Vanessa Carlton

Carlton was born on August 16, 1980, in Milford, Pennsylvania, the first of three children of Edmund "Ed" Carlton, a pilot, and Heidi Lee, a pianist and school music teacher.[4][5] Her two younger siblings are a sister, Gwen, and a brother, Edmund.[6][7] Carlton’s mother comes from a Jewish family in Queens, New York.[8]

Her interest in music began at an early age. At the age of two, she visited Disneyland and played "It's a Small World" on the piano when she came home. Her mother then began to tutor her.[9][10] She was introduced to classical music from a young age. By the age of 9, she had become passionate about ballet. In 1994, when Carlton was 14 years old, she enrolled at the School of American Ballet. Upon graduation, she put on vocal performances at nightclubs in the community, beginning to feel more comfortable and dynamic on the stage. She later moved to New York City, attending Columbia University for one year before dropping out.[11] She had a stint as a waitress in Hell's Kitchen.[12]

Carlton met songwriter/producer Peter Zizzo at a singer-songwriter circle and was invited to his studio to record a demo.[13] Three months after recording the demo, Carlton was signed by Jimmy Iovine to A&M Records and began work on an album of her songs, to be titled Rinse.[14] It was never released, but a few tracks were reworked for Be Not Nobody. One song, "Carnival", was re-recorded as "Dark Carnival" for the video game SpyHunter 2. Other tracks included in Rinse were "Interlude" (later known as "A Thousand Miles"), "Rinse", "Ordinary Days" (later known as "Ordinary Day"), "Twilight", "Pretty Baby", "All I Ask", and "Superhero". Of these, only the first five are included in her first album, Be Not Nobody, along with a cover of the Jagger/Richards song "Paint It Black". Other unreleased tracks from her early demo tapes include "Faces", "Meggie Sue", "Little Mary", "Burden", "Wonder", "Devil Dance", and "Last Fall".

When A&M president Ron Fair heard Carlton's demo of "A Thousand Miles", he organized recording sessions for the song and produced and arranged it himself.[15] "A Thousand Miles" became a hit, peaking in the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, and went on to become the sixth-most-played song of the year. It garnered Grammy Award nominations for "Record of the Year", "Song of the Year", and "Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)."[16] Fair produced the rest of the album. The tracks were recorded in Los Angeles at IGA Studios, Santa Monica; Henson Studios, Hollywood; and Royaltone Studios, Burbank. Carlton played piano and sang vocals; other instrumentation included a backing band, a 60-piece orchestra and sitar on "Paint It Black".[17]

Be Not Nobody was released in April 2002 and appeared at number five on the Billboard 200 albums chart with 102,000 units sold. It went on to sell more than two million copies worldwide.[18] Two more singles, "Ordinary Day" and "Pretty Baby", were released. Carlton toured the US in 2002 to promote the album, opening for the Goo Goo Dolls and Third Eye Blind, before headlining her own tour at the end of 2002. She later toured Europe in 2003.[19]

Carlton collaborated with other artists before the release of her second album. She provided the descant vocals for the Counting Crows song "Big Yellow Taxi", played piano for Italian singer Zucchero, along with Haylie Ecker on violin for the song "Indaco Dagli Occhi Del Cielo",[20] and provided backing vocals for "Moving On" by Kimya Dawson for her album Hidden Vagenda.

Carlton's second album, Harmonium was released in November 2004. Harmonium debuted at number 33 on the Billboard 200[16] and descended quickly after, selling fewer than 150,000 copies as of February 2006, which was considered a disappointment after her successful debut.[21] It was produced by Stephan Jenkins from rock band Third Eye Blind, and included darker themes than those on her debut album.[22] Carlton and Jenkins met and began a relationship in mid-2002, when she and Third Eye Blind, of which Jenkins is lead singer, were on tour together. After seeing Carlton perform live, Jenkins entered her dressing room and expressed interest in producing her music, and according to Carlton they "decided very quickly, that we had the same vision for the album".[23] Carlton credited Jenkins with helping her to withstand and protect herself from pressures the record label executives, who wanted to influence the recording process, placed on her.[24] According to Carlton, her label "wasn't very happy" about the decisions she made during the making of the album.[25]

