Paul Potts

Paul Potts
Background information
Birth name	Paul Robert Potts
Born	13 October 1970 (1970-10-13) (age 40), Kingswood, South Gloucestershire, England[1], United Kingdom
Genres	Classical, Pop Opera
Occupations	Tenor musician (Formerly employed by Carphone Warehouse)
Years active	2007–present
Labels	Syco, Columbia (2007 - present)
Website	paulpottsofficial.com

Paul Robert Potts (born 13 October 1970) is an English pop opera tenor who won the first series of ITV's Britain's Got Talent in 2007, singing an operatic aria, "Nessun dorma" from Puccini's Turandot. Potts was a manager at The Carphone Warehouse who also performed in amateur opera from 1999 to 2003.

Early life

Potts was born in Kingswood, South Gloucestershire, England and raised in a Christian family in Fishponds, Bristol, by his father Roland, a bus driver, and mother, Yvonne (née Higgins), a supermarket cashier.^[2] He has two brothers and one sister. Potts attended St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School, where he developed his love of singing.^[3] He also sang with the choir at Chester Park Junior School and with the choirs at several Bristol churches, including Christ Church. Potts said in interviews that he had been bullied in school, and that experience may have made him lack self-confidence. He has also said that his voice had always been a source of solace in the past when he was bullied.^[4]

He earned an Honours degree in 1993 from University College Plymouth St Mark & St John, majoring in Humanities.^[5] In 1996, Potts was elected the youngest member of Bristol City Council; a Liberal Democrat, he served until 2003.^[3][6] Potts was a manager at mobile phone store Carphone Warehouse in Bridgend. After winning Britain's Got Talent, Potts took a six-month sabbatical from his job, and resigned on 5 March 2008.^[7]

Singing career

Potts first sang opera in 1999 in a karaoke competition, dressed as Luciano Pavarotti.^[4] That same year, he appeared in the Michael Barrymore musical quiz 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 Pavarotti and Katia Ricciarelli.

Potts began in the minor roles of The Prince of Persia and the Herald in Puccini's Turandot for the Bath Opera, an amateur company, in 1999. He then performed leading roles on four occasions: Don Basilio in Mozart's Marriage of Figaro in 2000; Don Carlos in Verdi's Don Carlos in 2001; Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni in 2003; and Radames in Verdi's Aida in 2003.^[4][8][9] He also performed the role of the Chevalier des Grieux in Puccini's Manon Lescaut for the Southgate Opera Company in London, an amateur company, in May 2003. Additionally, he sang with a small ensemble from the Royal Philharmonic in front of an audience of 15,000 and toured northern Italy as a soloist as part of his music classes there.^[8]

In several interviews, Potts revealed that he performed Aida despite doctors' wishes to remove an adrenal tumour they had discovered during his illness from a burst appendix, and performed Manon Lescaut shortly after the surgery to remove it. Potts broke his collarbone and suffered whiplash in a bicycle accident in 2003, which prevented him from pursuing opera as a career. The mishap and financial difficulties that followed led him to enter Britain's Got Talent despite not having sung in years.^[10]

Britain's Got Talent

Potts auditioned for Simon Cowell's new talent show Britain's Got Talent at the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff on 17 March 2007. The audition was televised on ITV1 in the UK on 9 June 2007.^[11] Potts sang the full rendition of Giacomo Puccini's "Nessun dorma", which was condensed for broadcast, for which he received a standing ovation from the audience of 2,000 people.

In the semi-final on 14 June 2007, Potts performed the main verses of Andrea Bocelli's "Con te partirò".^[12] He progressed to the final after receiving the highest public vote in that show.^[13] He performed "Nessun dorma" again for his finale on 17 June 2007, as well as an encore after he won the competition. Potts defeated co-favourite with the bookmakers, Connie Talbot, and received the highest percentage of two million votes cast to win £100,000, and the honour to perform at the Royal Variety Performance on 3 December 2007, in front of Queen Elizabeth II.

Doubts over amateur status

The Sun newspaper received complaints following allegations that Potts had been "coached by Pavarotti".^[14] There was anger that he was portrayed on Britain's Got Talent as a simple mobile-phone salesman, whereas he had in fact appeared in six amateur opera productions and in a concert for the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra,^[14] and had plans for a summer tour with that orchestra.^[8] Potts responded that he had not claimed to be completely untutored, that he had never performed any concert for pay and was therefore amateur. He also said that the Pavarotti masterclass he attended in Italy was paid for from his own savings and was a single masterclass, not regular coaching.^[15]

Post-BGT career

In the United States, he was profiled on a National Public Radio programme called Day to Day, and appeared live on NBC's programme Today.

In July 2007, Potts performed his rendition of "Nessun dorma" at a Katherine Jenkins concert at Margam Park.^[16] On 16 July 2007, his debut album One Chance was released in UK, and claimed the number one spot in the UK Album Chart the following week. In December 2007, Prime Minister Gordon Brown presented Potts with a platinum disc for having sold 2,000,000 copies of his album.^[17]

On 13 December 2007, he performed in Leipzig in the live television broadcast of the 13th annual José Carreras Gala, accompanied by the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg under the direction of Scott Lawton.^[18] In January he began his concert series^[1] of 97 concerts in 85 cities across 23 countries; this ended on 12 November. This included three outdoor classical music concerts with the Finnish violinist Linda Brava and the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra at Sofiero Palace, Sundbyholms Castle and Slottskogsvallen from 24 to 26 July.^[19] In the semi-finals of the 2009 series of Britain's Got Talent, Potts appeared in a comeback performance.

International celebrity

Potts was invited to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show whose topic was YouTube, because clips of his performances had been viewed by millions there;^[20] as of April 2009, his first appearance on Britain's Got Talent was the fourth most viewed YouTube video in the UK. On 24 November 2007, Potts was interviewed on the National Public Radio programme Weekend Edition. On 15 August 2008, he performed before the German football season opener match between Bayern Munich and Hamburger SV in front of 69,000 visitors as well as on 2 September 2008 during the farewell game for Oliver Kahn.

In July 2008, Deutsche Telekom began using a TV and cinema advertisement centred on his Britain's Got Talent performance.^[21] In October 2008, Paul Potts sang in Japanese TV advertisements for Ryukakusan Direct throat medicine manufactured by Ryukakusan.^[22] Potts received two nominations at the Echo Awards 2009 in Germany: Best International Male Artist and Album of the Year. He won the 2009 Echo Award for Best International Male Artist on 21 February 2009. On 22 April 2009, Potts was the guest co-host on the Australian television programme The Morning Show with Kylie Gillies. Expanding his talent to the online world, Paul Potts recently performed an exclusive in studio performance for AOL Sessions.^[23] He collaborated with Swedish singer Carola Häggkvist on her Christmas album Christmas in Bethlehem, singing the O holy Night.

Financial

As of May 2009 he had accumulated wealth of £5 million. ^[24]

Personal life

Potts has been married since May 2003 to Julie-Ann (née Cooper), whom he met in an Internet chat room. They met in person for the first time at Swansea railway station in February 2001. She had the upper hand at this "first meeting" as she had a photograph of Potts, but he had no idea what she looked like.^[25] Since becoming famous Potts has moved house, but continues to live in Port Talbot.^[26]

Discography

Studio albums

Singles

The song "Nessun Dorma" got the 19th best-selling single of 2008 in Germany and was certified with Gold there for selling more than 150,000 copies ^[28][29].

References

External links

• Paul Potts on Myspace
• Paul Potts at Sony BMG
• Paul Potts biography from BBC Wales
• Paul Potts interview on The Hour