Eliza Sophie Caird (born 15 April 1988),[2] better known by her former stage name Eliza Doolittle now Eliza, is an English singer and songwriter from Westminster, London.[3] After performing her music in live venues around London from the age of 15, Eliza signed to Parlophone in 2008.[4]
Eliza | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Eliza performing in 2014 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Eliza Sophie Caird |
| Born | 15 April 1988 Westminster, London, England |
| Occupations |
|
| Instruments |
|
| Years active | 2000s-present[1] |
| Labels | Parlophone |
Her debut album was released on 12 July 2010 and went platinum. The album produced two UK top-40 hits, "Skinny Genes" and "Pack Up", the latter of which peaked within the top five on the UK Singles Chart.[5]
In 2013, Eliza contributed writing and vocals to "You & Me", a single from British electronic music duo Disclosure's number one debut album Settle.[6]
On 7 June 2013, she premiered a single called "Big When I Was Little", which was released in July 2013. It subsequently joined BBC Radio 1's and Radio 2 playlist. It was later included on her second studio album, titled In Your Hands.[7]
In 2018, Eliza released the album A Real Romantic, which included tracks like "Wasn't Looking", "Livid" and "Alone & Unafraid". In 2022, she released the album A Sky Without Stars, which including tracks like "Straight Talker", "Heat of the Moon" and "Everywhere I'll Ever Be".
Early life
editEliza was born in Westminster, London. She comes from a family with a successful and varied musical background. Her father is John Caird,[8] a stage director and writer of plays, musicals and operas who is also an honorary associate director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Her paternal grandfather G. B. Caird, was the theologian and principal of Mansfield College, Oxford.[9] Her mother is musical theatre actress and artist Frances Ruffelle,[8] who won a Tony Award for her role of Éponine in the English-language version of Les Misérables and represented the United Kingdom in the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest. Eliza is the granddaughter of Sylvia Young,[8] founder of the eponymous theatre school. She is one of nine siblings. Her parents divorced when she was four years old.[10]
Eliza had a brief career on stage playing Young Cosette in Les Misérables in London's West End in 1996–1997.[citation needed] Her parents had met and began their relationship during the original production, when her father was the co-director and her mother played Eponine. Eliza went on to play the lead role in Lucy Simon's Tony Award-winning musical version of The Secret Garden in 2001 when the Royal Shakespeare Company premiered the show in London.[11]
Musical career
editCareer beginnings
editBefore entering the charts, Eliza toured the UK with her band. She released an EP including songs Naive produced by Al Shux (A New York State of Mind), Ego and Piano Song produced by Truth & Soul (Lee Fields, El Michels Affair). On 29 November 2009, a further EP release featuring the tracks "Rollerblades", "Moneybox", "Police Car", and "Go Home" (produced by Craigie Dodds, Johnny Dollar, Matt Prime and Phil Thornaley). Tracks from the EP were remixed by Plastic Little ("Rollerblades"), Sam Young and Jamie xx from The xx ("Money Box"). The EP received radio plays from Rob Da Bank, Nick Grimshaw,[12] Fearne Cotton, and Jo Whiley.
She recorded the song 'Running For Life", which was featured on the soundtrack of the 2008 cult British film Adulthood. Later that year, she performed at Glastonbury on the Pussy Parlour stage, her first festival performance.[13]
2010–2013: Eliza Doolittle
edit
In early 2010, she took part in musician Shane MacGowan's charity single "I Put a Spell on You", in aid of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.[14] Her debut single "Skinny Genes" was released on 12 April 2010, reaching No. 22 in the UK Singles Chart.[citation needed] She told BBC's Steve Lamacq the song is "a funny scenario if you didn't like someone, if they were really annoying, but you had a good time under the sheets."[15] Eliza's second release "Pack Up" was released on 5 July 2010, reaching No. 5 on the Official UK Singles Chart on 11 July 2010.[16]
In March 2011, she performed at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas[17] as well at Coachella in California.[18] In April 2011, Eliza was touring the UK. On 19 April 2011, Eliza's self-titled album was released in the United States almost one year from the UK date.
