Jem

This is the 96th post in our Musician of the Day series.

Jemma Griffiths was born in 1975 in Wales. Jem began writing and singing songs at the age of 13 but instead of going into music she attended Sussex University for a Law degree. She spent her college years working as a DJ agent and even helped to set up and run the label Marine Parade.

It was in 1999 that she set up her own mobile recording studio in order to help with her music promotion efforts. She used this studio to create four demos for herself.

In 2002 she caught a break when one of her demo songs was played on the radio. The track ended up being the most listener requested song at the station and put Jem in as one of the station’s top 5 artists played. The popularity of the track gained the attention of the ATO label who soon signed Jem.

She released an EP in 2003 entitled It All Starts Here and an album Finally Woken in 2004.

After the release of her first album she went to work on another but not before writing and performing songs for movies and television. She wrote the song “Once in a Lifetime” for the movie Eragon and her first single off of her second album, “It’s Amazing” was used in the Sex and the City movie.

In 2008 she released her second album Down to Earth.

To learn more about Jem visit her website or BBC wales.

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