| Fraser's confidence is rooted in a life-long history steeped in music. Her mom discovered her plinking out "Do-Re-Mi" from The Sound of Music on the piano when she was two, and made sure her daughter had access to instruments. Fraser grew up in New Zealand's capital city of Wellington, and her earliest musical memory is of watching her great-uncle Athol, "a one-armed trumpet player," practice circular breathing on his horn. At seven, she began piano lessons. At 12, she began writing songs after a music teacher asked her class to compose an original tune about Christmas. "I discovered that I felt at home in the process of creating words and melodies," she recalls. "And I've been writing ever since." Fraser fell in love with the confessional lyrics and timeless melodies of James Taylor, Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Paula Cole, and eventually began to play the guitar. In 2002, when she was 18, Fraser signed with Sony Music and moved to Auckland where she played regularly at local venues while she wrote the songs that would appear on her debut album, What To Do With Daylight. That album, released in New Zealand in 2003, debuted at No. 1 and achieved gold status the same week. It eventually went eight times platinum, selling more than 120000 copies in New Zealand alone, and remained in the Top 10 on the album charts for more than a year. The album spawned five Top 20 singles and made Fraser a star in her home country, leading to 2004 tours of Australia and New Zealand with ... |
