Heather Small (born 20 January 1965) is an English soul singer, best known for being the lead singer in the Manchester based band M People.
Small was born and raised in West London and joined her first group, Hot House, while she was still a teenager. After a chance meeting with Manchester DJ Mike Pickering, formerly of Quando Quango, her distinctive voice helped to sell over 10 million albums worldwide singing with his group M People. They had considerable success with songs such as Moving on Up and Search for The Hero.
In 1997, Heather Small performed on the Perfect Day record alongside a wide range of artist's including Tom Jones and Lou Reed. The song was the official 1997 Children in need charity release. It was the UK's number one single for three weeks, in two separate spells. Selling over a million copies
In 1998, after M People's 'best of' album, Heather and the band took some time off to pursue solo projects.
In 2000, Heather released her solo album Proud and a single of the same name, closely affliated with the British Olympics team of the time.The single "Proud" was also used for the first season of Queer as Folk and was put on its single. "Proud" is also known as Heather's signature song, with which she achieved international success. When Oprah Winfrey was looking for a song to sum up the work she'd been striving to achieve over her twenty-year career, she got in touch with Heather and the song "Proud" became the theme song to The Oprah Winfrey Show, and in 2005 Heather made her American television debut on the show. A further single, Holding on, followed and in November 2000 a duet single with Tom Jones, called You Need Love Like I Do (which can also be found on the 1999 album Reload).
Since then, she has been taking time off to look after her son, James Tacuma Small-Edwards, by ex-rugby player, Shaun Edwards and start recording her new solo album.
She was occasionally seen on various TV programmes as Parkinson and Songs of Praise. She also sang three songs at the Tsunami Relief Concert at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.
Heather released a new single, 'Radio On' in the UK on July 17th 2006 and her second solo album, 'Close To A Miracle' was released on July 24th, followed by a second single of the same name. The album was a commercial disappointment, charting for one week at No 57 with both supporting singles charting outside the Top 100. A short UK solo tour which followed in the Autumn of that year was received well.
Heather was also busy as a solo artist in 2007, performing at the opening of Spinning Field building in Manchester in June followed by an appearance on Songs Of Praise in July in which she performed "Love Is Always There" from her second album "Close To A Miracle". In addition she performed a set from her two solo albums and a few of M People's greatest hits at The Festival Too concert in Kings Lynn, headlining the weekend as a Solo artist.
In 2005, another M People album was released, M People featuring Heather Small, The Ultimate Collection featuring both band and solo singles. M People reformed and played several concerts in 2007. The band are headlining several festival dates in 2008.
Heather Small has confirmed she is to appear as a contestant in this years BBC Strictly Come Dancing.
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Proud - adopted by Oprah for her programme