: For singer Linda Eder, her debut at Radio City Music Hall in February 2004 marks yet another milestone in a notable career that spans over two decades. The concert will likely feature material from her latest album, Storybook— a blend of old and new, some retouched tracks appear alongside never-released material from her old demo sessions and recording work done at Angel Records in the 90s.

: Eder remains down-to-earth and brilliantly candid despite her many successes. “I’m just a singer,” she says. “That’s my job. I’m a working singer.” She does not thrive in the spotlight, nor does she seek any of the normal benefits that come with fame. She’s content being a wife to husband and composer, Frank Wildhorn, and a mother to her 4-year-old son, Jake Ryan. In fact, Wildhorn has trouble getting Eder to sing at home—she’s shy about her talent, just as she was as a child.

: “The thing that drives Frank crazy is that he lives with a singer whom he cannot get to sing,” Eder says laughing. “I don’t think I’m ever good enough, and I think ‘God, if I don’t like it, how could anybody like it?’”

: Certainly, her humility in regard to her talent makes Eder one of the few really human stars who never allows fame to go to her head. Rather, she’s always seen herself as a normal person who happens to have an amazing talent that was fostered in a small town in northern Minnesota.

: Brainerd to Broadway

: While her family was vacationing in Arizona, Linda Eder was born in Tuscon on February 3, 1961 to an Austrian father, Georg and a Norwegian mother, Laila. Eder’s premature birth kept her in the hospital for a few weeks. The family lived on a hobby farm in Garrison, Minnesota, where her father worked as a chef to pay the family’s medical bills.

: During her childhood, Eder spent the majority of her time around animals on the farm, taking a particular interest in the horses. “I think if she could have, Linda would’ve have grown up to be a horse,” her sister Margarete quipped. “She was always walking around on all fours.” Since Eder spent much of her time alone with her horses, they were the first to hear her sing while she developed her talent.

: Even Eder herself didn’t realize the gift she possessed while she was playing in the fields as a child. She became a performer without consciously doing so. “My voice was always like a toy to me, I knew I could do things with it that other people couldn’t do. I can mimic sounds. It evolved from a toy into something I enjoyed as a musician.”

: Her natural talent was nurtured by her Brainerd High School music teacher, Tom Rossin. She credits him with giving her confidence in her voice. “He made me feel like I could sing,” she says. In 1979, her senior year, she was given the role of Mother Abbess in her high school’s production of The Sound of Music because she was the only one who could handle the demanding aria “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.”

: Throughout high school, Eder continued to pursue her love for visual art as well— constantly drawing and painting—showing works on exhibit. Her artistic talent almost led her to art school, but she made the choice to pursue her singing instead. Eder’s rare 3-octave range captivated those who heard her sing, and gradually the warm reception she received changed her decision to go to art school. Even today, Eder uses her creativity in drawing, painting, and writing despite her musical career.

: "I’ve been blessed with a special talent, but that doesn’t mean I’m not normal like most people,” Eder says, “I’m a creative person who gets to be creative on the stage and at home, that’s what makes me so lucky!"

: As she grew to appreciate her own talent, the time Eder spent in front of a microphone became like an addiction. “She wanted to be onstage,” says Rossin. “She wanted to do this a lot.”

: The popular music of the time did not inspire the young tomboy turned performer from Minnesota. Instead she took her cue from three performers she had grown up listening to: opera singer Eileen Farrell; Judy Garland whose “Over the Rainbow” Eder sings to this day; and Broadway legend Barbra Streisand who drew her away from singing opera.

: And how does Eder respond to the innumerable comparisons to Streisand’s sound? They don’t bother her a bit. “The thing is, everybody sounds like somebody else,” Eder explains, “and when it’s a more unique artist that you sound like—like Streisand—then you may get more grief for it. But you just have to do what your voice tells you to do.”

: That philosophy has worked well for Eder since the beginning. At 20, her first professional gig was at the Brainerd Holiday Inn the day President Reagan was shot in 1981. She competed in the Miss Brainerd pageant while in high school because she knew she wanted to perform but did not know how to begin a career. She won the title of Miss Brainerd and was the 4th runner up for Miss Minnesota. Shortly after winning the pageant, Eder was offered the chance to perform nightly at a club in Minneapolis and continued honing her craft for the next 7 years.

