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Artist
Gwyneth Herbert
12+ albums
jazzfemale vocalistsfemale jazz contemporaryvocal jazzbritish
about
Hailed as ‘brilliantly original’ by Mojo and 'super-talented' by The Telegraph[url/], Gwyneth Herbert is at the vanguard of a new generation of genre-defying singer-songwriters. Initially known as an interpreter of jazz and pop standards, Herbert's latest record 'All the Ghosts' is populated by a living, breathing cast of beaten-down dreamers, jaded city-dwellers, and women in a quandary, and has the critics scrambling for comparisons with artists as diverse as Lennon and McCartney, Nina Simone, The Kinks and Tom Waits. Herbert's musical career started while at university in Durham, where she formed a jazz/folk duo with guitarist Will Rutter. The pair played extensively throughout the North-East, and together roamed Edinburgh, Paris and Amsterdam, busking and hustling for gigs. After moving to London they cut an album called 'First Songs' for a label run out of the Pizza Express on London’s Dean Street – a cornerstone venue in Soho’s jazz scene. On the back of that record's success, Herbert was soon signed up by the Universal conglomerate as a jazz crossover artist, and in September 2004 released her first solo album 'Bittersweet and Blue', featuring a mixture of originals, jazz standards and pop covers. Throughout the extensive touring period that followed, Herbert began writing songs of her own, forming a writing partnership with pianist Tom Cawley (Curios) and developing her own voice, so much so that she soon found she had outgrown the initial role defined for h
