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Vanessa Carlton
Carlton promotional shot
Background information
Birth name	Vanessa Lee Carlton
Born	August 16, 1980 (1980-08-16) (age 28) Milford, Pennsylvania, United States
Genre(s)	Soft rock, piano pop, pop rock, contemporary R&B
Occupation(s)	Singer-songwriter, producer, musician
Instrument(s)	Piano, vocals
Years active	2000–present
Label(s)	A&M (2002–2006) The Inc./Universal Motown (2007–present)
Associated acts	Counting Crows
Website	VanessaCarlton.com

Vanessa Lee Carlton (born August 16, 1980) is an American soft rock/pop singer, songwriter, and pianist of Russian and Scandinavian descent. She is best known for the single "A Thousand Miles" from her debut album, Be Not Nobody, which was released April 30, 2002, and certified platinum in the U.S.

Carlton's second album, Harmonium (released November 9, 2004), debuted at number 33 on the U.S. Billboard 200¹ and had sold 179,000 copies as of February 2006,² with the single "White Houses," peaking at 86 in the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.³ She subsequently parted company from her record label A&M.

Her third album, Heroes & Thieves, was released on October 9, 2007 by the The Inc./Universal Motown record labels.⁴

Early life

Carlton was born in Milford, Pennsylvania, to Ed Carlton, a pilot, and Heidi, a pianoist and school music teacher. Her interest in music began at an early age; one anecdote relates that, after returning from Disneyland at the age of two, Carlton played "It's a Small World" on the piano. This event inspired Carlton's mother to expose Carlton to various classical composers such as Mozart, Erik Satie, and Claude Debussy. Also, her mother began to tutor her on the piano. Through her father, she was exposed to classic-rock artists such as Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin.⁵ She began her schooling at a Montessori school.⁶

Carlton developed an interest in ballet at the age of nine and was accepted at the School of American Ballet in New York City at age 14 while pursuing high school studies at the Professional Children's School. Carlton studied with such teachers as Nenette Charisse and Gelsey Kirkland, but the intensity and demanding training of the ballet lessons eventually proved to be trying for her, especially once she started going through unexpected growth spurts.

This led her, at age 18, to devote more and more time to piano-playing and songwriting. She chose to not become a dancer on graduation. Instead, she attended Columbia University and performed in bars and clubs in Manhattan while working as a waitress.⁶

Career

Rinse (unreleased): 1999–2001

Carlton met with songwriter/producer Peter Zizzo at a singer-songwriter circle. A few months later, Zizzo invited Carlton to his studio to begin recording a demo with instruments accompanying Carlton's piano and vocals.⁷ Three months after recording the demo tape, Carlton was signed to a major-label record deal by Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope/Geffen/A&M, where she began recording the album with the working title Rinse.⁸

Rinse was never released, but such tracks as "Ordinary Day," "Rinse," "Pretty Baby," "Twilight," and "Interlude" (later titled "A Thousand Miles") were reworked for her debut album, Be Not Nobody. Two other tracks—"All I Ask" and "Superhero"—remain unreleased. One song—"Carnival"—was re-recorded under the title "Dark Carnival" for the Spy Hunter 2 video game.

Be Not Nobody: 2002–2003

With her previous unsuccessful recording efforts, Carlton was feeling that there was a lack of direction at her label.⁵ However, A&M president Ron Fair heard her demo to the song that became "A Thousand Miles," prompting him to organize recording sessions for the song, with himself as producer/arranger.⁹ "A Thousand Miles," became a hit piano pop single, peaking inside the top five on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 with a video for the song being well-received on MTV. The Fair-produced album Be Not Nobody was subsequently released in April 2002 and debuted at number five on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 102,000 units sold. It would go on to sell more than 2 million copies worldwide.¹⁰ "A Thousand Miles" went on to become the sixth-most-played song of the year and garnered Grammy Award nominations for "Record of the Year," "Song of the Year," and "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)."