: Eder remembers bumping down the road toward Atlantic City sewing sequins on her dress the whole way. When she turned 26, she was hired to sing her own show at Harrah’s Casino. The schedule was grueling—4 shows a night, 6 nights a week.

: In 1987, Eder found herself booked for two major events the same day. She presented her horse, Mazda, whom she had raised from a foal, at a horse show and won. “I changed in the bathroom at the fairgrounds into my sparkly dress and just made it in time for my audition slot.” Eder amazed the audition panel with a rendition of the theme from “Ice Castles.”

: Immediately, she was called and told she would be given a place on Star Search. They wanted to feature her on the first show of the 1988 season where she proved unbeatable. “She became like a steamroller,” says Star Search’s Mike Grizzi. “There was nobody we could find to put up against her who could really hold their own.” Her 12-week winning streak was unprecedented and came as a shock to Eder, who had really hoped to only win one show.

: After her success on Star Search, one of the show’s producers sent a tape of Eder’s voice to composer Wildhorn, insisting that he listen to it. After hearing it, Wildhorn was hooked and offered to help Eder get a record deal. He also was working on staging a new production of his musical, Jekyll and Hyde.

: “I was just some hick from Minnesota,” says Eder of the couple’s first meeting. “All I had was a boombox and sang to that. I sang ‘Don’t Cry for Me Argentina’ and as Frank tells the story, I was too shy to even look up.”

: On Stage and On Record

: Eder made her stage debut in Wildhorn’s 1990 production of Jekyll and Hyde at the Alley Theatre in Houston. She originated the role of the prostitute Lucy who both falls for Dr. Jekyll and is tormented by Mr. Hyde. Her powerful voice won over the critics and audiences alike—a far cry from the shy young woman who entered the rehearsal hall earlier that year.

: “When it was time for her to sing, she would stand over in the corner because she didn’t want anyone to hear her,” Wildhorn remembers. The seasoned Broadway actors in the company were refreshed by Eder’s natural talent and down-to-earth personality.

: Bringing Jekyll and Hyde to Broadway would be a long process that would take ten years of Eder’s career. People around her often wondered why she didn’t just abandon the project and seek something else, but her commitment to the show, and to Wildhorn remained strong. Eder spent the years in between in the recording studio churning out recordings, her own solo records: Linda Eder (RCA, 1991), And So Much More (Angel, 1994) as well as studio recordings of Jekyll and Hyde (RCA, 1990), The Scarlet Pimpernel (Angel, 1992), and Jekyll and Hyde the Complete Work (Atlantic, 1995).

: While on the road with the Jekyll tour and in between engagements, Eder devoted her free time to promoting her solo concert career. She traveled the country giving one-woman shows on her nights off confessing that while she was working as an actress, she really missed her concerts.

: “It gets kinda boring,” she says. “Night after night, wearing the same clothes and singing the same songs. In concert, I can talk to the audience if I want to, on stage they sorta frown on that.”

: It was in that spirit that Eder’s gregarious, self-narrated evenings of song became celebrated events for long-time fans and newcomers alike. Unassuming and brutally honest, she will even solicit an audience’s help occasionally, if she trips over the words.

: One such episode happened during a concert at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven in 1996. Eder began singing an audience favorite and completely forgot the words. “I so screwed up the lyrics,” she said. With a shrug of her shoulders and a laugh, she calmly asked pianist Jeremy Roberts to “take it from the bridge.”

: Finally, on April 28, 1997, a decade after she met Frank Wildhorn, Eder made her Broadway debut in Jekyll and Hyde and it coincided with the release of her first solo album on Atlantic Records, appropriately called It’s Time. Eder says she did not fully realize the impact of her debut until the performance itself was over. “I was crying,” she says. “We finally made it. It was such a battle.”

: Again, Eder thrilled the critics who celebrated her performance, even if they were not as excited about the vehicle itself. Despite the show’s tepid reception, Eder received a Theatre World Award for Best Broadway Debut.

