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Dido was born on Christmas Day, 1971 in London, England
Hometown: London, England.
Perhaps the most important thing to know about Dido is this:
She didn't steal that recorder!
"...It wasn't stealing, it was just written that way. No one else had claimed it at school, everyone else had one, it was there for the taking, but then I had to practice in secret."
So it was more like Finders Keepers. Morally ambiguous at best and a far cry from grand larceny. Dido was born on Christmas Day of 1971 and was named after an African warrior queen. Dido and her brother Rollo were raised in London by a father who worked as a literary agent and a mother who wrote thousands of poems and quickly hid them away. She was raised without the benefit/hindrance (depending on your point of view) of television as entertainment.
Dido turned her attention towards other forms of entertainment, which leads to the infamous "stolen recorder" story.
"Basically, in England, that's the instrument that everyone plays in school. It sounds absolutely awful. It's a hundred kids playing out of tune at the same time. I learned pretty much all of the classical music written for the recorder.""
Since her parents weren't going to buy her one, Dido simply "claimed" one in the school lost and found. She would often come home after school and practice for hours on end. Eventually Dido moved on from the recorder.
"By the time I hit about 13, I was like, "Now there's no way I'm gonna become a professional recorder player." [Laughs] I mean, how uncool. And I'd played every piece there was to play."
She moved on the violin and the piano, studied at the London's Guildhall School of Music and had joined a international touring ensemble. Although the usual distractions of young adult life would come in to play, Dido still missed the music. Time passes as it often does and like so many others Dido got a "real" job as a literary agent. She held down the job while simultaneously going to law school and singing with her brother's band Faithless.
"You know, I was just someone who had written a whole load of songs and sung them and never really thought past that,"
Eventually Dido decided she was going to go for it. She admits that her brother wasn't always the most supportive person.
"My brother's reaction was basically, 'Don't do it. You can't do it. You're not a great singer, and what the f*** are you doing?'"
However, Rollo eventually came around and lends his considerable talent to Dido's debut album, No Angel. Dido found a home at Arista records after an audition in front of Clive Davis. Davis is famous for discovering and developing talents like Janis Joplin, Whitney Houston and Santana. While getting a deal was a breeze compared to some artist's struggles, getting the album out to the public was another matter entirely.
Dido's music is unique enough that it seems Arista had a hard time trying to figure out how to market her. The release of The Highbury Fields EP produced a lot of buzz at college radio all around the country, becoming a favorite. Here With Me, the haunting and cinematic song that would become her signature tune, was the first single to be released. It was supported by a video that cost about a half a million dollars to produce. Although it was in heavy rotation on MTV2 and fair rotation on The Box, the video was never on a network like VH1 or MTV where people may have actually seen it. Radio play was scarce to non-existent. This is where the stories of many an artist have ended. However, several developments would transpire and save Dido from music oblivion.
Dido and her music seemed to inspire a near rabid following. It was rare in the early days to find a Dido fan that wasn't trying to get everyone they knew to listen to her music. Several fans took to the Internet to spread the word and an unofficial "street team" was created. Months after the release of No Angel, Here With Me became the much beloved theme song of the WB's aliens among us teen show Roswell. Although it took some time for people to discover who the mysterious singer was, the show went a long way in getting Dido out to the public. Arista showed a great deal of commitment to Dido by financing a grueling tour schedule for a period of one and a half years. Dido was committed to breaking the American market and played for a little as 20-40 people at in-store appearances and small venues.
"We were in Pontiac in Michigan, and there were only about 40 people there, but it was really fun gig, that was a real lesson. It doesn't matter how big the audience is, as long as they are enjoying it, it's fine."
Interest in Dido was steadily growing, and she quietly sold 250,000 copies of her debut. Touring, fan and label support and having the theme song to a show with it's own rabid fan base positioned Dido for a breakthrough. She spent a long while on the Billboard's Heat Seekers List. Then the heat she needed was provided to her by a rapper who has often been described as incendiary.
Enter Marshall Mathers a.k.a. Slim Shady a.ka. Eminem into Dido's world. He sampled her sweet, light tune Thankyou into a dark piece about a stalker called Stan. They sent the track to Dido for "approval" (though perhaps it was more of a heads-up.) A quick deal was made, and Stan became a part of Eminem's hit sophomore album The Marshall Mathers LP.
"I've heard two different stories: One, that his engineer brought it to him, and the other is, and I know for a fact, that [producer] Mark The 45 King had 'Thank You' on one of his mix tapes."
However the sample ended up in the song, the combination of Eminem's raw lyrics and Dido's sweet and sincere emotion was hailed by many critics (like MTV's Kurt Loder) as the highlight of the album. Finally Dido's music was brought to the attention to the mainstream public. In the space of months another 250,000 units were sold helping No Angel turn gold. A brand new video for Here With Me has been in heavy rotation on VH1 and Dido is was nominated for The Best Kept Secret award from VH1's My Music Awards. Dido continues here climb up the charts... No Angel has been released in UK and throughout Europe. She will be touring Europe in the spring to accompany the release of Here With Me as a single there. She appeared in the video for Eminem's Stan (which debuted in the top 5 of several countries single charts) and performed with him on a few dates during the Anger Management tour as well as an incredible performance on Saturday Night Live. Dido has recently released her third single, Thankyou to the US airwaves and a video in support of the single is to be released soon.
Taken from: http://www.geocities.com/fan_dido/
Compiled and Written by Jon Wes
With thanks to Alun Moss for providing the contents of this page.
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