Patricia Kaas

Chanteuse Patricia Kaas was born in France's Lorraine region, where she began performing as a youth; by age 11, she even held a residency at the Rumpelkammer Club in Sarrebrucken, Germany, over time honing a distinct style updating the French chanson tradition with elements of pop, blues and jazz. Scoring her first national hit in 1987 with "Mademoiselle Chante le Blues," Kaas was named Female Newcomer of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique, and her debut album Mademoiselle Chante earned platinum status in France, Belgium and Switzerland; the follow-up, Scene de Vie, topped the French charts for three months. She then spent the better part of the early '90s touring the globe, becoming the first Western-born female performer to play in Hanoi since the end of the conflict in Vietnam; Je te dis vous followed in 1993, and the following year Kaas issued her first live effort, Tour de charme. Upon completing 1997's Phil Ramone-produced Dans Ma Chair, Kaas headlined a series of dates at Paris' Olympia Theatre which yielded the live Rendez-vous; her debut for Sony Classical, Christmas in Vienna, appeared in 1999.