Jamie Cullum

Jamie Cullum (20.8.1979)

Jamie Cullum is a British jazz-pop singer-songwriter.

Jamie Cullum: Childhood

Jamie Cullum was born at Romford Hospital in Essex and was raised in Hullavington, Wiltshire. Cullum attended the private school, Grittleton House School, followed by sixth form at Sheldon School. Cullum then studied English Literature with a minor in Film Studies, at Reading University. He graduated with first class honours.

Jamie Cullum's mother is Anglo-Burmese. Her family settled in Wales after Burma was declared independent.

As a teenager, Jamie Cullum played drums in a hip-hop group and also played guitar in bands named Raw Sausage and The Mystery Machine. He has said that Miles Davis and Tom Waits are amongst his biggest influences.

Jamie Cullum: Music Career

Jamie Cullum's first album was released in 1999. The album was entitled Jamie Cullum Trio - Heard It All Before. Only 500 copies were pressed and now reach up to around £600 on eBay. Geoff Gascoyne heard the album and invited Cullum to guest on his album Songs of the Summer.

Jamie Cullum's next album was released after he graduated from university. Entitled Pointless Nostalgic, the album attracted interest from Michael Parkinson and Melvyn Bragg. As a result, Cullum's debut TV appearance was on Michael Parkinson's BBC chat show. He was also the last musician to perform on Parkinson's 'Final Conversation' show in 2007. Pointless Nostalgic included new arrangements of classic tracks such as Thelonius Monk's 'Well You Needn't' and 'It Ain't Necessarily So' by George Gershwin.

Following Jamie Cullum's first performance on Parkinson's show, he signed a three album contract with Universal for around £1 million. His next album, Twentysomething, released in 2003, was awarded platinum status and became the number one album by a jazz artist in the UK. By the end of that year, he had become the best-selling jazz artist of all time. Twentysomething included a cover of 'Lover, You Should Have Come Over' by Jeff Buckley and 'I Get A Kick Out of You' by Cole Porter

Jamie Cullum's cover versions have become hugely popular. When he plays live, he has been known to cover artists as diverse as Kanye West ('Gold Digger'), White Stripes ('Seven Nation Army') and Massive Attack ('Teardrop'). He has also performed tracks by Rihanna, Radiohead, Gnarls Barkley and Justin Timberlake.

Catching Tales was Cullum's third studio album and was released in 2005. The lead single, 'Get Your Way' was a collaboration with Dan the Automator (a member of Handsome Boy Modelling School and Gorillaz). The album was supposed to feature the track 'Wifey', which was a collaboration with Pharrell Williams, but the inclusion of the track was barred by legal problems.

In 2006, Jamie Cullum released a live album entitled Live at Ronnie Scott's.

June 2009 saw the release of Jamie Cullum's fourth album, The Pursuit. The lead single from the album was 'I'm All Over It', which received extensive mainstream radio airplay.

Jamie Cullum: Personal Life

Jamie Cullum is engaged to the British model Sophie Dahl. Sophie is the granddaughter of the writer Roald Dahl.