- Folk-Pop singer, songwriter, musician born in Malibu California in 1985.
- Caillat’s father was the producer for Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors and Tusk albums – the Rumors album is one of the biggest selling albums of all time, certified 20x platinum (only 11 albums have ever been certified 20x platinum or higher). Despite her father’s background in music, Colbie was not interested in music, until watching Lauryn Hill’s performance in the film Sister Act 2. She started performing on stage at school and taking vocal lessons.
- In her early teens, she met a producer who hired her to sing on techno songs that were used in modeling shows. By 19, she was playing guitar, and she recorded a song. She auditioned twice for American Idol, but was not selected to perform on the show. She posted her songs on her MySpace page, and started getting popular on the internet site when she uploaded the song Bubbly, getting several thousand hits per day. Rolling Stone wrote about her success, and soon she was MySpace’s #1 unsigned artist. Eventually she had 100,000 followers on the site, and record companies took notice, signing her to a recording contract in 2007.
- Her debut album, Coco, was released in the summer of 2007. It was a major hit, with worldwide sales of over 5 million copies, and it was certified 2x platinum. Her first single from the album was Bubbly – it reached #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Top 40 chart, and also was a top 10 song in many other countries. A second single, Realize, peaked at #20 on the Hot 100 and #6 on the Adult Top 40 chart. Also that year, she released a Christmas song, Mistletoe, that was the most downloaded holiday song that year.
- Her successful debut led to more exposure in 2008, with collaborations with Jason Mraz and Taylor Swift, co-writing and singing the songs Lucky with Mraz and Breathe with Swift. Her performance with Mraz led to a Grammy Award for both of them, for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, and her performance with Swift was nominated for a Grammy in the same category. She also did a concert tour with John Mayer that year.
- Caillat’s second album, Breakthrough, was released in 2009. It debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album chart, on the strength of her single Fallin’ For You, which peaked at #12 on the Hot 100 chart. Her song I Never Told You peaked at #3 on the Adult Pop Songs chart. The album was nominated for the Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Album (losing to The Black Eyed Peas’ The E.N.D.).
- In 2010, she won “Songwriter of the Year” from the music organization BMI, and she performed at Major League Baseball’s All Star Game, the NFL season opener Monday Night Football game, and at the Nobel Peace Prize concert. The following year, she released her third studio album, All of You. Two songs from the album – I Do and Brighter Than the Sun – were top 10 songs on the Adult Top 40 chart, with Brighter Than the Sun reaching #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
- Her next album was a Christmas album titled Christmas In the Sand, with 8 traditional holiday songs and 4 original compositions that she co-wrote with other songwriters. It was produced by her father, who also co-produced her earlier albums. She has released 2 additional albums – Gypsy Heart in 2014 and The Malibu Sessions in 2016. They have been less successful than her earlier work, though the song Try did reach #6 on the Adult Top 40 chart – it’s a lovely song for women, encouraging them to be who they want to be and not what others want them to be. The video went viral soon after its release – it starts with several women (including Caillat) in full make-up, singing the song, and as the song progresses, the women remove their make-up, so that by the end their inner beauty is on display. Watch it here.