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In 2002 Matt White moved to New York from Wisconsin and began his singing career, busking at the Union Square subway station. "I made some money, but you really need a license," he says. "The cops would hassle me and tell me to move every half an hour." White still doesn't have that license, but he does have a reputation as the next James Blunt and a hard-to-resist, romantic debut album, Do You Believe, out this year.
SOUND "She's Always a Woman"-era Billy Joel with a slight kick. White, 26, grew up playing classical music (even writing an opera at age eleven). He committed himself to pop when he enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "I couldn't fit a piano in my dorm room, so I bought a guitar and taught myself how to play," he says. The breezy Believe was produced by Jack Joseph Puig (Sheryl Crow, John Mayer) and features studio pros Benmont Tench and pedal steel guitar man Greg Leisz.
IT TAKES A VILLAGE After his subway stint, White played regularly in Washington Square Park to New York University students, tourists and drug dealers. He lived in a tiny apartment off Bleecker Street, under the care of a landlord who didn't mind when the rent came late -- if it came at all. "When I signed the record deal, I took care of him," White says. "I was very, very grateful."
MIRACLES HAPPEN An audience member at one of his shows sent an MP3 of his song "Miracles" to a friend of hers who happened to be an A&R man at Geffen. "Before I knew it, I was on a plane with my manager out to L.A.," White recalls. He was signed on the spot.
But by the time he met Puig, he had already been through seven producers. "He had worked with huge names," Puig says. "When he got to me, he was a little beaten down." Together the two finished Believe. "By the end of the sessions, I was asking Jack to adopt me," says White.