In 2013, Eliza collaborated with Disclosure on the track "You & Me" from their debut album, Settle.[6] Early that year, she began recording new material for her second album. In an interview with Elle magazine in April 2013, she stated "I'm definitely showing more of myself than I ever have before. I feel like on my last album, I hadn't experienced very much of anything really, and it's been three years or more since then and I have felt and seen things I hadn't before, and I know things I didn't know before. In a way I have answers to questions, but then those answers open up a thousand other questions. I guess I've gone through things that so many people go through at the age I am. I've written almost every day about my every thought and emotion and the album is made up of the songs that mean the most to me".[19]
2013–2016: In Your Hands
editOn 7 June 2013, she premiered a new single called "Big When I Was Little", which was released in July 2013. It subsequently joined BBC Radio 1's playlist, and features on her second studio album. On 17 June 2013 the video for the single premiered on her YouTube channel.[20]
Eliza and UK garage artist Wookie wrote a song called "The Hype" in 2013. Wookie contributed a remix to her album In Your Hands for her track "Walking on Water".[citation needed]
She featured on "YNSP", a track from hip hop artist Vic Mensa's Innanetape mixtape produced by DJ Dahi.[citation needed]
She had a cameo role as a nightclub singer in The Great Train Robbery, a drama series on BBC One in December 2013.[citation needed]
In 2014, Eliza was invited by Burt Bacharach to sing with him at Henley Festival in the summer of 2014.[21]
2016: Rebrand, A Real Romantic and A Sky Without Stars
editIn 2017, she rebranded her name from Eliza Doolittle to Eliza and changed her sound.[22] On 12 December 2018, her album A Real Romantic was released. In 2022, Eliza released a couple of new singles ("Straight Talker"[23] and "Heat of the Moon") after signing[24][25] to [PIAS]'s Different Recordings[26][27] and a new album, A Sky Without Stars, was announced.
A Sky without Stars received praise and acclaim from reviewers. Dom Taylor of R&B website The Pit wrote that the album "let the music lead" and "can be boiled down to an irreplaceable feeling of soul. The foot-tapping, transformative, time-loses-all-meaning kind of soul."[28] Haste magazine's Becca Hemens summarised a live performance by ELIZA following the release of the album as "An Enigmatic and Sensual Performance for an Album of Melodic Reinvention and Feminine Power" and was struck by the "aura of mystique" in ELIZA's performance.[29]
Discography
editStudio albums
edit| Title | Album details | Chart peak positions | Certifications (sales thresholds) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK [30] |
BEL (Fl) [31] |
BEL (Wa) [32] |
DEN [33] |
FRA [34] |
IRE [35] |
NL [36] | |||
| Eliza Doolittle |
|
3 | 46 | 100 | 38 | 101 | 10 | 45 | |
| In Your Hands[38] |
|
25 | — | — | — | — | 71 | — | |
| A Real Romantic[40] |
|
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| A Sky Without Stars[41] |
|
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | |
| "—" denotes album that did not chart or was not released. | |||||||||
Extended plays
edit| Title | EP details |
|---|---|
| Eliza Doolittle |
|
| Xmas In Bed[a] |
|
Singles
editAs lead artist
edit| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Certifications (sales thresholds) |
Album | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK [30] |
AUS [42] |
BEL [31] |
DEN [33] |
FIN [43] |
GER [44] |
IRE [35] |
NLD [36] |
SWI [45] | ||||
| "Skinny Genes" | 2010 | 22 | — | 42 | — | — | 42 | 42 | 90 | 48 | Eliza Doolittle | |
| "Pack Up" | 5 | 96 | 10 | 37 | 16 | 49 | 6 | 8 | 75 |
| ||
| "Rollerblades" | 58 | — | 61 | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| "Mr Medicine" | 2011 | 130 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "Big When I Was Little" | 2013 | 12 | — | 77 | — | — | — | — | — | — | In Your Hands | |
| "Let It Rain" | 55 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| "Walking On Water" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| "Wide Eyed Fool" | 2017 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | A Real Romantic | |
| "Wasn't Looking" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| "Livid" | 2018 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | ||
