And the Hello and So the Jerker on songwriting, this is Simon, accompanied as ever by Brian, and we hope you're all keeping well.

Joining us for episode 199 is a Grammy-nominated English singer, songwriter and musician

who first demonstrated her precocious talent to the world

almost a decade ago, having been discovered at the tender age of just 12.

She's since snatched up no less than 21 platinum singles, 5 million album sales and over a billion streams

and YouTube views. As you're hearing this, she recently released her long-awaited fourth studio

album, Young Heart, written in LA and Nashville with the help of co-producer, and our former

guest Daniel Tashion, we're very happy to welcome the wonderful Birdie to the show.

Our guest was born Jasmine Vanden Bogard in

1996 in Limmington in the New Forest District of Hampshire.

Her stage name is apparently how her parents referred to her as a baby because of the way

that she would open her mouth to be fed.

Her mom was a concert pianist and her dad was a writer. The former would play classical

music around the house, while the latter leaned more towards pop like Abba, Tracy Chapman, George Michael and The Beatles.

A creative child, Bade was always making up her own short stories and was drawn to the piano from a very young age,

which began learning properly around the age of seven, and was already writing songs by the time she was 8.

She won the Open Mike UK Talent Contest when she was 12.

Following which she signed her first publishing deal

and a 14 scored their first top 20 UK hit,

a cover of Bonnever's Skinny Love, which also charted the cross Europe and went six times

platinum in Australia.

Burdi released her eponymous debut album in 2011, on which she covered songs by the

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