Bedridden ME singer beats Taylor Swift to chart glory
A BEDRIDDEN singer has defied the odds to release a chart-topping debut album.
Kara Jane Spencer, 29, was diagnosed with the fatigue condition chronic myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) when she was just 16, leaving her unable to walk.
But despite needing full-time nursing care Kara never gave up on her dream of pursuing a singing career and began recording from her bed.
After two years of hard work Kara released her debut album, It’s Still M.E, last week, which has shot to number two in the UK Amazon Best Sellers chart ahead of Taylor Swift and The Killers.
In May Kara asked for help to complete the album and more than 100 musicians and producers stepped up to turn her recorded vocals into tracks.
Kara, of Shirebrook, Derbys, hopes the album will raise £100,000 for the ME Association.
She said: “I feel incredulous. It has just gone ‘boom’. I still feel like I am in a dream state. It’s not something that happens to normal people. I know that there’s money going to the charity with every sale. It will be going towards post-mortem research.”
Kara, who was struck down with ME after losing the ability to walk when she was still at school, said: “Until then, I was healthy and active, ‘loud, crazy and always laughing’ in the words of my sister.
“My condition steadily deterio
Recorded from her sickbed... singer and ME sufferer Kara puts together songs for her fundraising album
rated until seven years ago I became completely bedridden. Whenever I do something there’s always a cost or payback and I might be in pain.
“The other day I was doing too much and I had partial paralysis from the head down. My carers have to move my head and arms into a better position.
“Literally totally paralysed, able to swallow as well.”
Singing has always been not
Kara’s passion and in 2018 she started writing the album songs while in a hospital bed.
She said: “We’re all singers in our family, we are like the von Trapps, so I didn’t feel unique or special.
“Sometimes it’s a line at a time, sometimes it’s a verse. I would have to then stop the recording for a little bit and go again.”
And Kara revealed: “Songs came to me because I had loved and lost.
“That’s very poignant in my life because me and my love, we still love each other but we just can’t be together. He is disabled and I am very disabled so there’s no life we could have together.
“It’s not just an album just about a poorly girl, it’s something a lot of people have related to.”
Tony Britton of the MEAssociation said: “It was a real labour of love.
“Huge thanks to Kara, who is helping drive our funding of biomedical research into this horrific and much underrated disease to the next level.”
For more information on Kara’s music visit https://karajanesings. com
is selling the CD. He said last night: “My brother put it in a drawer and forgot about it.
“At the time Ed Sheeran was just this wee, ginger-haired busker and he thought nothing of it.”
The star, now worth more than £200million, has said he wrote the songs after his first love left him heartbroken.
He said: “I burned the CDs myself and made the covers.There were 14 songs, and they were all songs that rhymed.
“Most were about a girl called Claire. She was my first love when I was 13.”
Kevin said: “I was shocked by how good he was on the electric guitar. It does sound like Eric Clapton at moments.”
Omega Auctions, of Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, will sell the CD on September 8.