Sarah Joyce – stage name Rumer – has come a long way since winning the school’s talent show back in 1994. In 2010 She released her debut single Slow and saw it named single of the week on Radio 2.

According to the Slow Songfacts, Sarah spent the early years of her life in Pakistan,having been born in Islamabad on 3rd June 1979, where her father was the chief-engineer of the enormous Tarbela Dam, 30 miles to the northwest of Islamabad. The youngest of seven children, living in an expat colony without TV or newspapers, Rumer and her family would often sing and write songs together. Her brother Rob gave Rumer her first guitar; which she taught herself to play, and on which, years later, she wrote all the songs on her debut album, Seasons of My Soul.

The singer/songwriter spent her teenage years in Carlisle at Newman School before leaving at 16 to pursue her ambition. It has been a hard slog but years later she is finally hitting the big time and gradually becoming a household name. She now hopes her success will inspire other young people to follow their dreams.

Having had her single listed ahead of its release on both Radio 2 and Magic FM, she is also preparing to support Jools Holland on his UK tour this autumn – the finale being a show at the Albert Hall.

She also has a celebrity fan in the form of easy listening legend Burt Bacharach, who invited her to sing for him when she visited California. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.