Donna Lewis

Welsh singer-songwriter Donna Lewis, who trained classically on piano and delivers vocals in a gentle, angelic register, first achieved widespread notice with the 1996 single "I Love You Always Forever." That recording formed the centerpiece of her initial album, Now in a Minute, where it secured Top 40 placement and introduced her work to international audiences. Although the song continues to serve as her signature piece, Lewis has broadened her palette over time, incorporating electronic elements throughout the 2008 album In the Pink and teaming with the Bad Plus for the jazz-leaning 2015 covers project Brand New Day. At heart, however, her music rests on carefully crafted pop songwriting, a quality that surfaces clearly on the 2021 EP Told You So.

She was born in Cardiff in 1973 and drew her earliest musical encouragement from her father, a jazz pianist. Piano instruction began at age six; by her teenage years she was already writing original pop material. Following secondary school she completed a music degree at the Welsh College of Music and Drama, concentrating on classical composition for both piano and flute. After graduation she taught music for a year in Sussex before relocating to Birmingham, where she performed solo piano sets and joined local bar bands to refine her craft. By 1990 she had built a dedicated following and was producing home-studio demos of her songs. A recording of "I Love You Always Forever" reached Atlantic Records chairman Doug Morris, who reportedly arranged an audition in New York and signed her to the label without delay.

Her debut album, Now in a Minute, arrived in 1996 and was produced by Kevin Killen (David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, Shawn Colvin). The project spotlighted the buoyant single "I Love You Always Forever," whose bright production evoked the more pop-oriented side of Kate Bush’s work. The track became Lewis’s breakthrough, holding the number-two position on Billboard’s Hot 100 for nine straight weeks and eventually earning platinum certification. Its success led to a guest appearance as herself on the FOX series Beverly Hills, 90210 and a duet with Richard Marx on the song "At the Beginning," featured on the soundtrack for the 1997 animated feature Anastasia.

In 1998 Lewis issued her second album, Blue Planet, again produced by Killen. The record yielded the Billboard dance-chart number one "Love Him" and a modest European hit, "I Could Be the One," yet it did not replicate the commercial scale of her debut; she subsequently left Atlantic. She next explored electronica on the EP Chute, created with guitarist and producer David Torn, then adopted a more intimate acoustic approach for the independently released 2002 album Be Still.

In the years that followed she devoted herself to writing and recording material for a new project, pausing the work for two years after the birth of her daughter. The resulting fourth album, In the Pink, appeared in 2008 and returned to the richly layered, electronic-tinged pop of her first release.

Lewis released the jazz-inflected covers album Brand New Day in 2015, with the Bad Plus providing accompaniment. Alongside reimagined versions of songs by David Bowie, Chocolate Genius, and others, the set introduced the original piece "Sleep" and a fresh arrangement of "I Love You Always Forever." The standalone track "Summertime" emerged in August 2020, followed in February 2021 by the five-song EP Told You So.