From wee town to the big time

Scottish singer puts little St. Andrews on musical map

It’s famed for a legendary golf course, historic ruins, a worldclass university and, recently, Prince William, but the town of St. Andrews, Scotland, has never been known as a musical mecca. Not that KT Tunstall would let such a trifle stop her. The singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist’s debut, Eye to the Telescope, has reached No. 3 on the U.K. charts, was nominated for this year’s Mercury Music Prize in Britain and has sold 500,000 copies before even being released in North America. This despite her getting a start in a town so small it doesn’t even have a train station.

Relaxing on the patio of Toronto’s Drake Hotel before a performance, the quietly confident 30-year-old songstress looks back on the beginnings of a convoluted road toward stardom.

“Because of the isolation and the complete lack of anything to do,” she recalls, “the gigs were always rammed. It sounds so strange to say that I cut my teeth in a little seaside village where I was brought up, but actually, it was a ready and willing audience — a lot of North American people, which is always good. Scottish people sit there with their pints and their arms crossed, going, ‘ Aye, this is f---ing great,’ and you wouldn’t know that they were having a great time, whereas the Americans and the Canadians are dancing.”