherry ("Play That Funky Music"), Drake ("Hotline Bling"), Ed Sheeran ( Shape of You") and Joni Mitchell ("Cherokee Louise" and "Ladies' Man").
Owen was born in London, but her mother was from Kidwelly and her father, a singer with the chorus of Covent Garden for 35 years, was from Llanelli. [7] When she was fifteen years old, her mother committed suicide after suffering from mental illness. [8]
Owen has been married to actor Harry Shearer since 1993. [9] They launched their own record label called Courgette Records, in 2005. [10]
Harry Julius Shearer is an American actor, comedian, musician, radio host, writer, and producer. Born in Los Angeles, California, Shearer began his career as a child actor. From 1969 to 1976, Shearer was a member of The Credibility Gap, a radio comedy group. Following the breakup of the group, Shearer co-wrote the film Real Life (1979) with Albert Brooks and worked as a writer on Martin Mull's television series Fernwood 2 Night.
Liza May Minnelli is an American actress, singer, and dancer. Known for her commanding stage presence and powerful alto singing voice, Minnelli has received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and four Tony Awards. She is one of the few performers awarded a non-competitive EGOT having received two honorary Grammy Awards. Minnelli is a Knight of the French Legion of Honour. Her persona and her style has cemented her as a gay icon.
Joscelyn Eve Stoker, known professionally as Joss Stone, is an English singer, songwriter and actress. She rose to prominence in late 2003 with her multi-platinum debut album, The Soul Sessions, which made the 2004 Mercury Prize shortlist. Her second album, Mind Body & Soul (2004), topped the UK Albums Chart and spawned the top-ten single "You Had Me", Stone's most successful single on the UK Singles Chart to date. Both the album and single received one nomination at the 2005 Grammy Awards, while Stone herself was nominated for Best New Artist, and in an annual BBC poll of music critics, Sound of 2004, was ranked fifth as a predicted breakthrough act of 2004. She became the youngest British female singer to top the UK Albums Chart. Stone's third album, Introducing Joss Stone, released in March 2007, achieved gold record status by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and yielded the second-ever highest debut for a British female solo artist on the Billboard 200, and became Stone's first top-five album in the US.
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. Her first major commercial success came with her third and fourth albums, Joan Armatrading (1976) and Show Some Emotion (1977), and she continues to play live and record studio albums. A three-time Grammy Award nominee, Armatrading has also been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection in 1996.
Cara Elizabeth Dillon is a Northern Irish folk singer. In 1995, she joined the folk supergroup Equation and signed a record deal with Warners Music Group. After leaving the group, she collaborated with Sam Lakeman under the name Polar Star. In 2001, she released her first solo album, Cara Dillon, which featured traditional songs and two original Dillon/Lakeman compositions. The album was an unexpected hit in the folk world, with Dillon receiving four nominations at the 2002 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards.
Barb Jungr is an English singer, songwriter and theatre writer, who has recorded versions of songs by Bob Dylan, Sting, Elvis Presley, Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen.
Cerys Elizabeth Matthews is a Welsh singer, songwriter, author, and broadcaster. She was a founding member of Welsh rock band Catatonia and a leading figure in the "Cool Cymru" movement of the late 1990s.
Lucie Joanne Silverman performing as Lucie Silvas, is a British singer-songwriter best known for her 2004 debut single "What You're Made Of", drawn from her first album Breathe In—itself a hit in the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom.
Julia Fordham is an English singer-songwriter. Her professional career started in the early 1980s, under the name "Jules Fordham", as a backing singer for Mari Wilson and Kim Wilde, before signing a recording contract of her own later that decade. Fordham is now based in California.
Kelly Diane Willis is an American country music singer-songwriter, whose music has been described as alternative country and new traditionalist.
