Paul Potts

Paul Potts

Paul Potts (born 13 October 1970 in Bristol, England), from Port Talbot in South Wales, is a British singer who in 2007 became the winner of the first series of ITV's Britain's Got Talent, singing operatic aria. Potts had worked in unpaid opera productions from 1999 to 2003.

Biography

Potts was raised in Fishponds, Bristol, by his father Roland, a bus driver, and mother, Yvonne, a supermarket cashier. He has two brothers and one sister. Potts attended St. Mary Redcliffe school, where he developed his love of singing.

In the interview that was broadcast before his performance in the semifinal, Potts said that he had been bullied in school, and that experience may have had an influence on his lack of self-confidence. He made a similar remark in 1999 — that his voice had always been a source of solace in the past when bullied.

Potts is on a six-month break as manager at the Bridgend Carphone Warehouse, a mobile-phone store some eight miles from his hometown. He is expected to make a decision about his job there within the next few weeks.

He was a Liberal Democrat councillor in Bristol from 1996 to 2003.

Previous work and experience

Potts first sang opera in 1999 in a karaoke competition, dressed as Pavarotti . That same year he appeared in the Michael Barrymore talent show My Kind of Music. Although he did not take first place, he won £8,000 — enough to help pay for vocal lessons in Italy, during which he was selected to perform in front of singers Luciano Pavarotti and Katia Ricciarelli.

For the Bath Opera of Bath, Somerset, he performed on four occasions in the roles of Don Basilio (Marriage of Figaro), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Don Carlos Verdi's Don Carlos, and both the Prince of Persia and the Herald in Turandot. He also sang for the Royal Philharmonic in front of an audience of 15,000 and toured Northern Italy as a soloist.

Potts said he broke his collarbone in a bicycle accident in 2003, an accident that prevented him from pursuing opera as a career. The mishap and financial difficulties led him to enter the talent show.

Britain's Got Talent

On June 9 2007, Potts' audition of Simon Cowell's new search-for-a-star show Britain's Got Talent was televised on ITV in UK. The audition itself was held at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff on March 17 2007. Paul sang a condensed version of Giacomo Puccini's "Nessun dorma," for which he received a standing ovation from the audience of 2,000 people. Potts' rendition of this has currently been viewed on video upload site YouTube tens of millions of times and exists among Youtube's all-time most viewed videos.

In the semi-final on June 14, 2007, Potts performed main verses of "Con te partirò" ("Time to Say Goodbye"). He progressed to the final after receiving the highest public vote in that show. He performed a full-length "Nessun dorma" for his finale on June 17, 2007 as well as an encore after he won the competition. Potts defeated co-favourite with the bookmakers, Connie Talbot and received the highest public vote out of two million votes cast to win Britain's Got Talent, winning the chance to perform at Royal Variety Performance in front of Her Majesty The Queen

In the United States, he was profiled on a National Public Radio programme called "Day to Day" on June 15, 2007. (NPR is a non-commercial network that reaches several million people every day in the U.S.) On June 18, 2007, a commercial US Television network, NBC, highlighted Potts' victory on its broadcast network's NBC Nightly News and on its Cable news outlet MSNBC. Then on June 21, 2007 he appeared live on NBC's programme Today.

During the programme there was some controversyas to the "undiscovered" nature of Potts' talent. He was portrayed on the show as simply a mobile-phone salesman, whereas he had in fact appeared in four amateur opera productions and in a concert for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and had plans for a summer tour with the Orchestra. Potts responded to his critics saying that he had not claimed to be completely untutored, that he had never performed any concert for pay and was therefore amateur and that the lessons he had received in Italy had been paid for from his own savings.

On July 8, 2007, Potts performed at a Katherine Jenkins' concert at Margam Park, "Katherine In The Park". Jenkins extended an invitation for him to sing his rendition of "Nessun Dorma" at the concert. On July 16, 2007, his debut album One Chance was released in UK, and on July 22, 2007, the album claimed the number one spot in the UK Album Chart. On November 6, 2007, Potts appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show to perform on a show whose topic was Youtube.

In December 2007, along with Simon Cowell in his Rolls-Royce Phantom he was driven to Number 10 Downing Street to be greeted by the Prime Minister, The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown MP who presented Paul with a discography plaque for the achievement of selling 2,000,000 copies of his single and for showing that "... Britain really does have huge amounts of talent." - Gordon Brown, December 2007.

Personal life

Potts has been married since 2003 to Julie-Anne, whom he met in an Internet chat room. Sites, such as The Paul Potts Story, have been created to discuss the human interest side of Paul Potts and why his story is so poignant to people.

Discography

Albums

• 2007 One Chance
• #1 (UK, Norway, New Zealand, Denmark, Sweden)

Singles

• 2007 "Nessun Dorma"
• #100 (UK), #2 (Taiwan)

External links

• Paul Potts Official Website
• Paul Potts Official MYSPACE
• SONY BMG Official Paul Potts Page
• Paul Potts' comments on recording "One Chance"
• 20 minute interview on ITV Local
• "Time to Say Goodbye"
• Paul Potts Interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos