Helen Boulding

Few artists arrive with such music industry insider support as London-based singer/songwriter Helen Boulding when she released her debut album, a diverse set of names that ran from Ryan Adams to Rick Wright were already in her corner. Born and raised in Sheffield, Boulding first came to London to study under Annie Lennox’s vocal coach. In 1996, she put her training to use as a background singer for 911, but it was her skills at songwriting that really impressed the teen-pop group’s producer, Eliot Kennedy. With Kennedy, she would co-write the group’s 1997 Top Five hit "The Day We Find Love." Through word of mouth, work with Squeeze’s Chris Difford, Pink Floyd’s Rick Wright, American hitmaker Billy Steinberg, and the Good, The Bad & The Queen member Simon Tong would follow, and then in 2003, she would co-write "Maybe That's What It Takes," the debut single of Fame Academy winner Alex Parks. In 2005, she released her House Work EP and two years later lent her vocals to the Orb album The Dream. Ryan Adams had already declared himself a fan due to some demos he had been given, so when Boulding entered the final stages of preparing her debut album, she asked the part-time photographer to take the shot. Adams’ photo would grace the cover of New Red Dress, her debut album featuring the singles “Breathe” and “Copenhagen.”