Ben Howard

With his low-key, acoustic-based style, British folk-influenced singer/songwriter Ben Howard went from underground DIY status to international renown in the 2010s. Howard was born on April 24, 1987 in the Richmond section of London, England, but he grew up in the town of Totnes in Devon. Heavily influenced by the classic British and American singer/songwriters of the '60s and '70s, Howard started writing music as an adolescent and began pursuing it as a career towards the end of college. He put out a string of singles and EPs under his own steam, starting with the 2008 EP Games in the Dark. After generating a sizable grassroots following, Howard got a record deal with Island in 2011. By the end of that year, Island had released Howard's first album, Every Kingdom. The record earned Howard a Mercury Prize nomination the following year and went to No. 4 in the U.K. Released in the U.S. in 2012, it placed high on the American folk chart. The record also gave Howard a Top 10 single in England with "Only Love." In 2013, Howard was nominated for an Ivor Novello award and was the recipient of a pair of BRIT awards. Howard's second album, I Forget Where We Were, followed in 2014 and hit the top of the British album charts, doing well in several other nations too, including the U.S., where it reached No. 23. Island released Howard's third LP, Noonday Dream, in 2018. The record found its way to No. 4 in the U.K.