George Ezra

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Birthday: Jun 7, 1993

Birthplace: Hertford, Hertfordshire, England, UK

Though his heroes were Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, Hertfordshire, England native George Ezra instead made his breakthrough with a sunny acoustic love song, "Budapest." Born to teacher parents, Ezra (born George Ezra Barnett) made an unsuccessful stab at playing bass and drums with bands in his early teens. After hearing Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, he picked up an acoustic guitar, attended music college in Bristol, and began writing in earnest. After uploading videos to YouTube he signed a record deal at age 19 and the BBC discovered him early, playing his early demos and booking him on the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury. "Budapest" got its first airplay at the end of 2013 and Ezra started building a name internationally thanks to ITunes and MTV exposure. His first album Wanted on Voyage was released in June 2014, with the harder-edged "Did You Hear the Rain" as the first single and "Budapest" as the follow-up. Many of the songs were inspired by a trip he'd taken around Europe-ironically Budapest was a city he'd missed, inspiring him to write the song. It became the third-best selling album of that year in the UK, and Ezra played numerous high-profile gigs including the Glastonbury Abbey Extravaganza with Robert Plant. He came to the US in 2015 and opened Sam Smith's sold-out tour, including a show at Madison Square Garden; he also performed "Budapest" on Saturday Night Live. The album's fifth single, "Listen to the Man," featured famed English actor Ian McKellen in the video. Much of the next two years were spent woodshedding, with a new single "Don't Matter Now" released after a brief UK tour in June 2017. His sophomore album Staying at Tamara's was again travel-inspired, the title refers to an AirBnB in Barcelona where much of it was written. Working with co-producer Joel Pott, who also cowrote most of the songs, Ezra went for a fuller sound with pop and worldbeat touches. Its second single "Paradise" became his biggest UK hit, charting at #2; he said in interviews that he had a new girlfriend and the song was written for her. To accompany the album's release he debuted a podcast, George Ezra & Friends in February 2018, the first guest was musical kindred spirit Ed Sheeran.