Suzanne Vega returns to UK

Pioneering American singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega returns to the UK this Autumn with her gentle, yet powerfully political acoustic pop. With just a couple of UK dates announced, she stops off at Cardiff's St David's Hall on Monday 1st November. Suzanne's career began with hit songs such as 'Marlene on the Wall', 'Luka', 'Small Blue Thing' and the hugely successful album 'Solitude Standing' which brought her unique style of music to a global audience. Her career received an extra boost in the early 90's when UK-based dance duo DNA released a remix of a cappella song 'Tom's Diner', which charted world-wide.

Suzanne was born in Santa Monica, California in 1959. She grew up in an Hispanic neighbourhood in New York City. As a teenager, Vega attended the High School of the Performing Arts, where she studied dance. Teaching herself to play the guitar, she began to write songs, fuelled by discovering the music of Leonard Cohen and Lou Reed. At the age of 19, she had abandoned her plans to become a dancer and performed her own songs in student cafes and the folk clubs of Greenwich Village.

In April 1985, her debut album, Suzanne Vega, was released, produced by Lenny Kaye and her co-manager, Steve Addabo. Its collection of self-penned literate and understated songs, showing only a passing resemblance to neo-folk, received universal critical acclaim, Suzanne came to be regarded as the vanguard of a new generation of female singer-songwriters. The album reached No. 11 on the U.K. album chart and provided her first major singles hit, "Marlene on the Wall." The release of her follow-up, Solitude Standing, was buoyed by the huge success of the single, "Luka," which broke new ground in the pop charts, written, as it was, from the viewpoint of a child abuse victim. The song was to bring her numerous awards from organisations, fighting child abuse, for the recognition it brought to the issue. It also garnered a Grammy nomination, and an MTV award for best female video.

Suzanne Vega has continued to inspire a generation of female singer-songwriters such as KT Tunstall, Tracey Chapman and Alanis Morissette and now with the release of a recent album 'Beauty & Crime' and her second CD in her 'Close-Up Series', Close-Up Vol. 2 'People & Places', in stores on October 12th, she is ready to inspire thousands more around the globe on her new tour and recordings.

Cardiff St David's Hall, The Hayes, Cardiff, CF10 1SH
Monday 1st November, 7.30pm
Tickets: £25.00

She also performs London's Cadogan Hall on Tuesday 2nd November.