Music

Charlie Puth

Charlie Puth
Photo: © Sony Music

His debut single Marvin Gaye made waves when it was released early last year. Though he featured on songs by other artists, he entered the spotlight only a while ago. That’s the reason we waited for Charles Otto Charlie Puth Jr to bloom a little more until one day we could put his story on our pages.

Charlie belongs to a long list of young artists who posted their music on YouTube and became stars overnight. Justin Bieber did the same and look where he is now. Charlie’s YouTube channel CharliesVlogs currently has over 4 million views and nearly half a million subscribers.

Charlie Puth was born on 2 December 1991 to an Ashkenazi Jewish mother and a Hungarian-German father. He has two siblings; a twin sister Mikaela, and a brother Stephen.

Charlie hails from the U.S. state of New Jersey. Who else do you think is from this state? The Jonas Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Bon Jovi, Whitney Houston, Paul Simon and Bruce Springsteen.

Always interested in the arts, Charlie participated in a summer youth jazz ensemble when he was around 12 years old. He graduated from Rumson Fair Haven Regional High School in 2010. He took to music after his school days and playing jazz as a piano major and a classical minor. In 2013, he graduated from the Berkley College of Music, where he majored in music production and engineering on a full scholarship.

Charlie started his own YouTube channel in September 2009, posting his own acoustic covers. Two years later, he won an online video competition.

Charlie signed onto eleveneleven, a label started by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, that gives lesser-known artists a chance for exposure. She actually looks for them on YouTube. That’s where she found Charlie. In October the same year Ellen officially announced that she had signed Charlie and another singer Emily Luther to eleveneleven after seeing their cover of Adele’s Someone Like You on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. In January 2012, they returned to the show and performed Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now and an original written by Charlie titled Break Again (co-written with Robert Gillies).

The duo once again performed at an event supporting the world’s largest bone marrow donor centre in October 2012. Besides all his live performances, Charlie also began working on a few albums that were released on the eleveneleven label. He released two independent albums, The Otto Tunes (2010) and Ego (2013), but the records were later removed from iTunes after he signed to Atlantic Records.

Charlie was also credited with the production and writing of songs and jingles for fellow YouTube personalities and many other upcoming music stars.

Charlie’s popularity rose when he collaborated with Wiz Khalifa on See You Again from the soundtrack of the movie Fast and Furious 7. The song topped the charts in 26 countries. He wrote, co-produced, and was featured on the song which was recorded as a tribute to the late Paul Walker. While Khalifa wrote the rap lyrics, the rest of the song has been credited to Charlie, who wrote this song for his best friend who had died.

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Verus Ferreira is a music journalist for over three decades. He is the author of The Great Music Quiz Book and The Great Rock Music Quiz Book and the founder of Musicunplugged.in

Verus Ferreira

Verus Ferreira is a music journalist for over three decades. He is the author of The Great Music Quiz Book and The Great Rock Music Quiz Book and the founder of Musicunplugged.in