Natalie Powers
Encyclopedia
Natalie Powers is a British
solo recording artist and lead vocalist of the pop group Scooch
, which represented the United Kingdom
in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007
.
. Natalie was brought up with her two brothers in Sutton Coldfield in Birmingham. Natalie's parents, Peter and Gloria, recognised her talent and took her to audition for the lead role in Annie. Natalie toured around the country, and between the ages of seven and 14, she starred in many musicals and pantomimes, working with popular entertainers such as Michael Barrymore
and Les Dawson
amongst others.
Natalie left school at 16 with a number of theatre and television credits under her belt and moved to London, to study at the Arts Educational School of Performing Arts
in Chiswick. Upon leaving college, Natalie moved into the West End to take a principal role in the all-singing, all roller-skating show Starlight Express
at the Apollo Victoria Theatre
. She later appeared alongside Kim Wilde
in Tommy
at the Shaftesbury Theatre before returning to Starlight.
newspaper for a new pop act, in much the same way that the Popstars
series began. Natalie was called for an audition and after singing and dancing in front of Mike Stock, she was offered a place in the group. Caroline Barnes, David Ducasse and Russ Spencer
completed the group.
After signing a recording contract with Accolade, the pop imprint of EMI
, Scooch set about recording their debut single, "When My Baby" featuring Natalie on lead vocals. The song gave Scooch their first top 40 single. The group embarked on an arena tour supporting B*witched and later Five
to promote their follow-up single "More Than I Needed To Know". The single was released in January 2000 and entered the top 5.
Scooch's third UK release came in the form of no. 12 reaching, "The Best Is Yet To Come" in June 2000. They were successful overseas also, in other countries such as Japan, where "More Than I Needed To Know" reached no. 1. A fourth single followed in the form of the flamenco inspired "For Sure" which reached no. 15 in the UK singles charts and was followed by the album "Four Sure" which was released in August 2000. At the end of their EMI record contract the group split up.
Meeting with independent dance label Almighty Records in July 2001, it was agreed that they would work with Natalie on some solo material, the result of which was the top 5 single "Music To My Heart", a song which originally appeared on Scooch's debut album and was hailed by many fans as the best song Scooch ever recorded. Natalie embarked on a tour around to promote "Music To My Heart", also performing some old Scooch favorites. The public interest in Pop Idol
prompted Almighty to ask Natalie to record a dance version of "Unchained Melody
", which was soon to be released by Gareth Gates
, one of the finalists. Natalie's version was released in April 2002 and was well received.
While recording "Unchained Melody", Natalie overheard the producers remixing a track which later turned out to be "I Am Who I Am" by Belgian-Sicilian singer Lara Fabian. It was soon reworked by Natalie and was included on Almighty's Definitive Collection album.
In 2003, Natalie's vocals appeared on two underground-trance tracks "Liftin Me Up" and "Over & Over" for production act Echoten and she signed a record deal with Mike Stock's record label Better The Devil, home to the Fast Food Rockers. Although some new tracks were recorded, no singles were released resulting in Natalie and Better The Devil parting company in late 2004.
In 2004, the four original members of Scooch decided to do a mini tour of the UK, peaking at G-A-Y
.
In 2005 Natalie was approached by Northerbeat producer Ross Alexander to record an exclusive track for the Gayfest series. Natalie recorded a version of the Maria Vidal classic "Body Rock".
In the summer of 2006, Natalie was asked to record for a new compilation album Forever Bond which consists of remixes of classic Bond themes. Natalie chose to record "For Your Eyes Only" from the film of the same name. The album which also includes the likes of Kelly Llorenna
, Angie Brown
and Hannah Jones
was released in Europe and America in late 2006.
In 2006, Natalie started a business as a vocal coach, working with both established and new acts for stage and screen. In addition, she recorded a number of new club-oriented tracks, including an original track "Drifting Away", written and produced by Saint which was released on the Totally Clubbed Up compilation album in early 2007 via Energise Records.
contacted the other original Scooch members with an idea of recording a new track for the BBC's Making Your Mind Up
competition, the winners of which were to represent the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest
. Scooch recorded an original track called "Flying the Flag (for You)
", which won the selection competition.
Following the success in the Eurovision selections, the group signed a deal with Warner Bros.