| "Alone & Unafraid" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| "All Night" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| "Straight Talker" | 2022 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | A Sky Without Stars | |
| "Heat of the Moon" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| "Everywhere I'll Ever Be" | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | |||
| "—" denotes single that did not chart or was not released. | ||||||||||||
Promotional singles
edit| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Album |
|---|---|---|---|
| BEL [31] | |||
| "Walking on Water" | 2013 | 64 | In Your Hands |
| "Big City" | 2015 | — | Shaun the Sheep Movie |
| "Alone & Unafraid" | 2018 | — | A Real Romantic |
| "—" denotes single that did not chart or was not released. | |||
As featured artist
edit| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Certifications | Album | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UK [30] |
AUT | BEL [31] |
FRA [46] |
GER | IRE [35] |
SPN [47] |
NLD | SCO | SWI [45] | ||||
| "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" (as part of The Justice Collective) |
2012 | 1 | — | — | — | — | 4 | — | — | — | — | Charity single | |
| "You & Me" (Disclosure featuring Eliza Doolittle) |
2013 | 10 | 62 | 41 | 2 | 88 | 84 | 59 | 30 | 27 | 56 | Settle | |
| "The Hype" (Wookie featuring Eliza Doolittle) |
— | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | Non-album single | ||
| "—" denotes single that did not chart or was not released. | |||||||||||||
Music videos
edit| Title | Year | Director |
|---|---|---|
| "Piano Song" | 2008 | — |
| "Skinny Genes" | 2010 | — |
| "Skinny Genes 2.0" | — | |
| "Pack Up" | — | |
| "Rollerblades" | — | |
| "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" (As part of The Justice Collective) | — | |
| "Mr. Medicine" | 2011 | — |
| "Big When I Was Little" | 2013 | — |
| "Let It Rain" | — | |
| "Waste of Time" | — | |
| "You & Me" (Disclosure featuring Eliza Doolittle) | — | |
| "The Hype" (Wookie featuring Eliza Doolittle) | — | |
| "Walking on Water" | — | |
| "In Your Hands" | 2014 | — |
| "Wide Eyed Fool" | 2017 | Charlie Robins |
| "Wasn't Looking" | — | |
| "Livid" | 2018 | Eliza |
| "Alone & Unafraid" | Charlie Robins | |
| "Straight Talker" | 2022 | Charlie Robins |
| "Heat of the Moon" | Charlie Robins | |
| "Everywhere I'll Ever Be" | Charlie Robins |
Filmography
edit| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | The Great Train Robbery | Nightclub Singer | Episode: "A Robber's Tale" |
| 2014 | Home and Away | Herself | Episode #1.5932 |
References
editFootnotes
edit- ^ Free download including "The Gift of Giving", "Xmas in Bed" and "Last Christmas".
Sources
edit- ^ "Talking Shop: Eliza Doolittle". BBC News. 13 July 2010.
- ^ "Eliza Biography". Retrieved 29 December 2010.
- ^ "Bite The Ballot on Twitter". Twitter. 10 January 2015.
- ^ "News | Eliza Doolittle". Parlophone records. Archived from the original on 28 April 2016. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
- ^ "Eliza Doolittle at BBC Music". British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 30 October 2010.
- ^ a b "Disclosure – You and Me featuring Eliza Doolittle: video premiere". The Guardian. 14 April 2014. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
- ^ "Eliza Doolittle announces new album title – Music News". Digital Spy. 31 July 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
- ^ a b c Savage, Mark (13 July 2010). "Talking Shop: Eliza Doolittle". BBC News. Retrieved 29 December 2010.
- ^ Chadwick, Henry, "George Bradford Caird, 1917-1984: A Memoir" in The Glory of Christ in the New Testament: Studies in Christology in Memory of George Bradford Caird, ed. L. D. Hurst and N. T. Wright (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987; reprinted Wipf and Stock, 2006), pp. xvii-xxii.
- ^ "Radio 1 Programmes – The Chris Moyles Show, Wednesday – with Eliza Doolittle". BBC. 8 December 2010. Retrieved 13 July 2011.
- ^ "RSC Performance Database". Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
- ^ "Radio 1 – Nick Grimshaw – Tracklistings". BBC. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
- ^ Running For Life, 24 June 2008, retrieved 12 October 2016
- ^ "Shane MacGowan and Friends "I Put a Spell on You" (Haiti Charity Song) (Video)". Prefix magazine. Retrieved 7 March 2011.
