Like
many of today's top singers, Peggi Blu got her start in the church.
At the age of three her mother used to sit her on the stage where
she would, in the words of someone who remembers being there,
"...sing up a storm!". By the time she was a teenager,
she had toured all through the Carolinas, and decided to try her
luck in New York. For the next fifteen years she established herself
as one of New York's top background singers, backing up such stars
as Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross, Bob Dylan, and many others.
All this 'backing up' led to a record deal in 1980 with MCA, resulting
in the album I Got Love. This album yielded a single, "Dancing
In The Streets", which reached #35 on Billboard's dance music
chart; the title song "I Got Love" was featured in the
ABC movie Off The Minnesota Strip (starring Hal Holbrook). Peggi
also co-starred in two Broadway musicals - The Wiz(1983, with
Stephanie Mills) and Marilyn, An American Fable (1984, with director
Kenny Ortega and star Scott Bakula).
In
1986, though, she got her biggest break yet. Her agent submitted
her to Star Search. They loved her. In only eight minutes and
four shows (two minutes per song) Peggi Blu became the 1986 Grand
Champion Female Vocalist, winning the $100,000.00 prize money!
This
massive television exposure led to a huge recording contract with
Capitol Records. Moving to California, Peggi spent the rest of
1986 and most of 1987 working on Blu Blowin'. This album did very
well in England, reaching as high as #4 on the club charts. It
also received critical raves from reviewers in Billboard, The
New York Post, The New York Daily News, and USA Today. TV appearances
included Entertainment Tonight, and Good Morning America. A single,
"Tender Moments", stayed on Billboards' R&B charts
for a respectable eight weeks, peaking at #28.
On
January 1, 2000, Peggi sang with one of the biggest stars in the
world at the biggest, most expensive concert ever - Barbra Streisand's
Millenium Concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. That event has
been broadcast on FOX television repeatedly.
At
President Clinton's inauguration in Washington Peggi was personally
requested to appear and sing. She even got to 'jam' with the President
at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Pasadena at an exclusive party thrown
by his friends.
In
1993 she released another single in England "Love Is The
Magic". It peaked at #9 on the Urban Contemporary chart and
continues to sell well throughout Europe. From December of 1996
to May of 1997, Peggi headed to Germany to star in Michael Jackson's
Production of Sisterella - a successful 4-month long tour. A single
from that show featuring Peggi was released by MJJ/Sony in Europe
- "I Got The Money". In February of 1998 she returned
to Germany to co-star with Linda Hopkins in a revue Wild Women
Blues. Peggi is a featured soloist on the title song to the Jean-Claude
Van Damme movie Desert Heat, as well as singing on the soundtracks
to Set It Off (with Queen Latifa and Jada Pinkett-Smith) and Hurricane
(with Denzel Washington). She sings a duet with Gerald Alston
on the new Manhattans CD Even Now, and has performed as a soloist
with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Esa Peka-Salonen,
and with the Memphis and Hawaiian Symphony Orchestras with Burt
Bacharach. Peggi has just finished up her new album - Livin' On
Love, being released initially in the UK on Expansion/Sony Records.
Peggi
has also added her talents to the recordings of some very major
stars: Quincy Jones (Back On The Block), Tracy Chapman, Kylie
Minogue, Aaron Neville, David Foster ("The 1996 & 2002
Olympics Themes"), Brian Setzer, Young M.C., Cherelle, Burt
Bacharach, Irene Cara, The Crusaders, Smokey Robinson, The Staple
Singers, Phyllis Hyman, Sweet, Leonard Cohen, Philip Bailey of
"Earth Wind & Fire", and a host of others.
