Ketevan Melua

Ketevan Melua was born in Kutaisi, Georgia in 1984 and spent most of her childhood in the town of Batumi, Ajaria where her father worked as a heart specialist. In 1993, the family moved to Belfast, Northern Ireland, as her father had won a position at the prestigious Royal Victoria Hospital, where she attended St. Catherine's Primary School and Dominican College, Fortwilliam.

The family moved again to Redhill, Surrey, in 1998. At the age of fifteen, Melua won a talent competition on British television channel ITV by singing Badfinger's Without You. In her final years of schooling, she attended the Brit School for the Performing Arts undertaking a BTEC with an A-level in music. She started writing songs in 2001 while studying at the school. During this time, she was the girlfriend of Luke Pritchard from the band The Kooks.

In 2001, aged 16, Melua did a Work Experience placement at the BBC Research and Development Department in Kingswood Warren, Surrey. At BBC R&D, the eminent, perhaps somewhat eccentric engineers and professors, noting Melua's sharpness, encouraged her to aim to go to University, but an ambitious Melua replied that she had already decided to be a singer, and began her song-writing career.

Melua's diverse background has given her other talents apart from her singing voice. She can speak English in not only home-counties RP, but also various Irish accents, and has been known to impersonate characters such as the Rev. Ian Paisley, as she demonstrated during her work-experience at the BBC R&D.

In November 2006 it was reported that she had formed a relationship with photographer Lara Bloom after having split from Kooks singer Luke Pritchard. To date the report has received no independent support.

Musical taste
In April 2006, Melua chose an eclectic fourteen-track playlist for the iTunes music store of her favourite tracks and biggest musical influences.

Paul Simon - "Hearts And Bones"
Jeff Buckley - "Hallelujah"
Joni Mitchell - "Marcie"
Bob Dylan - "Masters Of War"
James Taylor - "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)"
Chuck Berry - "No Particular Place To Go"
Portishead - "Glory Box"
Bj?rk - "The Pleasure Is All Mine"
Camille - "Au Port"
Rage Against The Machine - "Killing in the Name"
Bobbie Gentry - "Fancy"
Finlay Quaye - "Even After All"
Suzanne Vega - "Caramel"
Babyshambles - "Fuck Forever"

She has also revealed on numerous occasions how Queen were a huge influence on her as a child/teenager, with one of her memories being buying Queen's Greatest Hits II and singing along to "Radio Ga Ga" in her home country Georgia.