James Hillier Blount, better known as James Blunt, is a Grammy Award-nominated British singer-songwriter and musician.

Born 22nd February 1974 in Tidworth, Wiltshire, England, Blunt fell in love with music at a young age. He had learned to play piano, violin and guitar, and was writing his own music, by his early teens. However, a long standing family tradition of serving in the armed forces persuaded Blunt to join the British Army in the mid-1990s. After training at the Royal Military Academy in Sandhurst and rising to the rank of Captain, he served in Canada and Kosovo for six years before leaving the army in 2002 to pursue a career in his first love – music.

Blunt was very quickly signed to EMI Records, and later to Custard Records, with whom he released his debut album in March 2005. Back to Bedlam was an instant success, shooting straight to number one in the UK and Australia and number two in the US, and selling over eleven million copies worldwide. It eventually went on to become the UK’s best-selling record of the decade and earned Blunt a total of two Ivor Novello Awards and five Grammy Award nominations.

The album’s lead single You’re Beautiful became a global smash hit, reaching the top of the charts in the UK, Canada, the US and six other countries. This was followed by three more UK Top 40 singles: High, Goodbye My Lover and Wiseman.

The singer’s second album All The Lost Souls was released in September 2007, reaching number one in the UK, Canada and fifteen other countries around the world, as well as the Top 10 of the Billboard 200. The lead single 1973 reached the Top 5 in several countries, while follow-up singles Same Mistake, Carry You Home, I Really Want You and Love, Love, Love also performed well.

The Beatles were a pop/rock band from Liverpool, England. Made up of John Lennon on vocals and rhythm guitar, Paul McCartney on vocals and bass guitar, George Harrison on vocals and lead guitar and Ringo Starr on vocals and drums, they are considered one of the most influential acts of all time.

Formed in 1957 as The Quarrymen, the group first found popularity after playing a string of gigs in Hamburg, Germany. They were signed to EMI Records in 1962 and released their debut album Please Please Me in early 1963. It was an instant hit, shooting to the top of the UK Albums Chart and staying there for thirty weeks, and producing the hit singles Love Me Do, Please Please Me and I Saw Her Standing There.

Next came the smash hit single I Want to Hold Your Hand, which not only reached number one in the UK but also the top spot in the US Billboard Hot 100 – kick-starting the British Invasion of the 1960s. They followed this with their second studio album With The Beatles (released as Meet The Beatles! in the US). It was another huge hit, reaching the top of the UK Albums Chart (and staying there for five months) and producing the now classic singles It Won’t Be Long, All My Loving and Not a Second Time.

Between 1964 and 1970 The Fab Four released a further 25 studio albums and twice as many singles, scoring a record 27 number one hits in the UK and the US. These include Love Me Do, She Loves You, Can’t Buy Me Love, A Hard Day’s Night, Yesterday, Yellow Submarine, Penny Lane, All You Need Is Love, Hey Jude, Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road.

The Beatles are the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. To date they have sold somewhere between 250 million and one billion records worldwide.