Two more singles—"Ordinary Day," peaking at #30 on the Billboard Hot 100¹¹; and "Pretty Baby," which was nominated for a 2003 Teen Choice Award for "Choice Love Song"¹²—were released from the album. She performed on Rosie O'Donnell's television show, performed on MTV's TRL, and was mentioned in Rolling Stone as one of ten artists to watch in 2002.¹³ She began touring in support of her debut album, opening for the Goo Goo Dolls and Third Eye Blind, before headlining on her own by the end of 2002. In 2003, she also toured Europe.¹⁴

As a new artist, Carlton was compared to other female singer-songwriters, who played their own instruments like Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, Carole King,¹⁵ Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, Norah Jones, Alicia Keys,¹⁶ Michelle Branch, and Avril Lavigne.¹⁷

Harmonium: 2004–2005

During this period, Carlton collaborated with other artists: she provided the descant vocals for the Counting Crows' cover of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi," which was recorded for the film Two Weeks Notice. Carlton's 2004 collaboration with the Italian rock and blues singer Zucchero, along with Haylie Ecker on violin, for the song "Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime" (a cover of The Korgis' song) reached the top-forty charts in France.¹⁸ She provided backing vocals for a song on anti-folk singer Kimya Dawson's 2004 album Hidden Vagenda.

Carlton began recording her second album, Harmonium, at Skywalker Ranch near San Francisco. Produced by Stephan Jenkins, Harmonium debuted at number thirty-three on the U.S. Billboard 200.¹

A single, "White Houses," which was released to radio in late-August 2004, entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in October, peaking at 86 in early November.³ MTV censored—and later banned—the single's music video because of a lyric in the song that refers to sexual intercourse. Carlton said it was hypocritical for MTV because "All that is on MTV is sex. They are selling it all the time with sexy hip-hop videos with girls in their bras and panties doing their booty dance. But an eloquent statement about it from a female point of view...".¹⁹

To support the album, Carlton embarked on a North American concert tour, which began on October 21 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and concluded on November 21 in Portland, Oregon; her opening act was pop-rock band Low Millions. Carlton said that the tour would be "just me and the piano" and "totally stripped down, like an in-your-living room-type of feeling, that type of intimacy."²⁰ She recorded a cover of the Kai Winding song "Time Is on My Side" (1963) for a Time Warner digital video recorders commercial, which also served as promotion for Harmonium and received heavy rotation on U.S. television during early 2005.²¹ A second tour, with Cary Brothers and Ari Hest as support acts for many of the shows, ran from March 9 (in Atlanta, Georgia) to April 30 (in Plattsburgh, New York).²²

Against her record company's advice to follow the style of her first album, Harmonium showed a darker, more-experimental sound. This resulted in a lack of promotional support for the album, which sold considerably less than her first, causing A&M to make more-commercial demands on Carlton. Consequently, Carlton left A&M Records in mid-2005.²³ Carlton said that she was suffering from the lack of promotion that the label gave to the album because of her nonconformist attitude, but that she felt she made the right decision with regard to gaining press attention and credibility that she wanted to maintain throughout her career so that she could attract loyal fans. "That's really important to me," she said.²⁴

During summer 2005, Carlton supported rock singer Stevie Nicks on Nicks's Gold Dust U.S. tour. Nicks said that she was glad to give Carlton the opportunity to perform in front of a large, caring and loving audience, particularly because the poor state of the music industry meant that artists such as her weren't "nurtured ... I really respect her. I'll be damned if I'll let her go by the wayside. She is one of the great ones. She won't quit."²⁵

Carlton in front of fans.

Heroes & Thieves: 2006–2009

As early as her Harmonium tour, Carlton had debuted three new songs—"Hands on Me," "This Time," and "The One"—in June 2005 at The Living Room in New York City.²³ When on tour with rock singer Stevie Nicks in 2005 and 2006, Carlton premiered the songs "Best Behavior" and "All Is Well." In September 2005, Carlton entered the studio with producer Linda Perry to record her next album, and in May 2006, a studio version of "This Time" premiered on the website PromoSquad.²⁶

Irv Gotti announced in October 2006 that he had signed Carlton to The Inc. Records. Carlton's third album is titled Heroes & Thieves, which Gotti co-produced with Linda Perry and Stephan Jenkins.²⁷

Heroes & Thieves was greeted with generally positive reviews (receiving a 78/100 score on the website Metacritic, which indicates "generally favorable reviews").²⁸ It debuted at number forty-four on the U.S. Billboard 200²⁹³⁰, with "Nolita Fairytale" as the first single.⁴ As of December 2007, the album had sold 41,000 copies in the U.S.³¹ Her second single, "Hands on Me", was sent out to radios January 19, and the video was released February 15. The single gained promotional support when it was prominently featured in promotional commercials for the CW show Gossip Girl. To promote the album, Carlton embarked on a concert tour, the Haunted Club Tour, from November 2 (Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S.) to November 24 (Montreal, Quebec, Canada).³² On May 28, 2008, Carlton announced the dates for a summer U.S. tour with Joshua Radin and Alexa Wilkinson.³³

Upcoming Album (Fourth Studio Record): 2009–2010

On January 28, 2009, she posted on her Myspace blog that she is working on a new album and that she had been planning it since January 2009, after having a writer's block last year.

