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Brooke Fraser

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Brooke Gabrielle Fraser (born December 15, 1983 in Wellington, New Zealand) is an award-winning New Zealand singer-songwriter.

Biography

Early life

Brooke is the eldest of the three children born to former All Black, Bernie Fraser and his wife Lynda. Brooke grew up in Naenae, Lower Hutt and attended Dyer Street School then Naenae Intermediate and Naenae College.

Brooke started taking piano lessons at seven years of age, continuing until seventeen. She started writing songs at age twelve and taught herself the acoustic guitar at sixteen. Notably, Fraser has never taken any singing lessons.

At fourteen, Fraser pierced her tongue and again the next year, which she ended up removing due to it being pierced incorrectly (through the webbing under the tongue).

She received some label interest when she was fifteen, but instead preferred to focus on getting an A bursary, a school leaver's award. She nevertheless performed at Parachute, an annual Christian music festival, and has continued to do so each year since 2000 - including a special guest performance in 2007.

Brooke was a presenter on a cable television show. She began writing for the Soul Purpose Magazine at age fifteen and was later made editor in 2002. She gave up her job as editor shortly after moving to Auckland in late 2002 in order to pursue her music career.

Record deal

In 2002 while Brooke was in Auckland Steve, the Former drummer for Elemenop (L.M.N.O.P.), organized a meeting with producer Matty J for her. Matty J became her manager, liaising with the major labels who had shown interested and compared their offers. Brooke had about five different labels offering her deals and in late 2002 she ended up signing a multi-album deal with Sony Music Entertainment New Zealand.

What To Do With Daylight

Main article: What To Do With Daylight

Brooke's first album What To Do With Daylight was released in New Zealand in late 2003, debuting at #1 and achieved gold-selling status in the same week. The album eventually went 7 times platinum, selling over 100,000 copies in New Zealand alone. She remained on the album charts for a record 66 weeks . All five singles from her album reached the top 20 RIANZ charts, the official singles chart of New Zealand. Her album was the second best selling NZ album of 2004 (behind Hayley Westenra's Pure which went 11 times platinum).

Following the release of What To Do With Daylight, Fraser toured Australia and New Zealand with American artist John Mayer and then toured New Zealand only with veteran U.K. rock artist David Bowie. Following this, Fraser set out with her band for her own What To Do With Daylight Tour. Included amongst these live appearances, Fraser made several public and television appearances. Whilst on tour with John Mayer, she met with his guitarist and keyboardist Michael Chaves who, after recording Mayer's album Heavier Things, Fraser enlisted to play on her album and future concerts.

Albertine

Main article: Albertine (album)

In 2005, prior to writing and preparing her follow-up album, Fraser took a trip to third world Africa to immerse herself in Rwanda before visiting her sponsor children in Tanzania, as she is an advocate for child sponsorship. In this trip, she was so moved that she she wrote the song "Albertine," written about a young child (named Albertine) who she met while in Rwanda. It was later decided to make this song the album's title track.

For the second album, Fraser decided to enlist a new band, primarily constructed from American musicians who'd worked with an array of notable artists, both live and recorded. In 2006, Fraser and the band went into the studio in Los Angeles to record the album. In September 2006, she relesed the first teaser of the album: the title track "Albertine", a third-world inspired song centred on taking action when a need can be identified. The song was made available for listen and download on her MySpace page. Later, Fraser also allowed her MySpace page visitors a listen to the album's first single "Deciphering Me," which was later released initially to radio and ultimately to CD single and achieved #4 in the New Zealand single charts.

On December 4, 2006 Albertine was released in New Zealand, achieving double platinum status in less than a month after its release and has remained - to date - in the top 20 every week since. The album was released in Australia and internationally on March 31 2007. In Australia, it charted at #29 in its first week on April 9.

On April 6 2007, Fraser performed "Deciphering Me" for the Good Friday Appeal, an annual televised fundraising event to raise money for the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne.

Personal life

After the success of her first album, Fraser moved to Sydney in order to better poise herself for her career. She still resides there. Fraser attends Hillsong Church. She is a worship leader and collaborator on the Hillsong United series of worship albums. She is a committed Christian and much of her lyrical content indicates this, as well as her continued participation in Christian and Church events.

Charity Work

Fraser has, since 2005, been the public face of World Vision in New Zealand. She has visited Cambodia and Tanzania with World Vision, the Philippines with Opportunity International and independently travelled to Rwanda in June 2005, in June 2006 as part of charity event "Hope Rwanda", and is due to visit in May 2007. She released a song and album in late 2006 called Albertine. The song was inspired by her time in Rwanda. In 2006 she, along with Petra Bagust and Tau from Spacifix, appeared advertising the World Vision 40 Hour Famine - an event which raises funds for children in third world countries. She also sponsors a number of children through World Vision.

Discography

Albums

Album Statistics Singles
What To Do With Daylight Singles Released
Albertine Singles Released

Singles

Year Title Album Chart positions
NZ AUS
2003 "Better"
What To Do With Daylight 		3 -
2004 "Lifeline" 7 56
2004 "Saving The World" 15 -
2004 "Arithmetic" 8 -
2004 "Without You" 16 -
2006 "Deciphering Me"
Albertine 		4
2007 "Shadowfeet" 13 ♣

♣ Denotes items still currently charting

Featured appearances

Brooke Fraser has appeared on some compilations since breaking onto the music scene in New Zealand. The following is a list of albums that have featured tracks by Brooke.

Songs with Hillsong

Songs written or co-written by Brooke in Hillsong and Hillsong United include:

Note: The 2007 album title may change. These songs may possibly be included in the track listing and the album itself.

Awards

  • Most promising Woman Musician Award & Overall winner, 1999 Hutt Valley Pepsi Smokefree Rockquest regional finals
  • Best Female Solo Artist: What To Do With Daylight - 2004 NZ Music Awards
  • Breakthrough Artist of the Year: What To Do With Daylight - 2004 NZ Music Awards
  • "Better" - most performed work on NZ radio in the last 12 months - Silver Scroll Awards (2004)

Fraser was also awarded a satirical award:

  • The most used fairy lights in a video clip (for "Arithmetic") - Studio 2 Awards (2004)

Notes

  1. The RIANZ Chart indicates the chart run for What To Do With Daylight.
  2. 2004 Performance details
  3. The NewsTours Page on Fraser's website indicates her band's history.
  4. Praise-Him.org details the Hillsong United lineup for United We Stand.
  5. NZ Girl article confirming Fraser's Christianity and other facts about Fraser.
  6. Fraser Blogs her trip to Africa and how it inspired her to write the song "Albertine".

External links

Brooke Fraser
Discography
Studio albums
Live albums
Singles
Promotional singles
Categories: