This is an accepted version of this page Kate Victoria "KT" Tunstall (born 23 June 1975)[3][4] is a Scottish singer-songwriter and musician.

She first gained attention with a 2004 live solo performance of her song "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on Later... with Jools Holland.

The name of her debut studio album, Eye to the Telescope, was inspired by her childhood experiences at her father's physics laboratory at University of St Andrews.

Tunstall was born to a half-Chinese, half-Scottish mother, Carol Ann Orr, who was from Hong Kong,[7] and a Northern Irish father, John Corrigan, from Belfast.

[10] She was born at Edinburgh's Western General Hospital[10] and at 18 days old, was placed for adoption by her mother with a family in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland.

Tunstall had lived with Gordon Anderson of the Beta Band, and the Aliens, whom the song "Funnyman", on her second studio album Drastic Fantastic (2007), is about.

She toured with the klezmer band Oi Va Voi, and stayed with them while they were making their second studio album, Laughter Through Tears (2003).

[22] Although Relentless co-founder Shabs Jobanputra recognised the potential in the quality of Tunstall's voice and songs in the early 2000s, his assessment then was that she "wasn't ready yet" and so together with Tunstall's manager, Jobanputra discussed "the process of how we saw her happening and how we would work, why we thought the songs were great, why we thought she was great, and why it could really work if we took enough time.

Tunstall's first appearance of note was a solo performance of her folk blues song "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" on Later... with Jools Holland.

[32] Tunstall sang with Scottish band Travis on their fifth studio album The Boy with No Name (2007), on the track "Under the Moonlight", a song written by Susie Hug, formerly of Katydids.

She also discusses various issues concerning our culture of consumption and greed, our relation to the earth and the importance of indigenous rights in the world today.

Tunstall also worked with Suzanne Vega on her seventh studio album Beauty & Crime (2007), singing backing vocals on songs "Zephyr and I" and "Frank and Ava".

Over the Christmas holidays in 2008, Tunstall joined Neil Finn's 7 Worlds Collide line-up in Auckland, New Zealand to record a charity studio album for Oxfam.

[48] The album was recorded in Finn's New Zealand studio over three weeks and featured all-new material, with singing and songwriting contributions divided amongst the group.

[56] She said that while writing and recording the album, she experimented with a new sound she called "Nature techno", which mixes organic instrumentation with electronic and dance textures, similar in style to the work of Icelandic singer Björk.

At a media showcase in London, Tunstall offered an unusual description of the songs from her forthcoming third album: "Like Eddie Cochran working with Leftfield".

These 13 songs formed an album that Tunstall described as "from the heart," inspired by her divorce from Luke Bullen and her father's passing.

In 2013, Tunstall teamed up again with Gelb in Tucson, Arizona for his twenty-first studio The Coincidentalist, and they recorded a duet, "The 3 Deaths of Lucky".

[61] Over a year after her album's release, Tunstall left Edinburgh to move to Los Angeles and began a new career as a soundtrack composer.

She studied at the Skywalker Ranch[62] and subsequently composed and performed songs for soundtracks including "Miracle" for the film Winter's Tale, featuring Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, and Will Smith, "We Could Be Kings" written with A. R. Rahman for the Disney movie Million Dollar Arm and released on 14 May 2014.

It is made of the lead single "Evil Eye" and its remix, and two other tracks: "All or Nothing" taken from the French TV series Sam[63] and "The Healer".

[73] In March 2020, Tunstall announced she would start recording the third and final studio album of the trilogy by fall, with the theme of mind.

In July 2021, after she started experiencing tinnitus in her right ear, she decided to change her tour schedule to allow for longer periods of rest between performances.

It premiered in the UK at the Churchill Theatre in Bromley in February 2024 featuring an original score by Tunstall and lyricist Glenn Slater.

[84] Tunstall is known for her live performances, using an Akai E2 Headrush loop pedal which she affectionately calls "Wee Bastard", in her solo performances and with a full four-piece backing band (Luke Bullen on drums, Arnulf Lindner on bass, Sam Lewis on lead guitar and Kenny Dickenson on keyboards, trumpet, percussion and various other instruments), as well as her two backing vocalists, Cat Sforza and Ami Richardson.

[97] On Christmas Day, 2007, Bullen proposed to her at her parents' home in St Andrews, Scotland,[98] and the couple were married in September 2008.

[99] Tunstall sparked some controversy in 2005 when she publicly criticised singer-songwriter Dido, stating that the artist "can't fucking sing" after several fans compared the two musically.

[102] Cape Farewell is a British-based arts organisation that brings artists, scientists and communicators together to instigate a cultural response to climate change.

[75] She did perform some solo shows in early summer, including the Spring Hill Arts Gathering (SHAG) in June in Washington Depot, Connecticut.

[109] Also in 2006, she won the Ivor Novello Best Song Musically and Lyrically for "Suddenly I See",[110] along with Scottish Style Awards "Most Stylish Band or Musician".