Biography of Suzanne Vega

Vega was born in Santa Monica, CA, and moved to New York City at age two. She attended the High School of Performing Arts, then Barnard College. Vega was still at Barnard when she began attracting attention at Greenwich Village folk clubs and was featured on several issues of the songwriters' magazine/record album The CooP (later The Fast Folk Musical Magazine) in 1982. She was signed to A&M Records in 1984 and released her first album, Suzanne Vega in 1985. It was a critical success and a moderate seller. Vega's second album, Solitude Standing, featured "Luka," a song about child abuse that became a surprise hit single in 1987. The album itself went gold. Vega took three years to release the follow-up, Days of Open Hand (1990), which was a commercial disappointment, though a few months later a couple of British DJs, under the name D.N.A., put out a dance version of her a cappella song "Tom's Diner" from the album Solitude Standing, and it became a hit.On her next album, 1992's 99.9° F., Vega experimented with the dance rhythms that made "Tom's Diner" a hit; although the result was interesting, it didn't give her any hits. ~ William Ruhlmann