Julia Fordham
Encyclopedia
Julia Fordham is a British
singer-songwriter
based in California
. Her professional career started in the early 1980s, under the name "Jules Fordham", as a backing singer
for Mari Wilson
and Kim Wilde
.
on Circa Records, Julia Fordham. The album, which contained the UK
Top 40 single
"Happy Ever After" (#27 in August), introduced her as a singer with considerable vocal range, and her deeply emotional lyrics
endeared her to a small, committed audience. Licensed to Virgin Records America, the album was a minor hit
and paved the way for the success of 1989's Porcelain. The single, "Manhattan Skyline", was an adult contemporary radio and VH-1 hit.
Fordham has had chart
success since that time, and she continued to record
throughout the 1990s. Three subsequent albums: 1991's Swept which featured the UK Top 20 single "Love Moves (In Mysterious Ways)" (#19 in February 1992) (The Butcher’s Wife soundtrack
– a movie
starring Demi Moore
), 1994's Falling Forward and 1997's East West received some critical praise. 1998's The Julia Fordham Collection recapped the best-known songs from these five albums, and included new versions of recordings including "Where Does The Time Go", which featured the vocals of Curtis Stigers
.
Signed in 1999 to a Division One/Atlantic, Fordham recorded Concrete Love. The album was produced by Larry Klein
who has worked with many artists including Joni Mitchell
and with Fordham previously on Falling Forward. The release was cancelled when a corporate shuffle caused her record label
to be closed and her contract was terminated.
The release of Concrete Love featured a re-recording of its title track as a duet
with India.Arie
as well as different cover artwork. It emerged on Vanguard Records and various other labels internationally including Sanctuary Records
in the UK. Remix
es of the single "Wake Up With You" were released and it became a hit on Billboard
s dance chart. An acoustic club tour played to sold-out shows across America
and she visited the UK and Japan
.
She followed up this album with her seventh record, That's Life, which was released on her 42nd birthday in 2004. She performed more live shows which included a successful run of shows in Japan at the Blue Note
venues. That's Live, a live album
and DVD
(filmed in Los Angeles
, California
with guests India.Arie and Judith Owen
), was released in January 2005. Fordham then came to the end of her recording contract
with Vanguard. Also in 2005, Fordham's sister, Claire Fordham, had a book published, Plus One: A Year in the Life of a Hollywood Nobody based on her experiences of being Julia's sister and living in Los Angeles.
Without a new record contract, Fordham continued to record, releasing independently a rewrite of debut single "Happy Ever After," in aid of tsunami relief. This was backed by two tracks written and recorded with Aadesh Shrivastava
. The single was released to download and then made available to purchase on CD
. It was also backed by Richard Branson
who offered to stock the CD in his Virgin Megastores. The project was nominated for an OSSA award.
In 2006, she released her Baby Love EP via AWAL
(Artists Without A Label). The EP is a collection of songs inspired by the birth of her daughter, Marley Rose. Also in 2006, Fordham appeared in a music video
for the Judith Owen
track, "Here", playing the part of Owen's mother. The video was directed
by the actress Jamie Lee Curtis
. In 2007, Fordham appeared as guest vocalist on the track, "Carry", on Owen's album, Happy This Way.
In September 2007, EMI
released Songbook. It was a Philippines only release and included previous studio
recordings as well as live cuts and rare tracks. In November 2007, it was announced that Fordham had completed a new album which was going to be released via a 'start up' company called NovaTunes. After some delay China Blue was released as a download-only album in late January 2008. It was a jazz
-based album of self-penned songs with the exception of one track ("I Keep Forgettin'") which is a cover
of a Lieber and Stoller song. The album was subsequently released on CD.
The 2010 release, Unusual Suspects, is a collaboration which featured the American comic actor, Paul Reiser
, on piano.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
based in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. Her professional career started in the early 1980s, under the name "Jules Fordham", as a backing singer
Backing vocalist
A backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists...
for Mari Wilson
Mari Wilson
Mari Wilson is an English singer, best known for her sometimes quirky, early 1960s-influenced pop music songs, and her beehive hairstyle.-Career:...
and Kim Wilde
Kim Wilde
Kim Wilde is an English pop singer, author and television presenter who burst onto the music scene in 1981 with the number 2 UK Singles Chart new wave classic "Kids in America". In 1987 she had a major hit in the United States when her version of The Supremes' classic "You Keep Me Hangin' On"...
