A-M-A-N-D-A

There aren’t many 20-year olds from a tiny village in the North of England who, within the space of six months, find themselves working one-on-one with some of the giants of today’s music industry. But A.M.A.N.D.A. – whose name has become synonymous with the catchphrase “Who’s that girl?” – is doing just that right now.

Once upon a time – as recently as late 2007 – A.M.A.N.D.A. lived worlds away in remote Crosby Garrett in England’s Lake District, amidst a pastoral agricultural region appropriately named “Eden.” The surrounding county of Cumbria’s Directory calls it a, “small cluster of homes and farms grouped around a beck in a quiet vale.” A.M.A.N.D.A. herself affectionately describes her hometown as a place with, “200 people, 50 houses and a lot of sheep.”

A.M.A.N.D.A.’s parents – dad’s an architect, mom’s a teacher – are both musical, and she started singing at age four. She was a natural. “The first thing I ever sang,” she recalls, “was ‘The End Of The World.’” In fact, it was the beginning of a whole new one for A.M.A.N.D.A. – she realized that singing was, “all I wanted to do,” and soon decided she’d fancy performing at Wembley Stadium one day. With her parents’ total support, she sang at countless local events, and got an early taste of singing for a far broader audience when she made the 2002 finals of the national kids’ TV series Stars In Their Eyes, covering Nelly Furtado’s “I’m Like A Bird.”

The Cinderella story A.M.A.N.D.A.’s living now began in September 2007 when she was judging a Cumbrian talent competition for which CeCe Sammy had come in from London to be a guest judge. “I knew who she was,” says A.M.A.N.D.A., “and I was watching her work with some of the contestants.” A classically trained musician who first came to major public attention as vocal coach on the original Pop Idol TV show with Simon Cowell, CeCe had noticed A.M.A.N.D.A.’s keen observation of what she was doing, and was fascinated. When she learned that A.M.A.N.D.A. was a performer as well, CeCe asked her to sing. “I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “There was something different about her, something that really attracted me, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.”

She liked what she heard, though, and CeCe also felt a connection with A.M.A.N.D.A.’s rural roots. She herself was from a tiny village in Trinidad, and had been given a chance in the business by someone who’d believed in her talents. CeCe whisked A.M.A.N.D.A. off for a week in London, where stylists changed her clothes, darkened her hair and gave her a whole new look. “She took it all in like a sponge,” says CeCe. “And, because she was the first girl I’d ever taken under my wing as a protégé, people noticed. At week’s end, when she walked the red carpet with me at a Kidscape charity event and performed alongside a line-up of amazing people, everyone asked – for the first time – ‘Who’s that girl?’”