Born: August 29, 1972
Amanda Marshall was born and raised in Toronto area. Her childhood goal had always been to be involved in the music business in whatever capacity she could. With this in mind she became singular in purpose and enrolled in many artistic programs, such as the Toronto Conservatory Of Music.
While doing the Queen Street bar scene as a performer in her teens she hooked up with guitarist Jeff Healey who was impressed enough with her voice to take her on tour with him as his opening act despite having little experience or a record on the radio
While on tour Marshall attracted the interest of Columbia Records who offered her a record deal at the ripe old age of 19. She would, in turn, turn them down flat, citing a lack of experience that might come back to haunt her later in life.
She continued developing her live repertoire of cover tunes and intense performing with visits to Kingswood Music Theatre and Molson Park in Barrie on multi-artist bills. She's also frequented MuchMusic just to keep the exposure up.
Eventually she felt comfortable enough to begin recording and decided to hook up with award winning Alannah Myles songwriter David Tyson to work up some original material in California. Ironically, she once again attracted a deal from Sony Music. Marshall also augmented the record with other tunes written by ex-Arrows Dean McTaggert, Christopher Ward and Marc Jordan.
Her album was released late in 1996 and lingered on the strength of the first single "Birmingham". By absolute chance Elton John picked up the disc from the import bin at HMV in London, England and really liked the album.
While making an appearance on the Rosie O'Donnell show, John mentioned some of the new music he was listening to and mentioned Amanda Marshall (whom he thought was American). O'Donnell's people tracked Marshall down and had her appear on the show.
It launched her career and a phone call from Elton John while she was touring was the start of a sudden instant success story. Radio immediately jumped on this record that had been recommended by the hit-master Elton John himself.
The album has gone on to spawn 6 hit singles (Let It Rain, Birmingham, Beautiful Goodbye, Dark Horse, Fall From Grace and Sitting On Top Of The World) across Canada. Also, her success has managed her to travel a lot. She's done a tour with Tom Cochrane, a headlining tour across Australia, Europe and Japan; and a sold out headlining tour of Canada in the Spring of 97. More recently, she's been the opening act for John Mellencamp's U.S. tour.
CBC-TV feted the lady with her own hour long television special and the album had racked up a series of awards. The long-overdue sophomore effort, 'Tuesday's Child', finally arrived on May 25, 1999, powered by the first single, "Love Lift Me". Marshall took on a much-increased songwriting role, co-writing all but one of the album's 13 songs.
Singles
1995 Let it Rain (Sony)
1996 Birmingham (Sony)
1996 Beautiful Goodbye(Sony)
1996 Fall From Grace(Sony)
1997 Dark Horse (Sony)
1997 Sitting on Top of the World (Sony)
1999 Love Lift Me(Sony)
Albums
1995 Amanda Marshall (Sony)
1999 Tuesday's Child (Sony)
2001 Everybody's Got A Story(Sony)
Video
Compilation Tracks
1995 "Don't Let It Bring You Down" on 'Borrowed Tunes' (Sony)
1996 "This Could Take All Night" on 'Tin Cup' (???) - soundtrack
1997 "I'll Be Okay" on 'My Best Friend's Wedding' (???) - soundtrack
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