Like many of today's top singers, Peggi Blu got her start in the church. At the age of three her mother used to sit her on the stage where she would, in the words of someone who remembers being there, "...sing up a storm!". By the time she was a teenager, she had toured all through the Carolinas, and decided to try her luck in New York. For the next fifteen years she established herself as one of New York's top background singers, backing up such stars as Stevie Wonder, Luther Vandross, Bob Dylan, and many others. All this ‘backing up’ led to a record deal in 1980 with MCA, resulting in the album "I Got Love". This album yielded a single, "Dancing In The Streets", which reached #35 on Billboard's dance music chart; the title song "I Got Love" was featured in the ABC movie Off The Minnesota Strip (starring Hal Holbrook). Peggi also co-starred in two Broadway musicals - The Wiz (1983, with Stephanie Mills) and Marilyn, An American Fable (1984, with director Kenny Ortega and star Scott Bakula).
In 1986, though, she got her biggest break yet. Her agent submitted her to "Star Search". They loved her. In only eight minutes and four shows (two minutes per song) Peggi Blu became the 1986 Grand Champion Female Vocalist, winning the $100,000.00 prize money!
This massive television exposure led to a huge recording contract with Capitol Records. Moving to California, Peggi spent the rest of 1986 and most of 1987 working on "Blu Blowin'". This album did very well in England, reaching as high as #4 on the club charts. It also received critical raves from reviewers in Billboard, The New York Post, The New York Daily News, & USA Today. TV appearances included Entertainment Tonight, and Good Morning America. A single, "Tender Moments", stayed on Billboards' R & B charts for a respectable eight weeks, peaking at #28.
On January 1st, 2000, Peggi sang with one of the biggest stars in the world at the biggest, most expensive concert ever - Barbra Streisand’s Millenium Concert at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. That event has been broadcast on FOX television repeatedly.
At President Clinton’s inauguration in Washington Peggi was personally requested to appear and sing. She even got to ‘jam’ with the President at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Pasadena at an exclusive party thrown by his friends.
In 1993 she released another single in England “Love Is The Magic”. It peaked at #9 on the Urban Contemporary chart and continues to sell well throughout Europe. From December of 1996 to May of 1997, Peggi headed to Germany to star in Michael Jackson’s Production of Sisterella - a successful 4-month long tour. A single from that show featuring Peggi was released by MJJ/Sony in Europe - “I Got The Money”. In February of 1998 she returned to Germany to co-star with Linda Hopkins in a revue Wild Women Blues. Peggi is a featured soloist on the title song to the Jean-Claude Van Damme movie Desert Heat, as well as singing on the soundtracks to Set It Off (with Queen Latifa & Jada Pinkett-Smith) and Hurricane (with Denzel Washington). She sings a duet with Gerald Alston on the new Manhattans’ CD Even Now, and has performed as a soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under Esa Peka-Salonen, and with the Memphis and Hawaiian Symphony Orchestras with Burt Bacharach. In September of 2002 Peggi released her third album - “Livin’ On Love”, initially in the UK & Europe on Expansion Records. So far it has received nothing but rave reviews - and has gone to #1 on radio charts in 5 different countries. Respected magazines such as Blues & Soul have given it glowing reviews. Excerpts from that CD have also appeared on numerous European compilations.
Peggi has also added her talents to the Platinum-selling recordings of some very major stars: Quincy Jones (Back On The Block), Tracy Chapman, Kylie Minogue, Aaron Neville, David Foster (The 1996 & 2002 Olympics Themes), Brian Setzer, Young M.C., Cherelle, Burt Bacharach, Irene Cara, The Crusaders, Smokey Robinson, The Staple Singers, Phyllis Hyman, Sweet, Leonard Cohen, Philip Bailey of Earth Wind & Fire, and a host of others. As a matter of fact, Peggi has appeared on TEN platinum selling albums!
In March of 2006, Peggi was featured prominently on the ABC show “Miracle Workers” in a segment about her good friend and musical collaborator Valentino. They also sang one of their co-written songs together - “I’m Back”.
Peggi currently is performing her new self-penned show, “Blu Sinatra”, in which she sings selections from the classic Sinatra songbook as if “Frank Sinatra were born a Black Woman named Peggi Blu!”
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