June 23: Scottish singer-songwriter KT Tunstall is 38-years-old today.

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Did you know?

Although her first name is Kate, she chooses to go by KT (and not Katie) as her first name, saying "[Kate] just makes me think of a buxom lass baking bread for her man working in the fields. I have no problem with that, but it's just not really how I pictured being a rock star."

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Kate Victoria "KT" Tunstall was 18 days old when she was adopted by an English family in St Andrews, Scotland. Her parents had no interest in music and owned no records.

After attending school in Scotland, having learned the piano, flute, and guitar, she left Scotland and attended Kent School in Connecticut in the U.S. for her final year of high school. There, she formed her first band, The Happy Campers. She also spent time busking on Church Street in Burlington, Vermont, and at a commune in rural Vermont.

Throughout her 20s, Tunstall played in Indie music bands including Elia Drew and Tomoko. She focused on songwriting, as well as performing with members of the fledgling Fence Collective.

KT broke into the public eye with a 2004 live solo performance of her song "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on Later... with Jools Holland. Her performance caught the eye of many viewers, although she had previously performed it on French television only some weeks before, upstaging more established acts such as The Cure, Embrace, and The Futureheads; she then went on to top the post-show poll on the website for that episode.

Shortly after the Later appearance, Eye to the Telescope was re-released and shot up the British charts, eventually peaking at #3 (on its first release it had entered at #73); it was nominated for the 2005 Mercury Music Prize. It was released in the U.S. in February 2006.

"Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" was one of the most successful singles and most radio-played songs of 2005 in the U.K. On the UK Singles Charts, the single made number twenty-eight on the charts and on the US Billboard Hot 100, charted at number twenty.

The next release from the album in the U.K. was "Other Side of the World" whilst "Suddenly I See" was released in the U.S. and used in the opening credits of the film The Devil Wears Prada. Other singles from the album were "Under the Weather" and "Another Place to Fall" which were also successful.

KT has enjoyed commercial and critical success since, picking up three nominations before winning a BRIT Award, and a Grammy Award nomination. She is also the recipient of an Ivor Novello Award.

She has released four albums internationally. After Eye to the Telescope, she recorded and released KT Tunstall's Acoustic Extravaganza (2006) and Drastic Fantastic (2007).

In February 2010, The Daily Record reported that Tunstall had recorded her new album in Berlin's Hansa Studios next to where Berlin Wall stood. The album, titled Tiger Suit, was released in the U.K. in September 2010 and in the U.S. the next month. The album's first single was "Fade Like a Shadow" in the U.S. and "(Still a) Weirdo" in the U.K.

As of February 2012, KT Tunstall has started working on a new album for release in 2012.

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For more about KT, visit her Website at -

http://www.kttunstall.com/

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