SUZANNE Vega takes to the stage of Leamington Assembly on Wednesday June 27.
The singer-songwriter emerged as a leading figure of the folk-music revival of the early 1980s when, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, she sang what has been labeled contemporary folk or neo-folk songs of her own creation in Greenwich Village clubs.
Since the release of her self-titled critically acclaimed 1985 debut album, she has performed sold-out concerts around the world and released a string of acclaimed albums.
Born in Santa Monica, California, she grew up in Spanish Harlem and the Upper West Side of New York City. She was influenced by her mother, a computer systems analyst and her stepfather, the Puerto Rican writer Egardo Vega Yunque. There was a heady mix of multicultural music playing at home – Motown, bossa nova, jazz and folk.
At age 11 she picked up a guitar and as a teenager she started to write songs.
She studied dance at the High School for the Performing Arts but it was in 1979 after she attended a concert by Lou Reed that she found her true artistic voice and distinctive contemporary folk vision.
Her debut album was included in Rolling Stone’s ‘100 Greatest Recordings of the 1980s’.
Follow-up album Solitude Standing included the song Tom’s Diner which became a massive hit when remixed by UK electronic dance duo DNA.
The most recent of her nine studio albums to date was Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers, released in 2016.
Visit leamingtonassembly.com for tickets and further details.
