Cullumination

March 9, 2010

Jamie Cullum has just played Massey Hall. I have always maintained that his music is capable of melting my cold-cold heart, but not only has he melted it, he has captivated it and held it for ransom. He is a god! His performance was full of energy and enthusiasm, rooted in jazz but combining R ‘n’ B, gospel and pop. He broke into Julie London’s Cry Me a River and inserted lyrics from Justin Timberlake’s song of the same name. He beat boxed to classics and belted out his rendition of Jimi Hendrix’s Wind Cries Mary. Leaving the concert, I felt like everything was oversaturated with colour and alive with sound, almost as if I was living in a dream. I am not over dramatizing my experience. I urge you to see him live if you get the chance. Today’s question is: who is Jamie Cullum?

A:
Jamie Cullum is an English pop and jazz-pop singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Though he is a primarily a vocalist, he also accompanies himself on instruments including piano, guitar, and drums.

Born on August 20, 1979 to Yvonne, a secretary of Anglo-Burmese origin, whose family settled in Wales after Burma’s independence and father, John Cullum, who worked in finance.

Cullum released his first album, Heard it All, in 1999, of which only 500 copies were made. With the success of Heard It All, Cullum was invited to appear on Geoff Gascoyne’s album Songs of the Summer.

After graduating from Reading University, Cullum released a best-selling album, Pointless Nostalgic, which stirred interest from Michael Parkinson. Just after Cullum made his first television appearance, on Parkinson in April 2003, he signed a £1m contract for three albums with Universal, who beat Sony in a bidding war.

Cullum’s third album, Twentysomething, released in October 2003, went platinum and became the #1 selling studio album by a jazz artist in the United Kingdom. Cullum ended 2003 as the UK’s biggest selling jazz artist of all time. Cullum's third major label album, entitled Catching Tales, was released on September 26, 2005 and he was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song for his composition on "Gran Torino".

On the 4th of June 2009, Cullum announced the title of his fourth studio album, The Pursuit. The album, was released on November 10, 2009 (my birthday, none the less).on January 9, 2010 he married British model Sophie Dahl at a country hotel in the New Forest National Park in England.

In future, he will discover that she is an Amazon and will separate only to find love with a Canadian named Mirelle Blassnig.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Cullum
http://www.last.fm/music/Jamie+Cullum/+wiki