Biography

Susan Boyle

Susan Magdalane Boyle  (born 1 April 1961) is a Scottish singer who came to international public attention when she appeared as a contestant on reality TV programme Britain’s Got Talent on 11 April 2009, singing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables. Susan first album was released in November 2009 and debuted as the number one best-selling CD on charts around the globe.    

Global interest in Susan Boyle was triggered by the contrast between her powerful voice and her plain appearance on stage. The juxtaposition of the audience’s first impression of her with the standing ovation she received after her performance led to an international media and Internet response. Within nine days of the audition, videos of Susan Boyle — from the show, various interviews, and her 1999 rendition of “Cry Me a River” — had been watched over 100 million times, an online record. Despite the sustained media interest, Susan later finished in second place in the final of the show, behind dance troupe Diversity.    

Susan’s first album, I Dreamed a Dream, was released on 23 November 2009, and has become Amazon’s best-selling album in pre-sales. Its first single is a cover of the Jagger/Richards song “Wild Horses.” The album includes “You’ll See,” “I Dreamed a Dream“, and “Cry Me a River“. According to Billboard, “The arrival of “I Dreamed a Dream” … marks the best opening week for a female artist’s debut album since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991.”    

Early Life    

Susan Boyle was born in Blackburn, West Lothian, Scotland, to Patrick Boyle, a miner, World War II veteran and singer at the Bishop’s Blaize, and Bridget, a shorthand typist, who were both immigrants from County Donegal, Ireland. She was the youngest of four brothers and six sisters. Born when her mother was 47, Susan Boyle was briefly deprived of oxygen during the difficult birth and was later diagnosed as having learning difficulties. Susan says she was bullied as a child and was nicknamed “Susie Simple” at school. After leaving school with few qualifications, she was employed for the only time in her life as a trainee cook in the kitchen of West Lothian College for six months and took part in government training programmes. She visited the theatre to listen to professional singers and performed at a number of local venues.    

Early Singing    

Susan took singing lessons from voice coach Fred O’Neil. Suan Boyle attended Edinburgh Acting School and took part in the Edinburgh Fringe. Prior to Britain’s Got Talent, her main experience had come from singing in her choir of her local Catholic church,Our Lady of Lourdes, and karaoke at pubs in her village. She had also auditioned several times for My Kind of People. She also has long participated in her parish church’s pilgrimages to the Knock Shrine, County Mayo, Ireland, and has sung there at the Marian basilica. Her repertoire through the years has included songs such as “The Way We Were” and “I Don’t Know How to Love Him.” British tabloids claimed “exclusives” of video clips of some early performances. In 1995 her audition for Michael Barrymore’s My Kind of People at the Olympia Shopping Centre in East Kilbride was filmed. The amateur video shows Barrymore was apparently more interested in mocking her than in her ability to sing.    

In 1999 she recorded a track for a charity CD to commemorate the Millennium produced at a West Lothian school. Only 1,000 copies of the CD, Music for a Millennium Celebration, Sounds of West Lothian, were pressed. An early review in the West Lothian Herald & Post said Boyle’s rendition of “Cry Me a River” was “heartbreaking” and “had been on repeat in my CD player ever since I got this CD…” The recording found its way onto the internet following her first televised appearance and the New York Post said it showed that Susan Boyle was “not a one trick pony.” Hello! said the recording “cement[ed] her status” as a singing star. In 1999, Susan used all her savings to pay for a professionally cut demo tape, copies of which she later sent to record companies, radio talent competitions, local and national TV. The demo tape consisted of her versions of “Cry Me a River” and “Killing Me Softly with His Song“; it was uploaded to the Internet after her audition.    

After Susan Boyle won several local singing competitions, her mother urged her to enter Britain’s Got Talent and take the risk of singing in front of an audience larger than her parish church. Former coach O’Neil said Susan Boyle abandoned an audition for The X Factor because she believed people were being chosen for their looks, and that she almost abandoned her plan to enter Britain’s Got Talent. However, O’Neil persuaded her to audition despite her believing “…she was too old and that it was a young person’s game”. Susan said that her mother’s death motivated her to go on Britain’s Got Talent and seek a musical career to pay tribute to her mother. Her performance on the show was the first time she had sung in public since that time.    

Personal Life    

Susan Boyle still lives in the family home, a four-bedroom council house, with her 10-year-old cat, Pebbles.    

Her father died in the 1990s, and her siblings had left home. Susan never married, and she cared for her ageing mother until she died in 2007 at the age of 91, which meant that she never had any time for herself. A neighbour reported that when Bridget Boyle died, her daughter “wouldn’t come out for three or four days or answer the door or phone.”    

Susan remains active as a volunteer at Our Lady of Lourdes church in Blackburn, visiting elderly members of the congregation in their homes.