Biografia

Her CD 'Tom's Diner' was the inspiration for the creation of the mp3 computer audio file format.

Her song "Tom's Diner" was used as a quality benchmark test track during development of the MP3 computer audio codec

Attended Barnard College.

Worked as an office temp (secretary) while struggling as a singer-songwriter in New York.

In her music video "Luka", the boy playing the abused child is Jason Cerbone.

My idea of a perfect folk song is something in a minor key with a tragic ending - preferably suicide or madness. Something with no chorus. Something with sex and violence.

All the mysteries of life come in A minor.

[on David Bowie] He's great. He's timeless and it's because he constantly reinvents himself, which I know is a cliché to say but it's actually true. I remember in the Seventies thinking he was interesting but not really being moved to buy his albums at that point but then in the Eighties I loved what he was doing. And then when I saw him live I have say I just fell in love.

[on "The Look of Love" by Dusty Springfield] One of the sexiest songs I think ever written and the way she sings it is just killer. I've tried to do covers of it myself live. I love singing it but there's just something about the way she phrases that's just really gorgeous and no one can sing it like she does. I've heard it said about her voice that she was a colonist and you can really hear that on this track. You can hear the shades she puts into all the meanings of the different words.

I think all artists are unusual. I mean you have to be to stand out.