Eddi began singing in the streets of Glasgow as a young girl, learning how to communicate to crowds of people effectively with her singing voice. After exploring the Folk scene of Scotland, she travelled across Europe with circuses and street players singing in the marketplaces of France, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany.

She returned to Britain in the early 1980s with a powerful street-strengthened three octave range and worked in London with The Waterboys, Billy McKenzie, The Gang of Four, The Eurythmics and Alison Moyet. Despite being constantly in demand as a backing vocalist, this was not enough for her abilities and she set about finding a group of musicians she could call her own.

Eddi Reader wanted an outlet for her special brand of story songs, inspired by one of her heroes the French diva Edith Piaf. Using the minimum of show business fuss, acoustic instruments, drumming with brushes and songs that told tales of real lives, Eddi Reader rocketed to worldwide public attention in her own right with the warmly remembered band Fairground Attraction in 1988. The singles Perfect, Find My Love and Clare all reached top twenty with PERFECT storming into the number one slot. The parent album FIRST OF A MILLION KISSES also topped the charts and reached double platinum status in just one year. Fairground Attraction didnÕt survive within the industry, and Eddi went on after the break up of the band to become one of musics most thrilling and affecting solo performers.

Eddi Reader has always championed a more acoustic and organic sound, which can best be traced via her beautiful solo albums MIRMAMA (1993/BMG), EDDI READER (1994/BLANCO Y NEGRO) featuring the BOO HEWERDINE penned top twenty hit PATIENCE OF ANGELS, CANDYFLOSS AND MEDICINE (1996/BLANCO Y NEGRO), ANGELS AND ELECTRICITY (1998/BLANCO Y NEGRO) and to her most recent release SIMPLE SOUL (2001/Rough Trade) described by The Independent as, Ôthe fully-fledged emergence of a songwriting talentÕ.

For more details visit Eddi's website at www.eddireader.com

Photo by David Sinclair (www.jazzphotographs.com)