Laura Marling

Laura Beatrice Marling (born 1 February 1990) is a British folk singer-songwriter and musician from Eversley, Hampshire. Her debut album Alas, I Cannot Swim, her second album I Speak Because I Can, and her fourth album Once I Was an Eagle were each nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2008, 2010, and 2013, respectively. She won the Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist at the 2011 Brit Awards, and was nominated for the same award at the 2012, 2014 and 2016 Brit Awards. 2Early life The youngest of three daughters, Marling was born in Berkshire, England, and learned guitar at an early age. Her father, Sir Charles William Somerset Marling, the 5th Marling Baronet, ran a recording studio, introduced her to folk music and shaped her musical taste, an experience that Marling later described as, "a bit of a blessing and a bit of a curse....[because] I couldn’t slot myself into the age-appropriate genre". Marling attended Waverley Primary School in Finchampstead, Berkshire and received a scholarship to attend Leighton Park School, a private Quaker school in Reading, Berkshire. During her secondary school years she felt uneasy around other people and was afraid of death. 2Music career After completing her GCSEs at 16, she joined her older sisters and settled in the outskirts of London. She soon joined a cluster of intertwined bands that were drawn to acoustic instruments and tradition-tinged melodies—the group formed a musical movement that was labelled "nu-folk" by the British press. Marling joined the original line-up of indie folk band Noah and the Whale and appears as a background vocalist on their debut album Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down; however, she left the group before the album's 2008 release due to a dissolved relationship with the band's lead singer, Charlie Fin