Biography
23 September 1978, Arlington, Virginia, USA. Yamagata spent a number of years on the musical sidelines before emerging in 2004 as a singer-songwriter of some note. The daughter of a German-Italian mother and Japanese father, she learned to play piano as a child before embarking on a fractured educational career that saw her studying French at Northwestern University and Italian theatre at Vassar. She abandoned education to join the Chicago-based funk rock band Bumpus with whom she spent the next five years touring the American college circuit. Yearning for a more receptive outlet for her own songs, she left Bumpus in 2001 and launched her solo career with a five-track EP and a nerve-wracking slot opening for David Gray at Madison Square Garden. Yamagata displayed a solid working knowledge of a number of different musical styles on her 2004 debut album, Happenstance, released like the earlier EP on the Private Music imprint. Yamagata’s...
Read the Full Biography of Rachael Yamagata
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