Daniel Powter - Biography
Daniel Powter Biography
| Daniel Powter | |
|---|---|
 Powter in January 2009 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Daniel Richard Powter |
| Born | February 25, 1971 |
| Origin | Vernon, British Columbia, Canada |
| Genre(s) | Piano pop, indie pop |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, pianist |
| Instrument(s) | Piano, vocals |
| Years active | 2000–present |
| Label(s) | Warner Bros., Sony BMG |
| Website | http://www.danielpowter.com/ |
Daniel Richard Powter (born February 25, 1971) is a Canadian recording artist. He grew up in Vernon, in the Okanagan Shuswap region of British Columbia. He is best known for his #1 smash hit 'Bad Day'.
Contents |
Career
As a child, Powter played the violin before changing to piano. He changed to piano once a group of kids bullied him and destroyed his violin. A dyslexic, Powter had trouble in university studying music, and later dropped out in order to pursue his own musical career, learning all songs by ear and recording new melodies that he created.
Daniel Powter released his debut album, I'm Your Betty, in 2000. The album, limited to a very small print, contains ten songs, two of which—'More Than I' and 'Negative Fashion'—were featured on the television show Higher Ground. Powter has a music publishing deal with BMG Music Publishing for France.
Powter's first single, 'Bad Day', was first released in Europe in mid 2005, in advance of his second album, Daniel Powter. Warner Bros. Records submitted the single for commercial production, and it was subsequently chosen by Coca-Cola as the theme song for an ad campaign in Europe. The song achieved heavy airplay in most European countries, peaking at number three on the overall European airplay chart. It reached number one on national airplay in Germany, number one on the singles charts in the Republic of Ireland1 and Italy, number two in the United Kingdom,—where it stayed in the top ten for thirteen weeks—and number three in Australia.
In the United States, 'Bad Day' was used extensively on the television series American Idol in its fifth season. Powter sang the song live at the end of the penultimate show of that season on May 23, 2006. The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100, Adult Top 40 and Adult Contemporary charts, making Powter the first solo Canadian male artist to top the Hot 100 since Bryan Adams in 1995 (with 'Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?'). The song also reached number one in Powter's homeland of Canada.
On July 2, 2005, Powter performed at the Berlin installment of Live 8, a simultaneous group of concerts in nine countries intended to raise awareness of poverty in Africa and put pressure on world leaders for aid.
'Bad Day' came fifth in the British Record of the Year 2005. In 2006, Powter won in the New Artist of the Year category at the Canadian Juno Awards, and was nominated for Best International Breakthrough Act at the BRIT Awards. 'Bad Day' was nominated at the 2006 Billboard Music Awards for Hot 100 Single of the Year, and was named Billboard magazine's song of the year in 2006.2 At the 2007 Grammy Awards, Powter received a Best Male Pop Vocal Performance nomination for the song.
The subsequent singles from Daniel Powter—'Jimmy Gets High', 'Free Loop', and 'Lie to Me'—were released in different parts of the world, each failing to match the success of 'Bad Day'. 'Free Loop' was deemed chart ineligible in the UK (as the release included a version of 'Bad Day' as a B-side whilst 'Bad Day' was still in the chart, hence breaking chart rules) and failed to chart in the U.S., though it reached the top forty on the Adult Contemporary chart. Following the release of 'Lie to Me', 'Jimmy Gets High' was to be the fourth single from the album in the UK, but its release was cancelled. A new track called 'Love You Lately' was released as the next U.S. single, preceding a re-release of the album Daniel Powter that was also cancelled.
This biography is published under the GNU Licence