Eder, Linda

LINDA EDER

Born: Tucson, Arizona, 3 February 1961

Genre: Vocal

Best-selling album since 1990: It's No Secret Anymore (1999)

Hit songs since 1990: "Something to Believe In," "This Is the Moment," "Someone Like You"

Sporting a four-octave range, singer Linda Eder steadily elevated her career from nightclubs in the 1980s to a successful recording career. Along the way, she became a Broadway theater star.

Born in Arizona, Eder (pronounced edd'-er) grew up in the rural lakes region of northern Minnesota on a farm near Brainerd, a town famous for its Paul Bunyan lore. The statuesque soprano (she stands nearly six feet tall) sang continuously in her childhood. Among her influences were Judy Garland, Eileen Farrell, and Barbra Streisand. Overt shyness made Eder reluctant to sing in front of others until she performed a self-composed song at age sixteen on her way to winning the Miss Brainerd beauty pageant. After high school, she and a pianist friend formed a duo that performed in the Minneapolis/St. Paul nightclub circuit where, over the next seven years, Eder seasoned her craft. In 1988, she auditioned for the TV talent competition Star Search and won the Best Female Vocalist category, collecting $100,000 in prize money.

In Hollywood, while taping Star Search, Eder met upand-coming composer/songwriter Frank Wildhorn, who had just written the music for a theatrical show called Jekyll & Hyde. He cast her in the role of Lucy, one of the leads, and it debuted at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas, in 1990. Although the initial version of Jekyll & Hyde fared poorly, it brought Eder a recording contract and the release of her first album, an eclectic batch of songs with a slight rock sensibility titled Linda Eder (1991). It contained the majestic "Someone Like You" from Jekyll & Hyde, although a reworked version of the song would appear on a later recording.

In the meantime, Wildhorn retooled Jekyll & Hyde and the show arrived in New York on Broadway in 1997 following a twenty-eight-city tour with Eder again in the role of Lucy. While New York critics largely panned Jekyll & Hyde, the audiences loved it. They especially fell for Eder who developed a tremendous, almost cultlike following of adoring fans. She remained in the show until 1998. Eder and Wildhorn married soon after. They live outside of New York in Westchester County and had a son together in 1999.

In the years leading up to and after Jekyll & Hyde, Eder continued recording, often singing Wildhorn's pop-influenced compositions. Eder's version of the Jekyll & Hyde showstopper "This Is the Moment" became an anthem of sorts for the 1994 Winter Olympics. Her husband, a songwriting machine with over 200 published songs recorded by some of music's biggest stars, credits his wife as the voice he hears when imagining his work being sung. Eder's agile sound mingles power with nuance drawing frequent comparison with Streisand. Although primarily recognized for her Broadway show song renditions, Eder can sing nearly any style effectively, which she has demonstrated on seven solo albums. It's No Secret Anymore (1999) is a strong foray into pop music and contains the Broadway version of her now-signature "Someone Like You." Except for Johnny Mercer's "One for My Baby," Wildhorn wrote the album's remaining thirteen songs.

The title song of her release Gold (2002) opened the 2002 Olympics Ceremony. Gold also has Eder lending her versatile skills to several early 1970s classics including George Harrison's "Here Comes the Sun." She returned to Broadway classics with the release of Broadway My Way (2003).

In 2000 Eder fulfilled a personal ambition by performing at New York's Carnegie Hall. Every seat in the esteemed 2,800-seat concert hall was filled and the performance drew tremendous critical acclaim. Eder maintains a concert tour schedule of approximately fifty cities per year and she is slated to star in another Wildhorn-created musical based on the life of French sculptress Camille Claudel in 2003.

Sometimes labeled the "reluctant diva," Eder is content to stay out of the limelight in favor of parenthood and to care for her stable of horses. When the urge to perform or record beckons, her marriage to Wildhorn assures an overflowing fountain of fresh new songs from which to draw.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Linda Eder ( RCA, 1991); And So Much More (Angel, 1994); It's Time (Atlantic, 1997); It's No Secret Anymore (Atlantic, 1999); Christmas Stays the Same (Atlantic, 2000); Gold (Atlantic, 2002); Broadway My Way (Atlantic, 2003).

donald lowe