Sam Smith

📍Great Chishill, Cambridgeshire, UK

“Sam Smith was born in London in May 1992 and grew up in Great Chishill, a small village on a hill in the far south of Cambridgeshire, close to the borders of Essex and Hertfordshire, with a windmill, a pub, a church and wide views over the fields. Their mother, Kate, worked in finance in the City, and their father, Fred, was closely involved at home, and Sam grew up with sisters in a loving, open household. Sam's parents noticed their voice early, and from about the age of eight they took singing and songwriting lessons with the jazz singer and pianist Joanna Eden, who became a lifelong mentor. They went to Thomas More Primary School and then St Mary's Catholic School in Bishop's Stortford, sang with the Cantate Youth Choir and local operatic societies, and performed in musical theatre with Youth Music Theatre UK. They loved the big-voiced singers their parents played, from Whitney Houston and Chaka Khan to Amy Winehouse. Growing up in a village as a young gay person was not always easy, and they have spoken about feeling different, but their family was fiercely supportive. At eighteen they moved to London to pursue music, working as a bartender while performing and writing. In 2012 they sang on Disclosure's Latch and Naughty Boy's La La La, and their debut album, In the Lonely Hour, became one of the best-selling albums of the decade, with Stay With Me winning Grammys. In 2019 they came out as non-binary, using they/them pronouns.”

Sources: soultracks.com Wikipedia: Sam Smith