Christina Perri

Biography

During the summer of 2010, Christina Perri — a 23-year-old café waitress who moonlit as an unsigned songwriter — went from total obscurity to the upper reaches of the Billboard charts in two short weeks. The Philadelphia native had moved to Los Angeles several years prior, hoping to spin her musical abilities into a record deal. Her brother, Nick Perri, had found platinum-certified success as the guitarist of Shinedown, but Christina’s own efforts weren’t met with such luck. She married, divorced, and took up a job at the Melrose Café in Beverly Hills, with music taking a back seat role as she struggled to pay the bills. While recording an EP, though, she managed to contact a choreographer from the TV show So You Think You Can Dance. Weeks later, one of Perri’s piano ballads, “Jar of Hearts,” was used in an episode of the show, and public demand for the single pushed her to release “Jar of Hearts” independently. Over 100,000 people downloaded the song during its first two weeks, helping it crack the Billboard Top 40, and Perri inked a record contract with Atlantic before the summer was up. ~ Andrew Leahey, Rovi