Vanessa Carlton

Vanessa Lee Carlton, born August 16, 1980, in Milford, Pennsylvania, is an American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actress. The first of three children born to Edmund Carlton, a pilot, and Heidi Lee, a pianist and school music teacher, Carlton grew up alongside a sister, Gwen, and a brother, Edmund. Her mother comes from a Jewish family in Queens, New York. Carlton's engagement with music began at age two, when she returned from a visit to Disneyland and played "It's a Small World" on the piano; her mother subsequently began tutoring her in classical music. By age nine she had developed a passion for ballet, and in 1994, at fourteen, she enrolled at the School of American Ballet. After completing her studies there, she performed in nightclubs before relocating to New York City, where she attended Columbia University for one year before leaving and working as a waitress in Hell's Kitchen. Carlton has spoken publicly about her experiences with depression and bulimia.

Carlton's professional music career began when she met songwriter and producer Peter Zizzo at a singer-songwriter circle, leading to a studio demo session. Three months later, she was signed by Jimmy Iovine to A&M Records and began work on an album titled Rinse, which was never released, though several of its tracks were reworked for her debut. A&M president Ron Fair, after hearing Carlton's demo of "A Thousand Miles," organized dedicated recording sessions and produced and arranged the song himself. The tracks were recorded in Los Angeles at IGA Studios in Santa Monica, Henson Studios in Hollywood, and Royaltone Studios in Burbank, with Carlton performing piano and vocals alongside a backing band, a 60-piece orchestra, and sitar on a cover of the Jagger/Richards song "Paint It Black."

Her debut album, Be Not Nobody, was released in April 2002 on A&M Records, debuting at number five on the Billboard 200 with 102,000 units sold in its first week and ultimately selling more than two million copies worldwide. Its lead single, "A Thousand Miles," spent 41 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaked in the top five, and became the sixth-most-played song of that year, earning Grammy Award nominations for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s). The album produced two additional singles, "Ordinary Day" and "Pretty Baby." Carlton toured the United States in 2002 in support of the record, opening for the Goo Goo Dolls and Third Eye Blind before headlining her own tour later that year and traveling to Europe in 2003. During this period she also contributed descant vocals to the Counting Crows' recording of Joni Mitchell's "Big Yellow Taxi," played piano for Italian singer Zucchero on "Indaco Dagli Occhi Del Cielo," and provided backing vocals on "Moving On" by Kimya Dawson for the album Hidden Vagenda.

Carlton's second album, Harmonium, was released in November 2004 and produced by Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind, whom Carlton had met and begun a relationship with during the 2002 tour. The album debuted at number 33 on the Billboard 200 and sold fewer than 150,000 copies by February 2006. Its single "White Houses," released to radio in late August 2004, peaked at number 86 on the Billboard Hot 100; MTV censored and later banned its music video over a lyric referencing sexual intercourse, a decision Carlton attributed to the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show controversy involving Janet Jackson. Carlton departed A&M Records in mid-2005, citing disagreements over the label's desire to re-release Harmonium while she preferred to promote the album as originally recorded. While in the studio during this transitional period, she wrote songs with Linda Perry and The Matrix, and collaborated again with Zucchero on his album Zu & Co.

Her third album, Heroes & Thieves, was released in 2007 to generally positive reviews, debuting at number 44 on the Billboard 200. Its first single, "Nolita Fairytale," peaked at number 26 on Billboard's Adult Top 40 Tracks chart. Carlton subsequently produced her next two albums independently: Rabbits on the Run in 2011 and Liberman in 2015, both of which received acclaim for their personal subject matter and musical direction. Her sixth studio album, Love Is an Art, followed in 2020. In 2025, Billboard ranked Carlton among the best female artists of the 21st century.

Outside of her recording career, Carlton made her Broadway debut in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, appearing in the production in 2014 in a leading role.