: Eder’s and Wildhorn’s personal collaboration continued throughout Jekyll and Hyde’s run, from its first performance in Houston. The singer and composer married on May 3, 1998 in a ceremony at their home in North Salem, NY. Surrounded by her family, friends, horses, and dogs Trilby and Lucy, Linda became Mrs. Frank Wildhorn—though she refused to have any of her music on the play list at the reception.

: The singer’s relationship with a talented composer has taught her many things about life as well as about her art. Eder credits Wildhorn with teaching her to deepen her passions. “I’ve learned more about how strongly you can feel about things,” she says.

: While still in Jekyll and Hyde, the singer filmed her first made-for-TV special based on her concert repertoire entitled Linda Eder in Concert which was filmed at Sony Studios in New York. The show was later picked up by PBS and aired on local television stations throughout the following year.

: On August 30, 1998, after 11 years and approximately 900 performances as Lucy Harris, Eder left Jekyll and Hyde to pursue her other interests. Though she hated to leave the group of actors who had become her family in those years, she worried she was close to burning out. Though this was her last performance, she truly made it one to be remembered by all.

: “She was wonderful,” recalls co-star Christiane Noll who originated the role of Emma. “She went for everything—everything the audience could possibly flip out about, she went for it.”

: Two Dreams Come True

: After participating in the Houston production of The Civil War at the Alley as the Nurse and Hannah Ropes which opened September 16, 1998, Eder decided to bow out of the upcoming Broadway production to pursue other interests.

: A concert singer at heart, Eder returned to the stage and to the studio to record another album entitled It’s No Secret Anymore. She continued to tour throughout the winter of 1998 and the spring of 1999 before she took a few months off. On August 23, 1999, Eder and Wildhorn welcomed their son Jake Ryan into the family in Putnam, NY. Jake was named by Frank’s first son Justin who said: “No matter what you call him, I’ll still call him Jake.”

: When No Secret hit music store shelves on September 24, 1999, Eder brought an eclectic array of styles from Latin to Swing, to Blues, to Ballads to life. She hit the road, bringing her newest music to cities around the country. Her biggest hit on the new album, a remake of her 1990 concert favorite, “Vienna” gave her national acclaim and appearances on The Rosie O’ Donnell Show, The David Letterman Show, and Live with Regis and Kathie Lee to name a few. It was with this exposure that Eder’s fan base began to expand beyond the audiences who had seen her on Broadway and she started to establish herself in the world of Adult Contemporary music.

: One of Eder’s biggest career goals was realized a few months after the release of her album. Ever since she’d been a young girl and had heard Judy Garland in Concert at Carnegie Hall, she too had a dream to perform her own solo show on the same stage—Eder never even considered stepping foot inside the theatre unless it was onstage. The singer got her wish and played her first performance to a sold-out audience.

: “I felt as if I had Judy Garland’s ghost sitting on my shoulder saying, ‘Go, Kid,” Eder says, chucking her fist for emphasis. Of course, she does admit that nerves did play into the equation. “I do get nervous,” she says. “I don’t have the confidence that I think I’m going to blow everybody away. I’m my own biggest critic.”

: When it was over, Eder found herself again overwhelmed. The audience response brought tears to her eyes. She brought six-month-old Jake out on stage with her for curtain call. He turned to the audience when she said his name and smiled. Her performance delighted audiences and was the subject of discussion on many of her celebrity guests’ talk shows in the weeks following.

: "I thought I'd achieved something when I made my debut at Carnegie Hall, but being a mother is far more wonderful," says Eder.

: Home, Again

: After the birth of her son, Eder discovered that now she felt most at home at home on her farm with her son, her husband, and her menagerie. She devoted her time to raising her son while taking care of things at home. Though she did tour doing concerts to promote her new album, she always brought her son with her while she was nursing.

: In October 2000, she released her long-awaited Christmas album entitled Christmas Stays the Same. Throughout the fall and winter, Eder traveled the country performing her Christmas concert in select cities with different choirs at each venue. She finished the Christmas tour with a return engagement at Carnegie Hall featuring the Broadway Gospel Choir.