.
Career
In 1988, she released her first albumAlbum
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
on Circa Records, Julia Fordham. The album, which contained the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Top 40 single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
"Happy Ever After" (#27 in August), introduced her as a singer with considerable vocal range, and her deeply emotional lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
endeared her to a small, committed audience. Licensed to Virgin Records America, the album was a minor hit
Hit record
A hit record is a sound recording, usually in the form of a single or album, that sells a large number of copies or otherwise becomes broadly popular or well-known, through airplay, club play, inclusion in a film or stage play soundtrack, causing it to have "hit" one of the popular chart listings...
and paved the way for the success of 1989's Porcelain. The single, "Manhattan Skyline", was an adult contemporary radio and VH-1 hit.
Fordham has had chart
Record chart
A record chart is a ranking of recorded music according to popularity during a given period of time. Examples of music charts are the Hit parade, Hot 100 or Top 40....
success since that time, and she continued to record
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
throughout the 1990s. Three subsequent albums: 1991's Swept which featured the UK Top 20 single "Love Moves (In Mysterious Ways)" (#19 in February 1992) (The Butcher’s Wife soundtrack
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
– a movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
starring Demi Moore
Demi Moore
Demi Guynes Kutcher , known professionally as Demi Moore, is an American actress. After minor roles in film and a role in the soap opera General Hospital, Moore established her career in films such as St...
), 1994's Falling Forward and 1997's East West received some critical praise. 1998's The Julia Fordham Collection recapped the best-known songs from these five albums, and included new versions of recordings including "Where Does The Time Go", which featured the vocals of Curtis Stigers
Curtis Stigers
Curtis Stigers is an American jazz vocalist, saxophonist, guitarist, and songwriter.-Early life and career:Stigers was born in Boise, Idaho, and started his music career as a teenager, playing in jazz, rock and blues groups, as well as receiving formal training in clarinet and saxophone at high...
.
Signed in 1999 to a Division One/Atlantic, Fordham recorded Concrete Love. The album was produced by Larry Klein
Larry Klein
Larry Klein is a music producer, songwriter and bass guitar player, commonly known for being the frequent musical collaborator, and ex-husband, of Joni Mitchell....
who has worked with many artists including Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...
and with Fordham previously on Falling Forward. The release was cancelled when a corporate shuffle caused her record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
to be closed and her contract was terminated.
The release of Concrete Love featured a re-recording of its title track as a duet
Duet (music)
A duet is a musical composition for two performers. In classical music, the term is most often used for a composition for two singers or pianists; with other instruments, the word duo is also often used. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is referred to as...
with India.Arie
India.Arie
India.Arie is a Grammy Award-winning American singer-songwriter and record producer . She has sold over 3.3 million records in the U.S. and 10 million worldwide. She has won four Grammy Awards from her 21 nominations, including Best R&B Album.-Background:Simpson was born in Denver, Colorado...
as well as different cover artwork. It emerged on Vanguard Records and various other labels internationally including Sanctuary Records
Sanctuary Records
Sanctuary Records Group Limited was a record label based in the United Kingdom and a subsidiary of Universal Music Group. Until June 2007, it was the largest independent record label in the UK and the largest independent music management company in the world...
in the UK. Remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....
es of the single "Wake Up With You" were released and it became a hit on Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
s dance chart. An acoustic club tour played to sold-out shows across America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and she visited the UK and Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
.
She followed up this album with her seventh record, That's Life, which was released on her 42nd birthday in 2004. She performed more live shows which included a successful run of shows in Japan at the Blue Note
Blue note
In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note sung or played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. Typically the alteration is a semitone or less, but this varies among performers and genres. Country blues, in particular, features wide variations from the...
venues. That's Live, a live album
Live album
A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...
and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
(filmed in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
with guests India.Arie and Judith Owen
Judith Owen
Judith Owen is a Welsh singer-songwriter. Her first North American album, Emotions on a Postcard, was released in 1996, and has since been followed by five additional releases...
), was released in January 2005. Fordham then came to the end of her recording contract
Recording contract
A recording contract is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist , where the artist makes a record for the label to sell and promote...
with Vanguard. Also in 2005, Fordham's sister, Claire Fordham, had a book published, Plus One: A Year in the Life of a Hollywood Nobody based on her experiences of being Julia's sister and living in Los Angeles.
