Colbie Caillat

Colbie Caillat has the looks and the talent and yet her path to success was not paved with rose petals. She had ups and downs, he was rejected, she lacked inspiration, she was shy, she was the girl next door who was dreaming to become a star and after a decade of training and singing for acceptance, she finally did it.

Coco, as her parents called her, had a happy and short childhood in Newbury Park, California. She took piano lessons but she felt like this was not her call. When she turned 11 years old, she saw the movie Sister Act 2 and Lauryn Hill’s performance was like a true epiphany. She knew in an instant what she wants to do in life: she wanted to sing like Hill did and so, she took vocal lessons. When she was in sixth grade Caillat performed for the first time in front of an audience, covering Roberta Flack’s song, “Killing Me Softly”. It was her first step towards a successful career, but the journey she enrolled in was not going to be easy.

She learned to play the acoustic guitar and when she was 19 she auditioned for American Idol but was rejected at the pre-audition stage. Encouraged by producer Mikal Blue, who helped her record her first song, she didn’t give up and auditioned for a second time at the same television show, singing her own original song, “Bubbly“, but she was rejected again. Yet, her song peaked at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the Pop 100 as soon as she released her debut album in 2007, entitled Coco. Her popularity grew up fast and the pretty blonde from California became the number-one unsigned singer in her genre for four consecutive months. The American Idol judges’ decision to reject her proved to be the best thing that ever happened to her.

A year after her debut in the pop mainstream, she recorded a duet with Jason Mraz, “Lucky“, which won a Grammy and accompanied John Mayer on his 2008 Summer Tour as his supporting act. She also released a song and video for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics called “Somethin’ Special” and has a featuring with Colombian singer Juanes on “Hoy Me Voy” and she provided background vocals for and co-wrote Taylor Swift’s song “Breathe”.

In 2009 she released her sophomore album, Breakthrough, she stepped on the red carpet at the 2009 American Music Awards to receive the nod for Best Pop Vocal Album and in 2010 Caillat was recognized as BMI’s songwriter of the year. She had plenty of performances at the 2010 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the San Diego Chargers vs. Minnesota Vikings game at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, on Disney Channel’s Original Series So Random and on the third episode of the cancelled NBC television series The Playboy Club.

In 2011, she released her third studio album All of You and last year she started working on her fourth record and released her first Christmas album. Christmas in the Sand was actually one of the best holiday albums of 2012 and Caillat proved once again that she is talented and that she is here to stay and evolve until she will become as famous and adored as Mariah Carey or Celine Dion.