HEATHER SMALL

'Heather Small' (born 20 January 1965) is an English soul singer.
Heather Small has what some call a unique and distinctive voice which is quickly recognisable to many people. She is probably most famous for being the voice of Manchester based band M People. She was born and raised in West London and joined her first group, Hot House, while she was still a teenager. However after a chance meeting with a Manchester DJ called Mike Pickering, formerly of Quando Quango, she was soon going to sell over 10 million albums worldwide singing with his group M People. They had some very big hits with songs such as ''Moving on Up'' and ''Search for The Hero''.
However, in 1998, after M People's 'best of' album, Heather and the band took some time off to pursue solo projects.
In 2000, Heather released her solo album ''Proud'' and a single of the same name. This was then followed by another single, ''Holding on'' and in November 2000 a duet single with Tom Jones, called ''You Need Love Like I Do'' (which can also be found on the 1999 album Reload).
Since then, she has been taking time off to look after her son and start recording her new solo album. She was occasionally seen on various TV programmes as ''Parkinson'' and ''Songs of Praise''. She also sang three songs at the Tsunami Relief Concert at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
In 2005, another M People album was released. Titled ''M People featuring Heather Small, The Ultimate Collection'', the album featured both band and solo singles.
Heather released a new single, 'Radio On' in the UK on July 17th 2006 and her second solo album, 'Close To A Miracle' was released on July 24th, followed by a second single of the same name. The album was a huge commercial failure charting for one week at No 57 with both supporting singles charting outside the Top 100. A short UK solo tour which followed in the Autumn of that year was received well. ^[1]
M People have announced that they will be touring once again this year. First to be announced were four forest gigs for the summer. They played at Delamere Forest Cheshire, Dalby Forest North York Moors, Thetford Forest Suffolk, and Westonbirt National Arboretum as part of The Forestry Commission’s 2007 Forest Tours.
The shows will be supporting The Forestry Commission’s valuable social and environmental programmes. Heather Small from M People says: "We have played in many different locations but never in forests so we’re really looking forward to doing these gigs".^[2] In addition to these gigs M People also performed at the Hampton Court Festival in Surrey, London on the 12th June and the Chichester Real Ale and Jazz festival.
Heather has recently collaborated with Icelandic Tenor singer Garðar Thór Cortes on a song called "Luna", Which reached #2 in the Icelandic Charts.
Heather has also been busy as a solo artist this year. Performing at the opening of Spinning Field building in Manchester in June followed by an appearance on Songs Of Praise in July. She performed "Love Is Always There" from her second album "Close To A Miracle". In addition she performed a set from her two solo albums and a few of M Peoples greatest hits at The Festival Too concert in Kings Lynn, headlining the weekend as a Solo artist.
Small will play Poland this September, at the Congress Hall in Warsaw. ^[3]
Heather has confirmed that after the summer tour with M People she will be concentrating on recording. ^[4]

Contents

Discography

Albums

Singles

Proud

External links

Discography

Albums

Year	Album	UK Albums Chart
2000	''Proud''	12
2006	''Close to a Miracle''	57

Singles

Year	Song	UK singles	Album
2000	"Proud"	16	''Proud''
2000	"Holding On"	58	''Proud''
2000	"You Need Love Like I Do" (with Tom Jones)	24	''Proud'' ''(Re-Release)''
2005	"Proud" ''(Re-Release)''	33	''Proud''
2006	"Radio On"	107	''Close to a Miracle''
2006	"Close to a Miracle"	117	''Close to a Miracle''
2007	''Luna (with Garðar Thór Cortes)''	--	''Cortes''

Proud

The song ''Proud'' from the solo album of the same name (2000) quickly became one of Small's most popular; becoming for example the 'unofficial Olympic theme'.
In 2005, the song became the official soundtrack for London's 2012 Olympic bid. ''Proud'' was used as the theme music for the second season of NBC's weight-losing reality show ''The Biggest Loser'', and several remixed versions of the song were used on Showtime's Queer as Folk. In November 2005, Heather made her US television debut performing ''Proud'' whereupon Oprah named it the new theme to the Oprah Winfrey Show.
The song 'Proud' is being used on the soundtrack of the film 'Akeelah and the Bee'. The soundtrack was released in the US on April 4th and the film on April 24th, in US theatres.
In 2006, the song "Proud" was used as the main campaign song for Massachusetts gubanatorial candidate Deval Patrick.
Small appeared on 03 July 2006 at the Royal Albert Hall in London during EuroPride 2006, The Show. She performed a special arrangement of ''Proud'' with the London Gay Men's Chorus (together with 3 other songs on her own, including, ''Moving On Up'' and ''Radio On'') and was arguably the most popular artist of the evening, getting a better reaction from the public than even Elton John.
Later in the year, she performed at the opening ceremony of Gay Games VII in Chicago [1].

External links

★ Official website

★ Heather Small Myspace Page

★ Heather Small Fansite

★ Fansite

★ Pride of Manchester - Heather Small interview

★ Juno Records - online clips

★ Inside EuroPride, the Show

★ Heather Small video interview on expressandstar.com