Records in the UK and set about recording parts of the song in other European languages. Scooch released their Eurovison single on 7 May 2007 and performed at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007
. They finished 23rd out of 24 countries, receiving nineteen points; this did, however, include a maximum score of twelve from Malta
. The next day, their single reached number 5 in the UK singles UK Top 40.
Natalie recorded a new track "Shattered Glass", originally a hit for Laura Brannigan which was released as a single via Liberty City Music in the Spring of 2008. The release of this new material along with a new club mix of Flying The Flag saw Natalie on a UK club and Gay Pride tour.
Following this brief return to recording, Natalie has since married and extended her family with the birth of a second son, Max, in December 2008. Throughout 2010 and into 2011, Natalie has now returned to vocal coaching and regularly performs along with the other original members of Scooch at clubs across the UK.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
solo recording artist and lead vocalist of the pop group Scooch
Scooch
Scooch are a British bubblegum dance group, comprising performers Natalie Powers, Caroline Barnes, David Ducasse and Russ Spencer.Scooch represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki with their song "Flying the Flag ", finishing 23rd out of 24 entries after...
, which represented the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in the Eurovision Song Contest 2007
Eurovision Song Contest 2007
The Eurovision Song Contest 2007 was the 52nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was won by first-time appearance as an independent country Serbia and was held at the Hartwall Areena in Helsinki, Finland from 10 May to 12 May. The host broadcaster was YLE.Finland earned the right to host...
.
Early career
Natalie Powers began acting at the age of seven when she played the youngest orphan in the first run of the hit musical AnnieAnnie (musical)
Annie is a Broadway musical based upon the popular Harold Gray comic strip Little Orphan Annie, with music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Martin Charnin, and the book by Thomas Meehan. The original Broadway production opened in 1977 and ran for nearly six years with a blonde Annie as the poster...
. Natalie was brought up with her two brothers in Sutton Coldfield in Birmingham. Natalie's parents, Peter and Gloria, recognised her talent and took her to audition for the lead role in Annie. Natalie toured around the country, and between the ages of seven and 14, she starred in many musicals and pantomimes, working with popular entertainers such as Michael Barrymore
Michael Barrymore
Michael Kieron Parker , better known by his stage name Michael Barrymore, is a British comedian who appeared as a presenter of game shows and light entertainment programmes on British television in the 1980s and 1990s. These included Strike It Lucky, My Kind of People, My Kind of Music and Kids Say...
and Les Dawson
Les Dawson
Leslie "Les" Dawson was a popular English comedian remembered for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife.-Life and career:...
amongst others.
Natalie left school at 16 with a number of theatre and television credits under her belt and moved to London, to study at the Arts Educational School of Performing Arts
The Arts Educational Schools
Arts Educational Schools, London is an independent co-educational school specialising in the performing arts and based in Chiswick, London in the United Kingdom...
in Chiswick. Upon leaving college, Natalie moved into the West End to take a principal role in the all-singing, all roller-skating show Starlight Express
Starlight Express
Starlight Express is a rock musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber , Richard Stilgoe and Arlene Phillips , with later revisions by Don Black and David Yazbek . The story follows a child's dream in which his toy train set comes to life; famously the actors perform wearing roller skates...
at the Apollo Victoria Theatre
Apollo Victoria Theatre
The Apollo Victoria Theatre is a West End theatre, located on Wilton Road near Victoria station in the City of Westminster. Opened as a cinema and variety theatre, the Apollo Victoria became a venue for musical theatre, beginning with The Sound of Music in 1981, and including the long-running...
. She later appeared alongside Kim Wilde
Kim Wilde
Kim Wilde is an English pop singer, author and television presenter who burst onto the music scene in 1981 with the number 2 UK Singles Chart new wave classic "Kids in America". In 1987 she had a major hit in the United States when her version of The Supremes' classic "You Keep Me Hangin' On"...
in Tommy
Tommy (rock opera)
Tommy is the fourth album by English rock band The Who, released by Track Records and Polydor Records in the United Kingdom and Decca Records/MCA in the United States. A double album telling a loose story about a "deaf, dumb and blind boy" who becomes the leader of a messianic movement, Tommy was...
at the Shaftesbury Theatre before returning to Starlight.