Carlton stated that the album contained more of her own aesthetic as opposed to Be Not Nobody which was more influenced by Ron Fair.[26] A single, "White Houses", released to radio in late August 2004, peaking at number 86 on the Billboard Hot 100.[27] MTV censored and later banned the single's music video because of a controversial lyric in the song that refers to sexual intercourse. Carlton attributed the censoring of the song to the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy involving Janet Jackson which had occurred earlier that year.[28]

To support the album, Carlton embarked on a North American concert tour, which began on October 21, and concluded on November 21; her opening act was Low Millions. A second tour, with Cary Brothers and Ari Hest as supporting acts, ran from March 9 to April 30. Carlton left A&M Records in mid-2005[29] as she felt that her nonconformist attitude would have created problems for her at the label in the future.[16] A&M Records had sent Carlton into the recording studio because they wanted to re-release Harmonium, whereas Carlton felt the album should be promoted as it was. During her studio time, in which she wrote songs with Linda Perry and The Matrix,[30][31] she had what she called a "revelation" about leaving the label to find another record deal once promotion for Harmonium had ended.[32] In the same period she collaborated with the Italian singer Zucchero Fornaciari featuring his song Indaco Dagli Occhi Del Cielo (cover of the well known Everybody's Got to Learn Sometime), together with the violinist Haylie Ecker, in the album Zu & Co.

Carlton at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2008

In August 2005, Carlton said she was to enter the recording studio the following month with producer Linda Perry,[33] with whom she had previously collaborated after executives at A&M Records sent her into the studio to record a re-release single for Harmonium.[30] The album was influenced by Carlton's breakup with its co-producer, Stephan Jenkins, and Carlton said that one of the reasons they remained friends was that "nothing took precedence over the music ... No matter what was going on in the emotional realm, all we cared about was the album. It created this kinetic environment that was kind of like Fleetwood Mac. It made for better music."[34]

Heroes & Thieves was released and greeted with generally positive reviews.[35] It debuted at number 44 on the U.S. Billboard 200,[36] "Nolita Fairytale" was the first single and peaked at number 26 on Billboard's Adult Top 40 Tracks chart.[37] To promote the album, Carlton embarked on the Haunted Club Tour, from November 2 to 24, 2007.[38] Second single "Hands on Me" was sent out to radio in February 2008 and reached number 30 on Billboard's Adult Top 40 Tracks chart. One song on the album was "Spring Street", based on Spring Street in SoHo in Manhattan.[39] Carlton parted amicably with The Inc. once her promotional commitments to Heroes & Thieves had passed.

She contributed a stripped-down version of the song "More than This" to Songs for Tibet, an album compiled in support of Tibet to draw attention to its human rights situation.[40] On September 25, 2008, Carlton and several other musicians and scientists departed on a nine-day trip to the Arctic Circle. On behalf of the charity Cape Farewell, they worked alongside researchers for the purpose of studying climate change.[41] Carlton had been a part for PETA's Animal Birth Control Campaign;[42] she owns a long haired dachshund named Lord Victor.

Carlton performing live in August 2011

Carlton's fourth studio album Rabbits on the Run was released on July 26, 2011 under Razor & Tie, the third record label she signed with.[43] Before recording the album, Carlton was unsure whether she wanted to make another record or pursue film scoring instead.[44] After deciding to try again, she decided that she needed to record in the ideal environment, choosing to record at Real World Studios Box, England.[45] She chose the title for the symbolism often depicted by rabbits—'time slipping, mind floating'—which is something she has been relating to for the past few years.[46] The album was further inspired by Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time and Richard Adams's Watership Down. The dreamy, fantastical sound of the album was achieved by recording direct to tape and features production by Steve Osborne.[44] The first single, "Carousel" was released on May 3.[47] On September 19, a tweet on Carlton's account made by her management stated that "I Don't Want to Be a Bride" would be the next single off the record. Via Twitter, Carlton announced that her label would not produce a video for "I Don't Want to Be a Bride", instead producing one for "Hear the Bells".[48] The music video, which Carlton describes as her most revealing to date, was released on June 7, 2012.

