Keren Ann Zeidel was born on March 10, 1974 in Tel-Aviv, Israel. She has one brother and one sister. At 6, she moved to the Netherlands, where her mother was from. At 11, she moved to Paris. In her teens, Keren Ann listened to many French and American artists : Serge Gainsbourg, Françoise Hardy, Tom Waits and Simon and Garfunkel were her favourites. At 18, she studied oceanography in San Diego, and came back to Paris later. In 1998, Keren Ann met Benjamin Biolay, who was looking for a singer for the band Shelby : Keren Ann was the singer of the band, but only one single was released, "1+1" in 1999. She continued writing songs with Benjamin and her first album La Biographie De Luka Philipsen was released in 2000. This album was named after Suzanne Vega's song and Keren Ann's grandmother. Her jazzy song "Jardin D'Hiver" was covered by Henri Salvador sometime later and became a success. In 2001, Keren Ann co-wrote the title-track of Coralie Clément's first album. The following year, she was back with her second album La Disparition : once again, she wrote songs with Benjamin Biolay. In 2003, Keren Ann released her first English album, Not Going Anywhere : four songs from La Disparition had their English versions on this album. The same year, she founded the duet Lady & Bird with Bang Gang's Bardi Johansson and their first album was released in October 2003. In 2004, Keren Ann recorded her fourth album Nolita in her home-studio in New York City. This album was named after the place where she lives, North Little Italy. That time, she wrote every song of the album, in French and in English. Her albums Not Going Anywhere and Nolita were released in 2004 & 2005 on the Blue Note label in the United States. Keren Ann was back in April 2007 with her fifth album Keren Ann.
Source: http://artists.letssingit.com/keren-ann-s3kmw/biography