Russell Kunkel is an American drummer who has worked as a session musician with many popular artists, including Bill Withers, Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Buffett, Harry Chapin, Rita Coolidge, Neil Diamond, Bob Dylan, Cass Elliot, Dan Fogelberg, Glenn Frey, Art Garfunkel, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Carole King, Lyle Lovett, Reba McEntire, Stevie Nicks, Linda Ronstadt, Bob Seger, Carly Simon, Stephen Stills, James Taylor, Joe Walsh, Steve Winwood, Neil Young, and Warren Zevon. He was the studio and touring drummer for Crosby & Nash in the 1970s and played on all four of their studio albums.
Beverley Knight is an English singer, songwriter, actress and radio personality. She released her first album, The B-Funk, in 1995. Heavily influenced by American soul music icons such as Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin, Knight has released nine studio albums. Widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest soul singers, Knight is best known for her hit singles "Greatest Day", "Get Up!", "Shoulda Woulda Coulda", "Come as You Are" and "Keep This Fire Burning".
Alexandria "Sandi" Thom is a Scottish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Banff, Scotland. She became widely known in 2006 after her debut single, "I Wish I Was a Punk Rocker ", topped the UK Singles Chart in June of that year, as well as in Australia and Ireland. The single became the biggest-selling single of 2006 in Australia, where it spent ten weeks at the top of the ARIA Singles Chart.
Leona Louise Lewis is a British singer, songwriter, actress, model, and activist. Born and raised in Islington, Inner London, she later attended the BRIT School for Performing Arts and Technology in Croydon. Lewis achieved national recognition when she won the third series of the television talent show The X Factor in 2006, winning a £1 million recording contract with Syco Music. Her winner's single, a cover of Kelly Clarkson's "A Moment Like This", peaked at number one for four weeks on the UK Singles Chart and broke a world record by reaching 50,000 digital downloads within 30 minutes. In February 2007, Lewis signed a five-album contract in the United States with Clive Davis's record label, J Records.
Laura Beatrice Marling is an English folk singer-songwriter. She won the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist at the 2011 Brit Awards and was nominated for the same award at the 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 Brit Awards.
Laura Jansen is a Dutch-American musician. Before gaining fame in the Netherlands, Jansen became a fixture in the constellation of artists associated with Los Angeles nightclub Hotel Café – a national launching pad for artists as Sara Bareilles, Priscilla Ahn and Joshua Radin. As a daughter of an American mother and Dutch father, Laura has been living in the United States for over 10 years.
Elisabeth Corrin Maurus, known as Lissie, is an American singer-songwriter. She released her debut EP, "Why You Runnin'", in November 2009. Her debut album, Catching a Tiger, was released in June 2010. Her second studio album, Back to Forever, was released in October 2013. Her first record as an independent artist, and third studio album, My Wild West, was released February 12, 2016 and went on to receive critical acclaim. Her fourth studio album Castles, was released worldwide on March 23, 2018. Her fifth studio album, Carving Canyons, was released September 16, 2022.
Nina Nesbitt is a Scottish singer and songwriter. She is best known for her UK and Scottish top 40 hit singles "Stay Out" and "Selfies". She also earned further recognition with her rendition of Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" which was featured in an advert for the department store John Lewis.
Rocks and Honey is the sixteenth studio album by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler, first released by ZYX Music on 8 March 2013. Eight years after Wings was released in 2005, this was the longest gap between album releases in Tyler's career, and is the first of her studio albums to chart in the United Kingdom since Hide Your Heart in 1988. With tracks written by Nashville-based songwriters such as Frank J. Myers, Desmond Child, Brett James and Beth Hart, the album consists of a number of country songs reminiscent of Tyler's country albums from the 1970s with elements of rock.
Tasha Baxter is a South African singer-songwriter. Baxter has 5 South African Music Awards nominations and won "Best Pop Album" and "Newcomer of the Year" for her album "Colour of Me".
The 40-year-old, originally from Llanelli, says: "I was 25 and a struggling musician, who was also struggling to come to terms with my mum's death when I was 15. She was depressed and killed herself and much of my melancholy stemmed from that.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