- ^ "Skinny Genes". Songfacts.com. Retrieved 26 March 2010.
- ^ Praxis Media. "Radio1 Rodos Greece ::: UK Forthcoming Singles ::: Charts, DJ Promos, Dance, Lyrics, Free Mp3 Samples Downloads". Radio1.gr. Archived from the original on 20 October 2012. Retrieved 3 December 2010.
- ^ "SXSW 2011: the best pictures from day eight". The Guardian. 19 March 2011. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
- ^ "Eliza Doolittle Talks To Us About Style, Kanye And Coachella | Idolator". Music News, Reviews, and Gossip on Idolator.com. 19 April 2011. Retrieved 12 October 2016.
- ^ "Eliza in Wonderland: Eliza Doolittle Stars in Palladium's New Campaign". Elle.com. 11 April 2013. Retrieved 10 May 2013.
- ^ "Big When I Was Little". YouTube.com. 17 June 2013. Archived from the original on 21 December 2021. Retrieved 17 June 2013.
- ^ "Eliza Doolittle Joins Burt Bacharach for a Special 'Little' Prayer". 30 June 2014.
- ^ "ELIZA's "Straight Talker" is a hypnotic piece with a somber tone". 11 April 2022.
- ^ "BBC Radio 6 Music - New Music Fix, New Music Fix Playlist".
- ^ "Different Recordings Welcomes ELIZA". 28 March 2022.
- ^ "ELIZA marks arrival to Different Recordings with release of 'Straight Talker' alongside accompanying video".
- ^ "Eliza - Official Website". Eliza.
- ^ "Different Recordings". www.differentrecordings.com.
- ^ "ELIZA - A Sky Without Stars [Stream]". 16 September 2022.
- ^ "ELIZA "A Sky Without Stars" - Album and Gig Review".
- ^ a b c Peak positions in the United Kingdom:
- For all except where noted: "Eliza Doolittle > UK Charts". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 4 September 2020.
- For "Mr Medicine": "New Chart Entries > 2 April 2011". Zobbel.de. 2 April 2011.
- For "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother": "Chart Archive > 29 December 2012". Official Charts Company. 29 December 2012.
- ^ a b c d "Discografie Eliza Doolittle". ultratop.be/nl/. Hung Medien.
- ^ "Discografie Eliza Doolittle". ultratop.be/fr/. Hung Medien.
- ^ a b "Discography Eliza Doolittle". danishcharts.dk. Hung Medien.
- ^ "Discography Eliza Doolittle". lescharts.com/. Hung Medien.
- ^ a b c "Discography Eliza Doolittle". irish-charts.com/. Hung Medien.
- ^ a b "Discografie Eliza Doolittle". dutchcharts.nl/. Hung Medien.
- ^ a b c "British certifications – Eliza Doolittle". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 2 August 2024. Type Eliza Doolittle in the "Search BPI Awards" field and then press Enter.
- ^ Eliza Doolittle announces new album title – Music News - Digital Spy
- ^ "iTunes – Music – In Your Hands by Eliza Doolittle". Itunes.apple.com. 11 October 2013. Retrieved 29 June 2014.
- ^ Eliza Doolittle unleashes new studio collection A Real Romantic | Hamada Mania Music Blog Hamada Mania
- ^ A Sky Without Stars | ELIZA Bandcamp
- ^ Ryan, Gavin (2011). Australia's Music Charts 1988–2010 (PDF ed.). Mt Martha, Victoria, Australia: Moonlight Publishing. p. 86.
- ^ "Discography Eliza Doolittle". finnishcharts.com/. Hung Medien.
- ^ "Discografie Eliza Doolittle". charts.de/. Hung Medien. Archived from the original on 30 January 2015.
- ^ a b "Discografie Eliza Doolittle". hitparade.ch/. Hung Medien.
- ^ "Discographie Eliza Doolittle". lescharts.com.
- ^ "Discography Eliza Doolittle". spanishcharts.com.
- ^ "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 2022 Singles" (PDF). Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
External links
edit