Vanessa Carlton was born on August 16, 1980, as the first of two children to Ed and Heidi Carlton, her parents. Her mother, a piano teacher, introduced her to classical music from a young age, and by the time Vanessa was just two years old, she had already begun playing the piano.
As she grew older, Vanessa's passion for music only intensified. By the age of nine, she had become obsessed with ballet, and at 14, she joined the School of American Ballet, where she lived in a dorm at Lincoln Center and enrolled in the Professional Children's School. During her time at the academy, Vanessa continued to play the piano and write songs, honing her songwriting skills.
After graduating from the academy, Vanessa moved to Hell's Kitchen, where she worked as a waitress five nights a week and performed at local clubs on open mic nights. She would often stay up late recording demos on a four-track machine and was eventually signed to A&M Records in 2001.
Her first music video, for the song "A Thousand Miles," was released while she was still recording her debut album, and it quickly became a hit on MTV, cracking the American Top Ten and earning her a spot on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 'Top Ten Artists to Watch in 2002.'
Vanessa's debut album, titled 'Be Not Nobody,' was released in April 2002, and her second single, "Ordinary Day," was a hit on the charts and with MTV viewers. She spent the rest of 2002 and early 2003 on tour and then planned to enroll in Columbia University full-time in the fall of 2003.
Despite her busy music career, Vanessa maintained that she would have no problem juggling her music with her studies.
