Joshua Kadison began playing
piano and writing songs when he was 12 years old. Born in California's
Hollywood Hills, he hit the road at 16, in search of life's answers after
the death of his mother. Almost immediately, Kadison began playing in various
bars around the country, living and working in cities such as Nashville,
Dallas, and Santa Barbara, Calif. "All of that time on the road was
great therapy for me," he says. "It strengthened my soul and focused
my songwriting -- however corny that sounds."
After being signed by EMI Records,
he released the critically acclaimed album Painted Desert Serenade
in 1993. He is probably best known for the songs,
Jessie and Beautiful
In My Eyes - and he took millions of listeners by storm with these
worldwide hits. VH-1 named Kadison the network's major video breakthrough
artist of 1993 for the "Jessie" clip. The network aired the clip in its
"What's New" category for a record-breaking 26 weeks. A new CD was to follow
- the gospel-tinged Delilah Blue inn 1995 which spawned the hit
single
Take It On Faith.
By the beginning of '96, Joshua
Kadison had gone from being an obscure singer/songwriter playing in clubs
across the U.S. to multi-platinum success - bursting into the pop music
world selling over 3 million discs of his own brand of story-songs in less
than three years time. Kadison recorded two solo piano/song discs, Saturday
Night In Storyville (1998) and Troubadour In A Timequake (1999)
which he released independently and when time permitted he performed rare
solo piano dates around the States. When his label folded Kadison signed
with EMI Germany and Vanishing America was released in 2001.
As an independent artist today,
we can find new songs from Joshua at his own website at www.joshuakadison.com.
It becomes clear that what Joshua Kadison is really doing is singing short
novels set to music, weaving lyrics rich in detail, yet universal at the
same time, with soaring melodies and masterful harmonic textures. With
platinum records in the US and Germany, and multi-platinum awards in Australia
and New Zealand (and gold in a handful of other countries), Joshua shrugs
off any theory of why his music struck a worldwide chord. "It doesn't
matter. You have to play the music inside of you, the music you hear in
your head no matter what's going on around you."
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