sandi thom

By Catherine Jones on Dec 8, 07 10:07 AM

I was invited to Lipa yesterday to attend a Q&A session with Sandi Thom.
Possibly one of the more high profile Lipa graduates, Thom is currently putting the finishing touches to her second album.
Apparently the first (which went to number one and has sold more than a million copies worldwide) was recorded in a barn in deepest Cheshire.

This latest one was recorded in her basement - or at least, A basement. I wasn't clear really.
Anyway, she came back to Lipa to give the current batch of students a little inspiration and some behind-the-scenes information about how she hit the big time.
The initial story, pounced on by the national media, was that she'd arrived from nowhere and was "discovered" playing 21 nights of gigs on the Internet from her flat in Tooting.
Of course the truth is the Internet thing, inspired by a gig she got involved in in Edinburgh, was just the culmination of three years' hard work by what is a quiet, shy but very determined young woman.
We were also played one of the tracks from her new album, and as a finale she performed a simply beautiful song with nothing but a 12-string acoustic guitar there in the auditorium.
You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. You certainly heard the cursed mobile phone someone had put on silent but was still merrily "silently" vibrating.