Scooch
It was during this period that Natalie spotted an advert in The StageThe Stage
The Stage is a weekly British newspaper founded in 1880, available nationally and published on Thursdays. Covering all areas of the entertainment industry but focused primarily on theatre, it contains news, reviews, opinion, features and other items of interest, mainly to those who work within the...
newspaper for a new pop act, in much the same way that the Popstars
Popstars
Popstars is an international reality television franchise and a precursor to the Idol series. The series first began in New Zealand in 1999 when producer Jonathan Dowling formed the five member all-girl group TrueBliss...
series began. Natalie was called for an audition and after singing and dancing in front of Mike Stock, she was offered a place in the group. Caroline Barnes, David Ducasse and Russ Spencer
Russ Spencer
Russell Spencer is an English television presenter and singer.-TV work:Spencer is a television presenter, hosting shows such as the ITV1 game show Make Your Play. He was also anchor presenter three nights a week for The Great Big British Quiz on Five...
completed the group.
After signing a recording contract with Accolade, the pop imprint of EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
, Scooch set about recording their debut single, "When My Baby" featuring Natalie on lead vocals. The song gave Scooch their first top 40 single. The group embarked on an arena tour supporting B*witched and later Five
Five (band)
Five were an English boyband put together in 1997 by the same team that managed the Spice Girls before they launched their career. The five members were Scott Robinson, Ritchie Neville, J Brown, Abs Breen and Sean Conlon. Signed by Simon Cowell, they were a manufactured band and held several...
to promote their follow-up single "More Than I Needed To Know". The single was released in January 2000 and entered the top 5.
Scooch's third UK release came in the form of no. 12 reaching, "The Best Is Yet To Come" in June 2000. They were successful overseas also, in other countries such as Japan, where "More Than I Needed To Know" reached no. 1. A fourth single followed in the form of the flamenco inspired "For Sure" which reached no. 15 in the UK singles charts and was followed by the album "Four Sure" which was released in August 2000. At the end of their EMI record contract the group split up.
Solo Years (2001 - 2007)
Natalie gave birth to a son in February 2001 and rested for the next couple of months. Describing motherhood as "the most amazing experience of her life" she took time out to relax and travelled to Italy with him and her parents to recuperate.Meeting with independent dance label Almighty Records in July 2001, it was agreed that they would work with Natalie on some solo material, the result of which was the top 5 single "Music To My Heart", a song which originally appeared on Scooch's debut album and was hailed by many fans as the best song Scooch ever recorded. Natalie embarked on a tour around to promote "Music To My Heart", also performing some old Scooch favorites. The public interest in Pop Idol
Pop Idol
Pop Idol is a British television series which debuted on ITV on 6 October 2001. The show was a talent contest to decide the best new young pop singer in the United Kingdom, based on viewer voting and participation. Two series were broadcast - one in 2001-02 and a second in 2003...
prompted Almighty to ask Natalie to record a dance version of "Unchained Melody
Unchained Melody
"Unchained Melody" is a 1955 song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. It has become one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, by some counts having spawned over 500 versions in hundreds of different languages....
", which was soon to be released by Gareth Gates
Gareth Gates
Gareth Paul Gates , is an English singer-songwriter. He was the runner-up in the first series of the ITV talent show Pop Idol. Gates has sold over 3.5 million records in the UK alone. He is also known for having a stutter, and has talked about his speech impediment publicly...
, one of the finalists. Natalie's version was released in April 2002 and was well received.
While recording "Unchained Melody", Natalie overheard the producers remixing a track which later turned out to be "I Am Who I Am" by Belgian-Sicilian singer Lara Fabian. It was soon reworked by Natalie and was included on Almighty's Definitive Collection album.
In 2003, Natalie's vocals appeared on two underground-trance tracks "Liftin Me Up" and "Over & Over" for production act Echoten and she signed a record deal with Mike Stock's record label Better The Devil, home to the Fast Food Rockers. Although some new tracks were recorded, no singles were released resulting in Natalie and Better The Devil parting company in late 2004.
In 2004, the four original members of Scooch decided to do a mini tour of the UK, peaking at G-A-Y
G-A-Y
G-A-Y is a gay nightclub in London. It operated from the London Astoria music venue for 15 years until July 2008. The Boston Globe described it as "London's largest gay-themed club night", NME reported that it "attracts 6,000 clubbers each week", and The Independent described it as "the one London...