Vanessa premiered three new songs in her recent live shows, "London", "Fair-Weather Friends" and an instrumental named "Waltz." In a recent interview, she stated she was half way done with the album and that it would probably be released later this year. ³⁴It is unknown if the album will be released by The Inc. because on Carlton's MySpace her label staus is Unknown Major.³⁵

Personal life

Carlton is of Scandinavian descent on her father's side, and of Russian Jewish descent on her mother's.³⁶³⁷ Although she was not raised in any religion, she has referred to herself as "Jewish" and said she is "spiritual."^{citation needed}

She has two younger siblings—a sister named Gwen, who is a student at George Mason University; and a brother named Edmund, who is a member of his school's a cappella singing group and who attends Haverford College.

Jane magazine in the U.S. named Carlton one of the "eleven people you'd most like to see naked"; she posed for the magazine's July 2005 issue.

Ashton Kutcher Punk'd Carlton in November 2004 during a rehearsal for her performance on The Tonight Show.^{citation needed}

She currently resides in an apartment in Nolita, NYC.

Vanessa Carlton has a long-haired dachshund dog named "Lord Victor," who barks at the end of the song "More Than This." He is also seen in the music video "Nolita Fairytale."

Charity

In 2005, Carlton completed the New York City Marathon and donated the pledge money she collected to Musicians on Call, a nonprofit organization that brings live and recorded music to patients' bedsides.

In 2008, she participated in a music album called Songs for Tibet, which is an initiative to support Tibet, Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso and to underline the human rights situation in Tibet. The album was issued on August 5 via iTunes and on August 19 in music stores around the world.³⁸

On September 25, 2008, Carlton, along with KT Tunstall and several other musicians and scientists, departed on a nine-day trip to the Arctic Circle. On behalf of the charity Cape Farewell, they hoped to work alongside researchers for the purpose of studying climate change.³⁹⁴⁰

Other activities

In 2007–2008, the melody for "A Thousand Miles" was featured in commercials for Zales jewelry. In 2004, "A Thousand Miles" was the focus of a comedy scene in the movie "White Chicks," by the Wayans Brothers.

In 2008, Carlton helped design a line of clothing and jewelry for Kohl's Department Stores. The slogan is "So... Wear It, Declare It."

Discography

Albums

Singles

†^{citation needed} for Indonesia charts.

B-sides

• "Red Ditty" ("A Thousand Miles" single B-side, 2002)
• "Swindler" ("Ordinary Day" single B-side, 2002)

Other songs

• The aforementioned "Big Yellow Taxi"
• "Greensleeves" (Maybe This Christmas, 2002)
• "Wishin' and Hopin'" (American Dreams soundtrack, 2003)
• "Put a Little Love in Your Heart" with Al Green, Melissa Etheridge, Kelly Rowland, Stephan Jenkins, Ginuwine, Musiq, Heather Headley and Gavin DeGraw (Gap holiday television campaign, 2003)
• "Dark Carnival" for 2003 Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Xbox and PC gameSpy Hunter 2 soundtrack, 2003
• "Moving On" (Kimya Dawson featuring Vanessa Carlton, included on Hidden Vagenda, 2004)
• "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime [Indaco Dagli Occhi del Cielo]" (Zucchero featuring Vanessa Carlton, included on ZU & CO (Zucchero), 2004)
• "Time Is on My Side" (Time Warner DVR television commercial, 2005)
• "M-A-K-E-L-O-V-E-T-O-M-E" Channel 7 Feat. Vanessa Carlton [#9 Simland Simboard Hot 30]
• "Love Revolution" (sung together with Avril Lavigne, Lenny Kravitz, Plain White T's, and the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus)
• "Circle Dance" (Performed with Stevie Nicks during her 2008 Soundstage episode. Recorded version found on Stevie's album, The Soundstage Sessions)

Notes

External links

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• Official website
• Vanessa Carlton 2007 Interview at Complex magazine
• Vanessa Carlton collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive
• Village Voice review of Carlton, Michelle Branch and Avril Lavigne's 2001/2002 albums