Jessica Sutta was born on May 15, 1982, in Miami, FL, and from a young age showed a passion for dancing. She attended a local performing arts high school, eventually earning a spot on the dance team for the Miami Heat. Her skills also earned her parts in music videos for singers like Will Smith, Craig David, and Beyoncé, as well as snagging minor acting roles in movies like From Justin to Kelly. Sutta moved ...

The inspiration for over a dozen web shrines, B-movie queen and pop diva Kari Wuhrer has built an expansive list of credits since debuting in the early '80s. Born in Brookfield, CT, to Andrew, a police officer turned salesman, and Karin, a payroll accountant, Wuhrer began her career by singing in local talent contests. As a teenager, she would sneak into Manhattan to play with her punk rock band, Freudian S ...

Jenna Ushkowitz is a native of Seoul, South Korea, but grew up on Long Island, NY, after being adopted at 3 months of age. She began acting at age 3 and appeared in print ads and voiceovers throughout her childhood. At age 9 Ushkowitz made her Broadway debut as one of the royal children in the 1996 revival of The King and I, and in 2008 appeared opposite her future Glee costar Lea Michele in Spring Awakenin ...

When the U.K. press began dubbing Adele "the next Amy Winehouse" in late 2007, the hype didn't touch upon the heavy singer/songwriter influence found in the Londoner's music. Influenced by Suzanne Vega as much as Jill Scott, Adele first made an impression in 2006 when she toured as an opening act for Jack Penate. She had graduated to headlining status by the end of 2007, thanks to BBC Radio 1 playing her si ...

A brassy country singer whose retro style garnered comparisons to singers like Natalie Maines and Kasey Chambers, Sunny Sweeney grew up in Longview, TX. Sweeney was a gutsy, musically inclined girl, if a tad unpredictable. In her senior year of high school, she busted into choir class and demanded to be allowed to sing Dolly Parton's "9 to 5" in the school's year-end show. Sweeney, who didn't even belong to ...

Growing out of the American underground of the late '80s, Liz Phair fused lo-fi indie rock production techniques with the sensibility and structure of classic singer/songwriters. Exile in Guyville, her gold-selling debut album, was enthusiastically praised upon its 1993 release, and spawned a rash of imitators during the following years, particularly American female singer/songwriters. For her part, Phair w ...

As one who carries equal weight in Europe for her activities as an actress, comedienne, and chanteuse, consummate French performer Jeanne Balibar enjoyed cinematic popularity for many years that remained confined to her native continent, but subsequently began branching out into international crossover acclaim. Balibar debuted onscreen in the mid-'90s with bit parts in such Gallic features as La Croisade d' ...

Get Away from Me, the title of singer/songwriter Nellie McKay's debut album, was a play on two titles by romantic female vocalists who became popular in the early 2000s: Norah Jones' Come Away with Me and Jane Monheit's Come Dream with Me. But while McKay shares some of Jones' and Monheit's influences -- vocal jazz, cabaret, pre-rock Brill Building pop, torch singing -- and has some things in common with th ...

British singer Joss Stone was only 16 years old when she appeared on the universal radar in 2003, armed with powerful vocals and a vintage, soul-based sound that belied her young age. Smartly aligning herself with a number of soul legends on her early records, Stone soon garnered a devoted audience at home and abroad, first for her reinterpretations of classic soul gems (The Soul Sessions) and, on future al ...

A fixture of American musical theater during the mid- to late 2000s, Laura Bell Bundy sported a résumé that could have easily been mistaken for a laundry list of most covetable Broadway roles. Bundy gravitated to stage performance at the tender age of nine in regional and Manhattan-area theater in such productions as Ruthless! The Musical, but achieved greatest prominence on the Great White Way for originat ...