Jemma, who has been singing since everyone can remember, was born into a working class family in urban Bedford. The youngest of four children, her passion for music was both nurtured by her mother's love of Ella Fitzgerald and Queen and her father's quirky fanaticism for classical music. Early recollections of being made to lie on the living room floor and listen to the dying swan by Camille Saint-Saens, always brings back a giggle of fond memories.

After finding ardour in school choirs, volunteering for all the solo parts, nine year old jemma wrote and performed her first song back then in a school assembly. Always embracing opportunities to perform, Jemma began to develop what's been described as a raw natural talent – her strengths being her warm, energetic stage presence, vocal flexibility and ability to completely throw herself into a performance.

After graduating from the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts in 1999, she left the UK for the continent, where she wrote and recorded 'Afterglow', her debut album in 2002.

With a voice evoking the clear bluesy tones of Norah Jones but delivering the sassy soul punch of KT Tunstall, Jemma has established herself as a writing force to be reckoned with in her adopted hometown of Cologne. Her melancholic melange of classic acoustic-pop, with unexpected harmonic twists and a pinch of jazzy-soul, leaves her listeners humming the melody and asking themselves 'What was that song again?'

An earthy an honest stage performer, Jemma keeps things intimate and brings the event of the song back to basics. 'If I can make a song work with just me and my guitar and get that gut feeling, then the song stays.'

Jemma loves working with vocal harmonies and has spent the last year working intensively as a backing singer for well known German and international pop and soul artists, including Joy Denalane (DE), Yvonne Catterfeld (DE), Gia Farrell (US) and the German Pop Idol live band.

'When I write, the backgrounds are almost always there from the word go. I love working with those crunchy part harmonies...think of Crosby Stills and Nash or Crowded House ? I would drive my brother crazy when we were growing up cause I would never sing the 'bloody' melody.'