Vega, Suzanne Nadine
1959 - Born on July 11th in Santa Monica, California.
1970 - Her parents often sang folk songs around the house, and when she began playing the guitar at age 11, she found herself attracted to the poetry of singer/songwriter music (Dylan, Cohen), and found a refuge from New York's chaos in traditional folk (Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Joan Baez).
1973 - At age 14, she made her first attempts at writing songs; however, when she attended the High School for the Performing Arts as a teenager, it was to study dance, not music.
1979 - Vega attended a Lou Reed concert, and the effect was a revelation: here was an artist chronicling the harsh urban world Vega knew, with the detail and literacy of a folk artist. Vega discovered a new voice and sense of possibility for her original material, and her writing grew rapidly.
1982 - Vega graduated from college and held down several low-level day jobs while quickly becoming the Greenwich Village folk scene's brightest hope.
1983 - After three years of rejections, Vega and her managers Ron Fierstein and Steve Addabbo finally convinced A&M (which had turned her down twice) to give her a shot, and she signed a contract.
1995 - Married to Mitchell Froom on March 17th.
1999 - Vega released the best-of retrospective Tried and True, taking stock of her past career (she had also split with longtime manager Ron Fierstein); she also published her first book, The Passionate Eye, a collection of poems, lyrics, essays, journalistic pieces, and the like.
2001 - Vega returned with her first album in five years, Songs in Red and Gray, which was greeted with her strongest reviews in a decade.
1970 - Her parents often sang folk songs around the house, and when she began playing the guitar at age 11, she found herself attracted to the poetry of singer/songwriter music (Dylan, Cohen), and found a refuge from New York's chaos in traditional folk (Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Judy Collins, Joan Baez).
1973 - At age 14, she made her first attempts at writing songs; however, when she attended the High School for the Performing Arts as a teenager, it was to study dance, not music.
1979 - Vega attended a Lou Reed concert, and the effect was a revelation: here was an artist chronicling the harsh urban world Vega knew, with the detail and literacy of a folk artist. Vega discovered a new voice and sense of possibility for her original material, and her writing grew rapidly.
1982 - Vega graduated from college and held down several low-level day jobs while quickly becoming the Greenwich Village folk scene's brightest hope.
1983 - After three years of rejections, Vega and her managers Ron Fierstein and Steve Addabbo finally convinced A&M (which had turned her down twice) to give her a shot, and she signed a contract.
1995 - Married to Mitchell Froom on March 17th.
1999 - Vega released the best-of retrospective Tried and True, taking stock of her past career (she had also split with longtime manager Ron Fierstein); she also published her first book, The Passionate Eye, a collection of poems, lyrics, essays, journalistic pieces, and the like.
2001 - Vega returned with her first album in five years, Songs in Red and Gray, which was greeted with her strongest reviews in a decade.
Page last updated: 12:59am, 11th Apr '07