Keedie

Keedie, a soprano recognized chiefly for her chart-topping partnership with Duncan James of Blue, surfaced amid the classical crossover wave of the mid-2000s that also propelled Katherine Jenkins and Hayley Westenra. Born Keedie Babb in Wolverhampton in 1982, she launched her stage career in a vocal group she assembled with her younger sister Nadine, then exited school at fourteen to focus on music full time and secured her debut recording contract at sixteen. Unhappy with the label’s creative choices, she ended the arrangement and spent several subsequent years appearing at clubs and talent competitions. After delivering a set before a celebrity crowd at London’s Groucho Club, Andrew Lloyd Webber invited her to perform the theme “I Believe My Heart” from his musical The Woman in White as a duet with Duncan James. The track’s unexpected ascent to number two prompted a seven-figure contract with EMI Classics; the resulting album, also titled I Believe My Heart, contained Madonna and Enya covers, several operatic arias, and the main theme from Andy Garcia’s film Modigliani. Poor sales led to her dismissal from the roster in 2005, yet later that year she returned to the Top 20 with her version of the hymn “Jerusalem,” issued to mark England’s Ashes cricket triumph. She went on to sing at the Carling Cup Final, at David Beckham’s debut match for L.A. Galaxy, and as support for Tina Turner at The Bedrock Ball. In 2010 she contributed vocals to OMD’s comeback single “Sister Marie Says” and advanced to the boot-camp round of the seventh series of The X-Factor.