The girl Idol turned down, and the songs MySpace wouldn't let go

Colbie Caillat grew up in Malibu and Newbury Park, California, the daughter of Ken Caillat, who co-produced Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, Tusk and Mirage. As a baby she was nicknamed “Coco”, a name she would eventually hang on her first album. Music took hold of her at eleven, when she watched Lauryn Hill in Sister Act 2 and decided she wanted to sing. Vocal lessons followed, and her first stage appearance came in sixth grade.

The path to a record deal was crooked. She met the producer Mikal Blue, who hired her to sing on techno tracks for fashion shows, and she did not pick up an acoustic guitar until she was nineteen. She tried out for American Idol and was turned away at the pre-audition stage. The second time she brought an original song of her own, “Bubbly”, and was rejected again. Later she said she was grateful, because she had been shy and not ready.

What changed things was her MySpace page. Its popularity made her the number-one unsigned singer in her genre for four consecutive months, and Universal Republic signed her. Coco arrived in 2007, reached number five on the Billboard 200 and went double platinum. “Bubbly”, the single that Idol had not wanted, peaked at number five on the Hot 100 and ran for weeks at the top of the adult contemporary charts.

The rest of the decade added up quickly. Her duet with Jason Mraz, “Lucky”, won the Grammy for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, and she shared in the Album of the Year award for her work on Taylor Swift's Fearless. Breakthrough debuted at number one, and from 2018 to 2020 she also sang in the country quartet Gone West. She has sold over six million albums and more than ten million singles worldwide.