Raul Midón

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Raul Midón
Raul Midón on the cover of his 2005 album State of Mind
Origin	New Mexico
Years active	2001–present
Genres	Jazz/R&B
Labels	A&M (2001–present)

Raul Midón is a blind singer, songwriter, guitarist from New Mexico currently based in New York City. He combines his distinct voice, strumming, beats, and acapella sounds to create a one-man performance. His unique style shows influence of virtually every musical genre which came before him, including jazz, blues, R&B, and folk.[1]

1 Biography
2 Career
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Raul Midón was born prematurely in a rural hospital in Embudo, New Mexico to parents of Argentine and African-American descent. His father was a dancer from Argentina. Midón and his twin brother Marco (now a NASA engineer) were blinded as infants after spending time in an incubator without adequate eye protection. The sounds of music became integral to Midón's life around age 4, when his father introduced him to the drum. Midón became an avid music lover and learned how to play the guitar while performing in rigorous educational programs, first at a school for the blind and then an elite Santa Fe academy while completing his last two years of high school. Midón then attended the University of Miami, which he selected for its prestigious jazz curriculum [2].

[edit] Career

Midón began his career as a backup singer for several well known Top 40 acts, including Shakira, Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Ricky Martin, Julio Iglesias and Jose Feliciano. Having toured with Shakira, and recorded with Alejandro Sanz, in 2002, he set aside this career to pursue a solo career and moved to New York City. While focusing the majority of his time on his solo career, he has also worked with jazz legends such as Paquito D’Rivera, Dave Valentin, Dave Samuels, Herbie Hancock, and Claudio Roditi.

Soon after the release of his independent album, Midón was signed by Grammy Award winning producer, Arif Mardin, who has worked with artists such as Norah Jones and Aretha Franklin , to a subsidiary label of the prestigious EMI/Blue Note label, Manhattan Records. In Mardin's long career, Midón was his first signing of an artist. Mardin, along with his son, Joe, produced the critically acclaimed debut album of Midón entitled "State of Mind." (New York Daily News: Jazz soul gets happy).

Midon's album "State of Mind" was released in 2005 and received critical acclaim worldwide. It features a guest performance with Stevie Wonder, one of his idols, and a song written in tribute to Donny Hathaway entitled "Sittin' In The Middle."

Raul Midón's national debut was on The Late Show with David Letterman on June 28, 2005. He later went on to appear on the major late night television shows in the U.S. and abroad. He continues to tour and bring his unique style of music to the world.

[edit] Trivia

He is an avid amateur radio enthusiast and his call sign is KB5ZOT. (He incorporated his call sign in Morse code into one of his songs, Sitting in the Middle.)
The title track to his album "State Of Mind" was released on 12th September 2006 as the free single of the week on the UK version of iTunes Store