Biography
British singer-songwriter Gwyneth Herbert first drew broad notice through her dusky, expressive voice and her open approach to merging jazz, folk, and pop. A 2004 recording of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart,” taken from her debut album Bittersweet and Blue, appeared on the soundtrack of the romantic comedy Leap Year and helped spread her name. She has since pursued an eclectic range of work that includes several ventures into musical theater. Although her earliest releases concentrated on jazz standards, she later turned toward more thematically unified original projects, notably the sea-shanty-and-cabaret-flavored The Sea Cabinet in 2013 and the communication-focused Letters I Haven’t Written in 2018.
Herbert was born in Wimbledon, London, in 1981 and grew up in Surrey and Hampshire. She began piano lessons at age three, later took up the French horn, and played in school ensembles as well as the local youth orchestra. During her teenage years she started composing her own material and even started a short-lived punk band. After secondary school she attended Alton College in Hampshire, where jazz became her primary interest. She completed her studies at St. Chad’s College, University of Durham, and while there formed the duo Black Coffee with guitarist and fellow student Will Rutter. Following graduation the pair relocated to London and issued their first album, First Songs, in 2003; the collection of originals and standards earned critical notice and radio play.
In 2004 Herbert made her solo debut with Bittersweet and Blue on Universal Classics and Jazz. The set mixed songs she and Rutter wrote with jazz standards and interpretations of tracks by Crowded House and Tom Waits. Its version of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” later reached a wider audience when it was placed on the Leap Year soundtrack.
Leaving Universal, Herbert independently recorded several original pieces that appeared in 2006 as Between Me and the Wardrobe on her own Monkeywood Records imprint; Blue Note Records reissued the album later that year. In 2008 Bowers & Wilkins and Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios commissioned her to make Ten Lives, an album of new songs released exclusively on the Bowers & Wilkins website. She followed it in 2009 with All the Ghosts, which presented remixed versions of material from Ten Lives. The 2010 EP Clangers and Mash was produced by Polar Bear’s Seb Rochford.
Around the same period Herbert moved into theater work and ultimately co-created six musicals. In 2010 she received the Stiles and Drewe Song of the Year Award for “Lovely London Town,” written for the musical The A-Z of Mrs P with playwright Diane Samuels. She also created the one-act musical Before the Law and composed the score for Le Tabou, drawn from the writings of Boris Vian.
After receiving a commission from the Snape Maltings arts complex, she completed her fifth album, The Sea Cabinet. The song-cycle-cum-theater piece featured vocalist Fiona Bevan and drew on sea shanties, Weimar-era cabaret, and English music-hall traditions. Herbert staged full theatrical performances of the work at Wilton’s Music Hall in London.
Her sixth solo album, Letters I Haven’t Written, arrived in 2018 and examined themes of communication, storytelling, and human connection. One track, “Not the Kind of Girl,” had originally been written for a 2010 screening of Marion Davies’ 1928 silent film The Patsy at the Birds Eye View Film Festival held at BFI Southbank. Herbert subsequently returned to theater, contributing to and appearing in productions of A Christmas Carol at Bristol’s Old Vic in 2018 and 2019.
Herbert was born in Wimbledon, London, in 1981 and grew up in Surrey and Hampshire. She began piano lessons at age three, later took up the French horn, and played in school ensembles as well as the local youth orchestra. During her teenage years she started composing her own material and even started a short-lived punk band. After secondary school she attended Alton College in Hampshire, where jazz became her primary interest. She completed her studies at St. Chad’s College, University of Durham, and while there formed the duo Black Coffee with guitarist and fellow student Will Rutter. Following graduation the pair relocated to London and issued their first album, First Songs, in 2003; the collection of originals and standards earned critical notice and radio play.
In 2004 Herbert made her solo debut with Bittersweet and Blue on Universal Classics and Jazz. The set mixed songs she and Rutter wrote with jazz standards and interpretations of tracks by Crowded House and Tom Waits. Its version of Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” later reached a wider audience when it was placed on the Leap Year soundtrack.
Leaving Universal, Herbert independently recorded several original pieces that appeared in 2006 as Between Me and the Wardrobe on her own Monkeywood Records imprint; Blue Note Records reissued the album later that year. In 2008 Bowers & Wilkins and Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios commissioned her to make Ten Lives, an album of new songs released exclusively on the Bowers & Wilkins website. She followed it in 2009 with All the Ghosts, which presented remixed versions of material from Ten Lives. The 2010 EP Clangers and Mash was produced by Polar Bear’s Seb Rochford.
Around the same period Herbert moved into theater work and ultimately co-created six musicals. In 2010 she received the Stiles and Drewe Song of the Year Award for “Lovely London Town,” written for the musical The A-Z of Mrs P with playwright Diane Samuels. She also created the one-act musical Before the Law and composed the score for Le Tabou, drawn from the writings of Boris Vian.
After receiving a commission from the Snape Maltings arts complex, she completed her fifth album, The Sea Cabinet. The song-cycle-cum-theater piece featured vocalist Fiona Bevan and drew on sea shanties, Weimar-era cabaret, and English music-hall traditions. Herbert staged full theatrical performances of the work at Wilton’s Music Hall in London.
Her sixth solo album, Letters I Haven’t Written, arrived in 2018 and examined themes of communication, storytelling, and human connection. One track, “Not the Kind of Girl,” had originally been written for a 2010 screening of Marion Davies’ 1928 silent film The Patsy at the Birds Eye View Film Festival held at BFI Southbank. Herbert subsequently returned to theater, contributing to and appearing in productions of A Christmas Carol at Bristol’s Old Vic in 2018 and 2019.
Albums
Singles
