The sublime Sophie Barker - regarded as one of the finest live acoustic performers around - perfect ace (Time Out)
Sophie has been singing since the age of 13 when she decided to take up singing lessons. She soon discovered through her teacher that she could actually sing and as it was about the only lesson in school that was fun, from that moment on decided to follow the perilous path of a singer!
At 16 she went to oxford to do her A levels and with her first guitar which only had 2 strings she wrote her first song and joined her first band.
After studying at UCL for 2 years and while singing in another band her passion for music became more apparent and she decided to take a year out to pursue her career. She never went back to university and joined another band and got her first deal with Sony.
Due to artistic differences her first album was never released but it encouraged her to go solo and in the late 1990's sophie ended up writing and performing with Grooverider on his debut album and then with Groove Armada on 'Vertigo'.
In 2000 she was introduced to Sam and Henry (Zero 7).She began to write with them on their debut album 'Simple Things'. Over time she co-wrote 'Destiny', 'In The Waiting Line' and 'Spinning' and then toured with the band. 'Simple Things' has sold over 1,000,000 copies worldwide.
She has also worked with them on their 2nd album 'When it Falls' co-writing 'Passing By' and 'In Time' and has been touring with them since the release in March 2004. This album has already gone platinum in the UK.
Sophie will also be releasing her debut album 'Earthbound' in 2005 which will be a collection of songs that have been recorded over the past few years. Some acoustically and some written and produced with Robin Guthrie (Cocteau Twins).
Also over the past year Sophie has recorded 'Lullaby' with her firend/producer KK. This is a night time CD for children drawing on the influences of old nursery rhymes and Lullabies. Together they have created a beautiful soundscape for peaceful sleep. This is for all ages. This will be the first of a series of collectable CD's with accompanying hard backed books for children and this will start 'The Rainbow Collection'. Sophie realised that there was a huge gap in the market for quality recordings for children and that the range of childrens music was very limited. For sophie, music has been one of the most important forms of education not only enabling her to express herself but also to be able to communicate when when words get lost and therefore she felt it absolutely necessary to help others through music and children are our future. Lullaby will be released in November 2004 and a childrens fund will be set up from a percentage of the sales of the CD's and books. This fund will then be allocated to different educational projects and causes around the world. She feels it is now time to put all our energy into educating and helping children around the world.
Sophie always appreciates all your comments and encouraging words and hopes that with this new site she will continue to recieve all your kind words from around the world.