Without a new record contract, Fordham continued to record, releasing independently a rewrite of debut single "Happy Ever After," in aid of tsunami relief. This was backed by two tracks written and recorded with Aadesh Shrivastava
Aadesh Shrivastava
Aadesh Shrivastava is an Indian composer and singer. Over the course of his career, he has composed the music for over 100 Hindi films. His wife Vijeta Pandit is a former Bollywood actress and the sister of the composer duo Jatin Lalit...
. The single was released to download and then made available to purchase on CD
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
. It was also backed by Richard Branson
Richard Branson
Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....
who offered to stock the CD in his Virgin Megastores. The project was nominated for an OSSA award.
In 2006, she released her Baby Love EP via AWAL
AWAL
AWAL is a UK based digital distribution and entertainment services company that works with independent artists, comedians, and labels. The company was started in 1997 by Denzyl Feigelson....
(Artists Without A Label). The EP is a collection of songs inspired by the birth of her daughter, Marley Rose. Also in 2006, Fordham appeared in a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
for the Judith Owen
Judith Owen
Judith Owen is a Welsh singer-songwriter. Her first North American album, Emotions on a Postcard, was released in 1996, and has since been followed by five additional releases...
track, "Here", playing the part of Owen's mother. The video was directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by the actress Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis is an American actress and author. Although she was initially known as a "scream queen" because of her starring roles in several horror films early in her career, such as Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night and Terror Train, Curtis has since compiled a body of work that spans many...
. In 2007, Fordham appeared as guest vocalist on the track, "Carry", on Owen's album, Happy This Way.
In September 2007, EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
released Songbook. It was a Philippines only release and included previous studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
recordings as well as live cuts and rare tracks. In November 2007, it was announced that Fordham had completed a new album which was going to be released via a 'start up' company called NovaTunes. After some delay China Blue was released as a download-only album in late January 2008. It was a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
-based album of self-penned songs with the exception of one track ("I Keep Forgettin'") which is a cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of a Lieber and Stoller song. The album was subsequently released on CD.
The 2010 release, Unusual Suspects, is a collaboration which featured the American comic actor, Paul Reiser
Paul Reiser
Paul Reiser is an American stand-up comedian, actor, television personality, author, screenwriter and musician. He is most widely known for his role on the long-running television sitcom Mad About You.-Early life:...
, on piano.
Albums
- 1988 Julia Fordham (UK #20)
- 1989 Porcelain (UK #13)
- 1991 Swept (UK #33)
- 1994 Falling Forward (UK #21)
- 1997 East West
- 1999 Julia Fordham Collection
- 2002 Concrete Love
- 2004 That's Life
- 2005 That's Live
- 2008 China Blue
- 2010 Unusual Suspects
Singles
- 1983 "Friends" / "Friendship"
- 1988 "The Comfort of Strangers"
- 1988 "Happy Ever After" (UK #27)
- 1988 "Woman of the 80s"
- 1989 "Where Does the Time Go?" (UK #41)
- 1989 "Lock and Key"
- 1989 "Genius"
- 1990 "Girlfriend" / "Manhattan Skyline"
- 1991 "I Thought it Was You" (UK #64)
- 1992 "(Love Moves in) Mysterious Ways(Love Moves in) Mysterious Ways" Mysterious Ways" is a single by British singer-songwriter Julia Fordham. It was released in 1992 from her 1991 album Swept. The song charted at number 19 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming her biggest single in the country.-Nina version:...
" (UK #19) - 1992 "I Thought it Was You" (re-issue) (UK #45)
- 1994 "Different Time Different Place" (UK #41)
- 1994 "I Can't Help Myself" (UK #62)
- 1995 "Hope Prayer and Time"
- 2002 "Wake Up With You"
- 2003 "Nothing I Wouldn't Do"
- 2004 "Kid Gloves"
- 2005 "Happy Ever After" (re-recording)
- 2006 "Baby Love" (EP)
- 2010 "Unsung Hero"
- 2010 "Have Yourself A Merry Little ChristmasHave Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is a song introduced by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis. Frank Sinatra later recorded a version with modified lyrics, which has become more common than the original. The song was written by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane...
"
External links
- juliafordham.com - Official Julia Fordham site