Meiko is an American indie singer/songwriter, born and raised in Roberta, Georgia and currently residing in Los Angeles, California. She released a self-titled album on September 1, 2007 and several tracks have been featured in primetime TV shows. Her songs "Reasons to Love You" and "Hawaii" were featured in the fourth season of Grey's Anatomy, while "Sleep" was featured in an episode of the CBS program Moonlight. Without the help of a record label, her album reached #35 on the iTunes Top 100 Albums chart. It was also iTunes’ #1 Folk album for over a month and as of June 2008, over 200,000 singles have been downloaded from iTunes.
Meiko was featured as an "Indie Spotlight" artist in the iTunes Store.[1]
In June 2008 Meiko signed a recording deal with MySpace Records/DGC, who will release her album in partnership with Lucky Ear Music (Meiko's own indie label). The Lucky Ear/MySpace/DGC release will be remixed, remastered and will include re-recorded versions of fan favorites along with a brand-new track titled "Boys With Girlfriends".
Meiko will embark on a month-long U.S. tour beginning August 9 in Philadelphia
Raised by her father in the small town of Roberta, Georgia (pop. 808), Meiko first stepped in front of an audience at the age of eight, singing “White Christmas” for parishioners of a Southern Baptist church. In the years that followed she performed everywhere from talent shows to Little League baseball parks. When she wasn't performing, she was practicing - spending countless hours singing into the family's clothes dryer. "Great acoustics," she insists. She soon developed an interest in writing songs and enlisted the help of her dad, who taught her how to play guitar on his old Gibson six-string. When she was thirteen, he bought her one of her own. A flood of songs followed. "As soon as I learned a new chord," she says, "I wrote a new song."
At eighteen, Meiko left her hometown to showcase her talents to a wider audience. After a brief stop in Miami, she set down in Los Angeles and began her career in earnest, playing venues all over Southern California and writing at a prolific pace. Her powerful voice, well-crafted songs, and down-to-earth stage presence quickly made her a fan favorite wherever she played, including Hollywood's popular Hotel Café (where she still performs regularly).
In early 2007, Meiko performed at the Sundance Film Festival and caught the ear of Paste Magazine editor Josh Jackson, who declared her a "big success story" waiting to happen, predicting it was "only a matter of time" before she found her way onto Nic Harcourt's influential “Morning Becomes Eclectic” radio program on KCRW. It was a prognostication that proved especially prophetic, as just a few months later Meiko's music became a staple of L.A. radio station playlists.
In September 2007, she toured nationally with Brett Dennen and in October, toured the U.S. as the opener for Mat Kearney.
In 2008, Meiko performed at the Sundance Film Festival and SXSW, and participated in the nationwide Hotel Café Tour with Ingrid Michaelson, Cary Brothers, and Sara Bareilles (among others).
Meiko is a quarter-Japanese, on her maternal grandmother's side; in an attempt to get in touch with their Japanese heritage, she and her sister adopted the names Meiko and Keiko, pronounced "Mee-ko" and "Kee-ko." Alas, "We didn't know that we were misspelling them for quite some time," Meiko remembers. "That's why my name is pronounced 'Mee-ko,' though the proper pronunciation is 'May-ko'--I didn't have the heart to change the spelling."
