This is the 44th post in our Musician of the Day series.
Linda Eder was born in 1961 in Arizona but she was raised in Minnesota.
Her earliest influence was Judy Garland and Linda knew by the age of 8 that singing was something she wanted to do. She would make up her own arias and sing them to the animals on the farm.
After she graduated high school, Linda headed to Minneapolis where she would spend years working on her vocals and performing 6 shows a week.
In 1987, she got her first big break with an appearance on Star Search, though Linda hoped that she would win at least one show, she amazed everyone by having a 12 week run on the show. This success lead her to a 1990 role as Lucy Harris in the musical Jekyll and Hyde. It took traveling around the country and Linda performing 900 shows before the musical would find itself on Broadway in 1996. She left the show in 1998 and then began working in a number of Broadway workshops and demo recordings while working on her solo career.
Linda released her first solo album in 1989 and has since released a total of ten albums. She has received critical acclaim for all of them and her powerful version of Gold was used in the opening ceremonies of the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Her most recent album The Other Side of Me, was released in 2008 and is a departure from her usual ballads and has more of a pop/country feel.
To learn more about Linda Eder visit her official site.
