Early Life
Born into a musical family, Herbert was raised in Surrey and Hampshire in the south of England. She began playing the piano at the age of three, achieving Grade 5 by nine, and was writing basic songs at the age of five. She also learned the French horn, achieving Grade 8 by the age of 15.
Throughout her teenage years she played music with local orchestras and bands such as the Surrey County Youth Orchestra and also briefly formed a short-lived punk band called Wasted Minds. At 14 she recorded a demo tape of her own songs at Trinity Studios, Woking; however, despite music industry interest, she chose to continue with her studies.
At Alton College her musical tastes moved more towards jazz music. While she was studying at St Chad's College, University of Durham, she met up with fellow student Will Rutter and together they began to write and perform in the cafés and bars of North East England as a jazz duo called Black Coffee.
Read more about this topic: Gwyneth Herbert
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)