[7] From the age of about 10, Stevens had orchestra and piano lessons at Charterhouse, and attended stage school at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in 1999.

After graduating from ACM, Stevens worked as a session musician playing guitar and piano for groups such as Fin, H-Boogie and Ronit & The Aramingos.

[13] During songwriting sessions in Los Angeles with Charlie Midnight, with his encouragement, Stevens began to seriously consider a future solo career.

[5] Other collaborations have included Sharon Vaughn, Eric Shermehorn, Andy Goldmark, Wayne Rodriguez, Mimoza Blinsson, Adam Kagan, Will Simms, Russ Ballard and John Beck.

[14] In 2011, she toured with British rock band Fin, supporting Incubus, Mona, The Kooks and Feeder, regularly performing for crowds of 20,000.

Along with Charlie Midnight, her mother had been strongly encouraging her to embark on a solo career – "she was my biggest supporter and believer in me and would say, ‘You’ve got the potential to do it yourself.’ So I thought, ‘Yeah, I’m going to do it!’".

Earlier, in November 2011, Stevens had started collaborating with songwriter/producer Pete Woodroffe (best known for his work with Def Leppard) who would eventually co-write 14 of the tracks and produce all four EPs and the album.

On 19 August 2012 she performed four songs live on air with band members Sam Whiting, Belinda Webb and Emma Hughes.

The first single, "A Place Called You", was released on 28 October 2012 and received its first national airplay on BBC Radio 2's Weekend Wogan show on 2 September 2012.

Also appearing on this show was American singer-songwriter Jenn Bostic, with whom she performed a live cover of Ed Sheeran's "Give Me Love".

[19] Further support came from BBC Radio 2 Breakfast presenter Chris Evans, resulting in a live appearance on the show on 16 August 2013, where Stevens performed "A Place Called You".

[20] During the show, Evans invited her to play at his Carfest festival in aid of the BBC Children in Need charity on 24 August 2013.

[22] Recording work on the debut album was completed on 9 September 2013,[23] and growing success led to the accelerated release of the final two EPs.

"When I wrote 'Sunflower' I came up with the title because my Mum used to grow Sunflowers at the bottom of the garden when I was a little girl, and I really felt the urge to use that and turn it into a lyric.

During the summer of 2015, Stevens spent a month in Nashville[32] collaborating with musicians and songwriters as she prepared for her third studio album, To My Roots.

It included covers of "Stay Another Day", "Somewhere Only We Know" and the traditional carol "Silent Night", a collaboration with Nashville's Michael Spriggs.

[36] A new track, "The Cappuccino Song", was recorded in early 2019 and released (in China only) during April 2019 to coincide with Stevens' seven city tour of the country.

[37] During 2018, Stevens had collaborated with writers Charlie Midnight, Jessica Sharman and Kevin Jeremiah (from the band The Feeling) resulting in a five track EP entitled Atoms released 10 May 2019.

Band members for the tour included Sam Whiting on guitar, Simon "Spud" Smith on bass and keys and James Rees-Flynn on drums.

In May and June 2018, Stevens embarked on the to My Roots Spring Tour, this time as a trio along with Stu Wilkinson (Mandolin) & Sam Rommer (Bass).