Dido Biography
Dido Armstrong (pronounced Die-Dough) was born on Christmas Day – thats December 25th 1971. Dido was named after an African Warrior Queen, by her Mother and Publisher Father. The Armstrongs lived in London throughout Dido’s childhood, and it is still her hometown. Without the influence of a television at home, Dido found music to be her entertainment – her talent emerged rapidly and she enrolled at London’s Guildhall School of Music at the age of 6. Starting on that favourite schoolday instrument – the recorder – she soon became competent in all the available pieces, and graduated onto Violin and Piano. This led to her first touring experiences as a member of a Classical Ensemble.
Teenage years were influenced by brother Rollo’s music collection – Dido names such legends of the early 80’s as The Clash and Duran Duran – together with Ella Fitzgerald. School unfortunately leads to getting “a real job”, and Dido fell back on her love of reading, getting a job as a literary agent whilst simultaneously studying at Law School. Music still played a large part in her life, and she sang with a number of bands in the London area. One such project was her brother’s band Faithless. This can now be seen as a great move for Dido, as it introduced her to the nation and the industry. Faithless launched with their debut album “Reverence” with Dido providing some backing vocals and lead on “Flowerstand Man”. 5 Million albums were sold, Faithless became known, and Dido had sown the seeds that were to take her into the big time.
At first Rollo was against the move, and urged her not to give up the day job! However, his stance softened over time, and his association possibly influenced Clive Davis of Arista to give Dido a chance in an audition in his hotel room. Rollo helped on Dido’s debut album No Angel, and payed his sister back for her earlier help with Faithless. Released in the United States in the summer of 1999, the first single Here With Me, was supported by a half million dollar video. Unfortunately the video never achieved mainstream play on MTV or VH1, and Arista could have been forgiven for pulling out. Thankfully they stuck to their guns, and together with the release of The Highbury Fields EP, Dido gained a small but loyal following especially around the college scene. Internet sites were formed, friends told friends about this great new singer, and slowly people grew more aware. Obviously somebody on the Roswell High production team thought enough of Here With Me, to use it as the theme song for the television programme. The initial breakthrough was achieved, but the big push had only just begun in the US.
Back over on this side of the water, things were decidedly more complicated. The sale of Cheeky Records, owned by Rollo, meant that No Angel was unable to be released to the UK market, and thus Dido and Arista put all their efforts into a gruelling schedule of touring, publicity appearances and TV shows. At this point 250,000 copies of No Angel had been shifted, but the best was yet to come. Little did Dido know, but the controversial rapper Eminem had been interested enough in Thankyou to sample the first verse for his crazed fan epic “Stan”. Dido – long an Eminem fan herself – approved the sample, and the track became a cornerstone of the MTV Europe award-winning Marshall Mathers LP. Critics hailed the combination of Eminem’s harsh and incisive delivery and Dido’s emotive love song, and the track stormed to the UK Number One in December 2000. Suddenly people from the UK were able to get a taste of Dido and many liked what they heard. Interest grew, and the internet message boards started to get a British flavour. The album sales intensified in America, with the tour continuing to be well supported. Finally, all bars to the release of No Angel were removed, and Arista launched the album in late October 2000 to acclaim from many. A new video was created for Here With Me, which received good airtime on VH1, and Eminem launched his epic “Stan” video complete with Dido as Stan’s girlfriend. Dido also came a close second to The Corrs in VH1’s My Music Best Kept Secret Category. The video for Thankyou released in the US early 2001, and looked set to push Dido further into the mainstream conscience.
The future looked bright for Dido, with Stan and Here With Me receiving airplay on Radio 1 into 2001. Here With Me was released on Februry 12th, and a UK Enhanced version of No Angel with extra photographs and multimedia videos went on sale late January – and promptly went to Number One in the charts. Dido delighted all her fans in Europe by announcing the European early-2001 dates, including many in the UK due to enormous demand. Through the early months of 2001, Dido continued to gain in popularity – No Angel’s sales passing the magical million total and monopolising the Number One slot for 6 weeks rapidly becoming the best selling album of 2001 so far. Thankyou made number three in the charts to keep Dido in the limelight – and the European tour proved a success. Approaching 8 million copies of No Angel are now recorded as sold – an astonishing number from an album that Dido herself thought would only heard by her friends.
Meanwhile, she returned triumphant to North America for a summer tour schedule that included some much larger venues – accompanied by the UK rock band Travis, and Icelander Emiliana Torrini. In the Autumn, Dido travelled to Australasia and Japan, to perform in front of her more recent converts. With her new songs receiving critical acclaim, the next album looks likely to be just as successful!