27 minutes | Tuesday, 5 March 2024
'The CountryLine Songwriter Series', is where you'll hear from some of the most successful artists and songwriters working in Nashville today. Country music is all about storytelling and this is where you'll discover the stories from the people themselves of how they managed to find their way into such a competitive industry and rise to the top. What motivates and inspires them and what they've learnt along the way.
Colbie Caillat's childhood was spent in Malibu and Ventura County with her father, Ken, who famously produced the landmark Fleetwood Mac albums Rumours and Tusk. She took piano lessons as a child but lacked significant inspiration until she turned 11 and became enthralled with Lauryn Hill's performance in Sister Act 2. Immediately realizing that she wanted to be a singer, she started taking vocal lessons and soon met Mikal Blue, a producer who had previously worked with Five for Fighting and Carrie Underwood.
As the collaboration thickened, Jason Reeves entered the picture and lent his artistic know-how to the songwriter's developing skills. She posted several of her finished songs on MySpace, although little response was generated until Caillat uploaded a breezy, hook-laden track named "Bubbly”. As word of mouth spread, Rolling Stone highlighted her as one of the top female artists on the networking site. For four months, Caillat was MySpace's number one unsigned artist, garnering over 14 million plays in the process. With such an appealing statistic on her résumé, record labels began courting her, and she signed to Universal Republic.
In July 2007, Caillat made her major-label debut with “Coco”, a summertime record suitable for both the coffeehouse and the beach. "Bubbly", topped the singles charts in several formats, transforming the singer from an Internet sensation to a mainstream presence. Caillat celebrated her star success by duetting with Jason Mraz, touring with John Mayer, and collaborating with Taylor Swift. Two years after “Coco's”, release, she returned with a second record, “Breakthrough”. The album went gold and was followed two years later by “All of You”, another summery collection of pop songs written with the likes of Ryan Tedder, Toby Gad, and "Bubbly" co-writer Jason Reeves.
Caillat began work on her next album in 2013, with the first fruit of her labour, "Hold On”, appearing in November 2013. An EP called “Gypsy Heart (Side A)”, showed up in June 2014 and, as that title suggests, it was the first half of a full-length album called “Gypsy Heart”, which was released in September 2014. Produced in part by Babyface, the album was a conscious shift to popular, radio-friendly material. The album debuted at 17 on Billboard's Top 200 and its biggest single, "Try," peaked at six on their adult contemporary chart.
Caillat parted ways with Republic Records after “Gypsy Heart”, and formed her own label, PlummyLou, with the intent of releasing “The Malibu Sessions”. Recorded prior to “Gypsy Heart”, but rejected by Republic, “The Malibu Sessions”, reconnected Caillat to her beachy sound, and saw release in October of 2016. Caillat started another label, Blue Jean Baby, for “Along the Way”, her 2023 album of contemporary country songs.