Biography
Jennifer Paige was born on September 3, 1973. She was raised in Marietta, Georgia. Jennifer has been singing since she was only five years old. At eight she was singing duets with her older brother, Chance, performing at local coffeehouses and restaurants. At ten, Jennifer took up playing the piano, and by thirteen she was writing her own songs.
Jennifer grew up studying dance, peforming arts and voice at a performing arts school called Pebblebrook. As a sophomore at Pebblebrook she sang "I Dreamed A Little Dream" from Les Miserables. Jennifer's Mom says "her Dad and I got cold chills...when she performed that night she captured the audience." Her mother knew after that Jennifer would be a star someday.
After high school, Jennifer toured the country with a Top 40 band. She Eventually she ended up in Las Vegas singing in a lounge at Bally's. One night while performing, Jennifer had a chance meeting with actress/singer Crystal Bernard. Crystal was impressed enough by her singing that she said "you're a great singer, you really should be in L.A." That was all it took to get Jennifer to move to Los Angeles. After moving to Los Angeles in 1995, Jennifer hooked up with another Top 40 cover band, Joe's Band. Jen, as a lot of her friends call her, sang for over three years with Joe's Band. Jennifer performed all over the country with the band. The highlight being in August 1996 when Joe's Band played before a crowd of over 50,000 in Atlanta at the Olympic games.
In Mid-1996, Jennifer hooked up with producer Andy Goldmark. She recorded a dance version of Aretha Franklin's "Chain Of Fools" which caught the attention of German indie label, Edel Records. Edel was looking for a pop artist to establish their presence in America. In October 1997, Edel President Jonathan First heard Jennifer's demo tape and was so impressed that he flew to Los Angeles and signed her.
After being signed by Edel, Jennifer continued to record songs. In April 1998, she had finished up recording a tune called "Crush." Producer Andy Goldmark then took a copy of "Crush" to legendary top 40 station, KIIS FM in Los Angeles. Because KIIS is such a large and influential station, Andy wanted them to know about Jennifer with "Crush" being kind of as an introduction to her. Jennifer says they kind of took him half-heartedly at first, but then after listening to it "they flipped over it!" KIIS program director Dan Kieley and music director Tracy Austin told Andy "we really wanna play this!" Of course, Andy said "Okay, you're KIIS FM, do whatever you want!"
The week of May 4th, 1998, KIIS FM became the first station in the entire world to begin playing "Crush," spinning it twelve times. The first time Jennifer heard "Crush" on the radio she says "I was talking on the phone to my mama and just started screaming!" Things happened pretty quickly after that. "We had no pictures, photography, gotten it mastered, mass-produced it, nothing" says Jennifer. "We had to scurry around and kinda catch up and get the song in stores and stuff." Edel made an initial press run of 20,000 copies of "Crush" which sold very quickly.
The rest as they say is history...
"Crush" became KIIS FM's #1 most requested record. The next few weeks four other major Top 40 stations nationwide added "Crush" to their rotations. With all of this attention, it should come as no surprise that many major labels were interested in signing Jennifer to a contract. In early June, she signed with Hollywood Records. The floodgates really began to open the week of June 1st when 22 more Top 40 stations began to play "Crush." The following two weeks 72 more Top 40 stations added "Crush" and it debuted on the Radio and Records CHR/Pop chart at #35 in the June 26th issue. On July 9th, Jennifer then made her first on-air in studio appearance at KIIS FM with world famous DJ Rick Dees. Jennifer also performed "Crush" for the first time live that morning. On July 24th, "Crush" cracked the Top 10.
In August, "Crush" was certified Gold for sales of 500,000 copies. "Crush" would remain in R&R's Top 10 all the way through November 13th, peaking at #2 on October 16th. America is not alone in its "Crush" on Jennifer Paige. "Crush" has become an international hit as well, spending 8 weeks at #1 on Canada's Top 40 airplay chart. "Crush" has also hit #1 in airplay in Australia (both airplay and sales), Norway, Spain, Denmark, New Zealand, South Africa and Latvia. "Crush" has also cracked the Top 5 in the UK, France, Italy, The Netherlands, and Hungary, as well as hitting #6 in Ireland. "Crush" is so popular in the United Kingdom that it has been included in 23 different hits compilations since its release!
In January, 1999, Hollywood released "Sober" as the second single to radio stations in America and "Always You" in Europe. "Sober" was one of the most added records in it's first two weeks of release, and debuted on Radio and Records Top 50 Pop chart at #49 on February 5th, 1999.