On November 10, a tweet made by Carlton's management announced the upcoming release of her holiday EP titled Hear the Bells on November 21.[49] The EP consists of four tracks, two of which are acoustic versions of Carlton's songs Hear the Bells and A Thousand Miles.[50]

Carlton performing live at the Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood (Los Angeles), California on Thursday, January 21, 2016

Carlton announced in late 2012 that she had returned to Real World Studios to commence work on a new album related to euphoria. She clarified on Twitter that "Euphoria" was not the name of the new album, nor was it to be straightforward electronically fabricated.[51]

On a small tour in late 2013, Carlton teased new songs "Willows", "House Of Seven Swords", "A Matter Of Time", "Take It Easy" and "Unlock The Lock".

On February 28, 2014, Carlton announced that she had finished recording the new ten-track album, which was to be titled Liberman,[2] and on April 11 2014 she reported that Liberman was being mastered.[52] Carlton's 2014 summer tour supported the Barefoot Wine Beach Project, which encouraged people to clean the beach and keep it safe for wildlife. She performed a track titled "Willows" to promote the events for Fox New York TV, which she said was about the trees she had loved when she was growing up. She also revealed that Liberman would be released in 2015.[53] In an interview with CBS News published on June 11, 2014, Carlton described the album as "kind of lush, trippy and beautiful...You really feel like you're falling into a rabbit hole of sounds." She said: "It's pretty short, it's 10 songs. It's meant to be listened to through your headphones."[3]

On April 20, 2015, it was announced that Carlton had signed with Dine Alone Records to release Liberman in October 2015.[1] Esquire premiered "Young Heart", a song not expected to be included on the album, which was released as a "pre-release single".[54] On June 15, 2015, Carlton released the song "Blue Pool" through Nylon magazine's website. The song was included on the Blue Pool EP, released digitally on July 24, 2015. The songs on the EP were part of a deluxe version of the Liberman album. On August 3, 2015, Southern Living premiered the official music video for "Blue Pool".[55] On August 27, 2015, USA Today premiered the official lyric video for "Willows". The album artwork for Liberman was revealed, along with its release date of October 23, 2015.[56]

Carlton released Liberman Live on October 21, 2016.[57] The album consisted of eight live tracks recorded in Nashville, Tennessee, while on tour .

On February 17, 2017, Carlton released another live album titled Earlier Things Live via her own Victor Music label. It included six songs from albums that were released pre-Liberman and were played live throughout 2015–2016 on the Liberman tour

Carlton performed a song titled "Love Is An Art" throughout 2017, and stated that this might be the title of her next album. She began writing songs for the album, her sixth, in June 2017.[58] On December 25, 2018 she posted on Instagram saying that she would start recording the album on January 23, 2019.[59]

In March 2018, Carlton began to release one cover song a month while she worked on the album. The first of six songs, a cover of "Call Your Girlfriend" by Robyn, was released digitally March 23, 2018. The second, a cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" was released April 20, 2018. The third, a cover of Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" was released May 18, 2018. The fourth cover, Fred Neil's "Little Bit of Rain" was released on June 15, 2018. The fifth cover, "Needle in the Hay" by Elliott Smith was released on July 20, 2018. The sixth and final cover song, "Lonely Girls" by Lucinda Williams was released on August 10, 2018. She released the covers EP as a triple vinyl collection, along with the Liberman Live and Earlier Things Live EPs, on November 23, 2018.[60]

In May 2019, Carlton's Instagram page announced that she would be taking over the lead role in the Carole King musical Beautiful for a limited season from June 27. This was Carlton's Broadway debut. On May 27, 2019, Carlton announced via Instagram that her sixth album, produced by Dave Fridmann, was to be titled Love Is an Art. The album was mastered the same day.[61] Love is an Art was released on March 27, 2020.[62]

Carlton revealed via Twitter in January 2021 that she planned to re-release the album in March 2021 with new songs and demo recordings from the album's studio sessions.