.
In 2005 Natalie was approached by Northerbeat producer Ross Alexander to record an exclusive track for the Gayfest series. Natalie recorded a version of the Maria Vidal classic "Body Rock".
In the summer of 2006, Natalie was asked to record for a new compilation album Forever Bond which consists of remixes of classic Bond themes. Natalie chose to record "For Your Eyes Only" from the film of the same name. The album which also includes the likes of Kelly Llorenna
Kelly Llorenna
Kelly Llorenna is an English female dance music and Euro-trance singer, who was raised in Oldham, Greater Manchester.-1992: Debut with N-Trance:...
, Angie Brown
Angie Brown
Angie Brown born is a female singer/songwriter from Brixton, in South London.Brown, whose vocals have been featured on tracks of diverse acts ranging from Fatboy Slim to Lisa Stansfield & The Wah Brothers, is more famous as the featured vocalist on Bizarre Inc's two #1 Hot Dance Music/Club Play...
and Hannah Jones
Hannah Jones
Hannah Jones is a British female dance music vocalist, who scored Three Top 5 hits on the Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart in the late 1990s. Her first two songs hit #1 on that chart: "No One Can Love You More Than Me" in 1997 and "You Only Have To Say You Love Me" in 1998...
was released in Europe and America in late 2006.
In 2006, Natalie started a business as a vocal coach, working with both established and new acts for stage and screen. In addition, she recorded a number of new club-oriented tracks, including an original track "Drifting Away", written and produced by Saint which was released on the Totally Clubbed Up compilation album in early 2007 via Energise Records.
Scooch Eurovision Reunion
In October 2006, Russ SpencerRuss Spencer
Russell Spencer is an English television presenter and singer.-TV work:Spencer is a television presenter, hosting shows such as the ITV1 game show Make Your Play. He was also anchor presenter three nights a week for The Great Big British Quiz on Five...
contacted the other original Scooch members with an idea of recording a new track for the BBC's Making Your Mind Up
Making Your Mind Up (TV series)
Eurovision: Your Country Needs You was a BBC TV show broadcast annually to select the United Kingdom's entry into the Eurovision Song Contest...
competition, the winners of which were to represent the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest
Eurovision Song Contest
The Eurovision Song Contest is an annual competition held among active member countries of the European Broadcasting Union .Each member country submits a song to be performed on live television and then casts votes for the other countries' songs to determine the most popular song in the competition...
. Scooch recorded an original track called "Flying the Flag (for You)
Flying the Flag (for You)
"Flying the Flag " is a song performed by British pop/bubblegum dance group Scooch.The song was entered and won the British national selection competition for the Eurovision Song Contest, Eurovision: Making Your Mind Up in 2007, and subsequently represented the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song...
", which won the selection competition.
Following the success in the Eurovision selections, the group signed a deal with Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
Records in the UK and set about recording parts of the song in other European languages. Scooch released their Eurovison single on 7 May 2007 and performed at the Eurovision Song Contest 2007
Eurovision Song Contest 2007
The Eurovision Song Contest 2007 was the 52nd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was won by first-time appearance as an independent country Serbia and was held at the Hartwall Areena in Helsinki, Finland from 10 May to 12 May. The host broadcaster was YLE.Finland earned the right to host...
. They finished 23rd out of 24 countries, receiving nineteen points; this did, however, include a maximum score of twelve from Malta
Malta in the Eurovision Song Contest
Malta has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest since 1971. At first the island state sent songs in its native language, Maltese, but it failed to rank highly, and withdrew after the 1975 contest. Since its return in 1991, however, it has achieved eight top ten placings in a row, including...
. The next day, their single reached number 5 in the UK singles UK Top 40.
After Eurovision
Subsequent to their Eurovision exposure, the group embarked on a series of gigs across the UK & Ireland.Natalie recorded a new track "Shattered Glass", originally a hit for Laura Brannigan which was released as a single via Liberty City Music in the Spring of 2008. The release of this new material along with a new club mix of Flying The Flag saw Natalie on a UK club and Gay Pride tour.
Following this brief return to recording, Natalie has since married and extended her family with the birth of a second son, Max, in December 2008. Throughout 2010 and into 2011, Natalie has now returned to vocal coaching and regularly performs along with the other original members of Scooch at clubs across the UK.