page_title: Colbie Caillat
section_title: 1985–2006: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Colbie Caillat / Life and career / 1985–2006: Early life
caption_attribution_description: Colbie Caillat @ The Malibu Inn on October 26, 2007 on PCH.
context_page_description: Colbie Marie Caillat is an American singer-songwriter. Caillat rose to fame through social networking website Myspace. At that time, she was the number one unsigned artist of her genre. After signing with Universal Republic Records, she released her debut album, Coco, in July 2007. The album included the hit singles "Bubbly" and "Realize", and has sold 2,060,000 copies in the US, and is certified 2x Platinum. In 2008 she recorded a duet with Jason Mraz, "Lucky", which won a Grammy Award. In August 2009 she released Breakthrough, her second album, which became her first album to debut at number one on the Billboard 200. It has been certified gold by the RIAA. Breakthrough was nominated for Best Pop Vocal Album at the 2010 Grammy Awards. She was also part of the group that won Album of the Year at the 2010 Grammy Awards for her background vocals and writing on Taylor Swift's Fearless album. In July 2011 she released her third studio album, All of You. In October 2012 she released her first Christmas album, Christmas in the Sand. Starting in 2018 she was a member of the country music group Gone West. On August 12, 2020 she announced on Instagram the band was breaking up.
context_section_description: Caillat was born in Malibu, California, and grew up in Newbury Park, California.  Her father, Ken Caillat, co-produced Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (1977), Tusk (1979), and Mirage (1982) albums.  When she was an infant, her parents gave her the nickname "Coco", which she would later name her debut album. Caillat took piano lessons as a child, but lacked significant inspiration until she turned 11 years old, when she became enthralled with Lauryn Hill's performance in Sister Act 2.  She realized that she wanted to be a singer, and began taking vocal lessons, performing onstage for the first time in sixth grade. Since then she has covered the Roberta Flack song "Killing Me Softly", which had previously been covered by Lauryn Hill, and Hill's own "Tell Him".
  Caillat soon met producer Mikal Blue, who hired her to sing on techno songs used at fashion shows. Caillat began playing the acoustic guitar at age 19, and Blue helped her record her first song.  She auditioned for American Idol but was rejected at the pre-audition stage and was unable to sing for the judges. The second time she auditioned for the show, she sang her own original song, "Bubbly", and was rejected once again. However, Caillat expressed gratitude at the judges' decision, saying "I was shy. I was nervous. I didn't look the greatest. I wasn't ready for it yet. I was glad, when I auditioned, that they said no." The popularity of Caillat's MySpace profile led her to become the number-one unsigned singer in her genre for four consecutive months.
caption: Caillat performing at The Malibu Inn, 2007
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XTi", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Macintosh", "Image DateTime": "2007:10:27 08:39:46", "Image ExifOffset": "222", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/40", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Aperture Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:10:26 22:09:35", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:10:26 22:09:35", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "6067/1140", "EXIF ApertureValue": "12742/4289", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1/3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Average", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "50", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2048", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1365", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "195065/44", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "102433/23", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}