: Playbill Staff writer Andrew Gans summed up the experience in a few very telling words: “I realized it has largely to do with the voice itself: Just when you are convinced the singer cannot possibly belt any higher, the jaw suddenly opens wider, her head flings back and out comes some of the most exciting, vibrato-filled notes you’ll hear anywhere.”

: During the following year, Eder continued her trend of touring the country in between her duties as mother. She filmed her second TV special, a live TV version of the Christmas Concert in December 2001 which aired on Bravo. When you didn’t find her on the stage, or in one of her live TV performances, you could find her in the studio working on recording her newest album Gold, to be released in time for the title track to be used in the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake.

: The recording sessions were often long and frustrating, the creative team sometimes putting in 20-hour days. “It’s time consuming, it’s tedious, it’s tiring,” Eder says. “But in the end it’s worth it because you get something you’re ultimately more proud of and that’s basically more you.” The album made its debut on February 12, 2002. The song had a national audience when Kristi Yamaguchi skated to it during the Opening Ceremony in the Olympics.

: “Gold” was not only the title track to the new album, but also the 11 o’clock number from Frank Wildhorn’s newest musical Camille Claudel, in which Eder was to take the title role. The musical chronicles the life of sculptor Auguste Rodin’s mistress, muse and lover. In the show, Eder would have the opportunity to revisit her interest in visual art. She related to the character as an artist who was willing to defy the odds and to become a successful woman sculptor in a time when women were not accepted doing men’s work. After the release of the album, Eder spent time researching the real Camille Claudel so she would be ready when the time came for her debut.

: Broadway, Her Way and Another Premiere

: In February 2003, with the release of her 7th solo album entitled Broadway, My Way, Eder broke all the rules. The album boasts Eder's delightfully fresh renderings of classic show tunes. But there's a twist-- most of the songs were written for men. She explained that when putting together the album, her choices were simple: "These are the songs I've always loved to sing." As a collection, these songs reflect her multi-faceted personality.

: She proved in this collection that gender rules were made to be broken, offering brand-new renditions of old classics including “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” “Some People,” and an audience favorite from her concerts “What Kind of Fool Am I?”

: Again Eder took to the stage and presented a concert version for her growing legions of fans. Broadway, My Way was a fast hit with the crowds since Eder often injected much of her personality into the set list. One particularly memorable moment happened in concert at Symphony Hall in Boston. Throughout "On the Street Where You Live," musician David Mann underscored Eder's vocal on saxophone. Toward the end of the song, she rolled her eyes and sang: "Let the time go by… I don't care if I-I-I-I-I," sustaining the single note for close to 45 seconds, gave Mann a high-five and took a long swig from her water bottle.

: On July 22, 2003 Eder began the next major chapter of her career when she began rehearsals for the upcoming production of Camille Claudel, set to open at the Norma Terris Theatre in Chester, CT on August 14. She had not been in a major role in a musical since leaving the role of Lucy and was anxious to go back: “I want to go back to Broadway, “she says. “I’m ready. I think I can do better now, and I’d like to try.”

: Despite the opening night power failure, the run went smoothly. Eder’s portrayal of the frustrated woman artist was often riveting and always emotional. One could see tears shining in her eyes more than once during a performance as her character wondered whether anyone would ever remember her. The thunderous applause and standing ovations were well-earned by the actress who put so much of herself into the role every night.

: But, the hardest part of becoming Camille was orienting herself in the role every time. “Getting started is the worst” Eder says. “It takes me a while to get into the whole thing—acting as Camille would act, things like that. But once I get there, and the nervousness is gone, I’m better.”

: She also reveals that the yelling in the script was therapeutic: “I’m discovering I really like to yell,” she says smiling. “Oh, it’s great. Frank had better watch out!” with that, the laugh she’d been holding in escapes and she has returned to herself.

: It doesn’t take long for Eder to become herself after a performance… and perhaps it has something to do with the way she has practiced her craft. “I’m only the real ‘Linda the performer’ on a stage or in a recording booth, and probably on a stage more than anywhere else. Otherwise, I’m a housewife that sings a little bit in the car or around the piano.”

: A housewife, with a storybook career.

Linda Eder biography written exclusively for EderFan.com by Karen E. Mulvey